2. Volume Editor's Preface

This volume has been long in the making, and along the way I have incurred numerous debts of gratitude. I am grateful to the Contributing Editors, Jayne Carroll, Lauren Goetting, Judith Jesch, Russell Poole, Matthew Townend, Diana Whaley and Valgerður Erna Þorvaldsdóttir, for their patience and their promptness in answering my barrages of emails, and for their cooperation during the process of our ‘quality control’. I am also greatly indebted to the Research Associates and Assistants who have made the publication of this volume possible. Over the years, Research Associate Valgerður Erna Þorvaldsdóttir has been an invaluable help in transcribing manuscripts both at Stofnun Árna Magnússonar in Reykjavík and at Den Arnamagnæanske Samling in Copenhagen, and her positive attitude, her expertise in palaeography and her efficiency have been much appreciated indeed. The ‘Sydney team’ has been extremely supportive, with Emily Baynham helping out with the Bibliography in this volume and Hannah Burrows entering the Bibliography into the database and making last-minute transcriptions and checking manuscripts at Den Arnamagnæanske Samling in Copenhagen. Above all, I would like to express my gratitude to my own Research Associate, Lauren Goetting, who has worked with me on the project since 2006. Not only has she entered all but a few of the editions in SkP II into the database, working with meticulous attention to detail and catching my mistakes, but she also undertook the Herculean task of teaching me how to use the database. In addition, she took on the edition of Óláfr hvítaskáld Þórðarson’s poetry at short notice, for which I am extremely grateful.

My deepest gratitude is owed to my fellow General Editors, Margaret Clunies Ross, Edith Marold, Guðrún Nordal, Diana Whaley and Tarrin Wills. Since 1997 we have met annually to discuss the editorial procedure and to hammer out details concerning editorial principles. In true Viking spirit, many battles have been fought, but we have emerged as a solidified group, and strong and everlasting friendships have been forged. My collaborators have been extremely helpful during the process of ‘quality control’ of the editions in this volume, many of them setting aside their own work to wade through the batches of editions that kept clogging up their inboxes. Guðrún Nordal lent her expertise in the area of Modern Icelandic word order and grammar, and Edith Marold, our resident specialist on kennings and poetic diction, was a font of wisdom in her field of expertise (‘Ich meine, das ist keine Kenning!’). Throughout the ‘quality control’ Diana Whaley worked heroically at cleaning up my English and catching mistakes, and she provided invaluable insights into the finer nuances of skaldic poetry. Tarrin Wills has been a pillar of support in all areas electronic. He readily answered all my calls for help (which were legion) and miraculously fixed all the glitches in the database and formatting problems in some editions as they appeared in the database. Tarrin is responsible for the final formatting of this volume, and he has also generated the Index of First Lines and the Table of Contents in the front and end materials. Last, but not least, I am eternally grateful to Margaret Clunies Ross. Her energy, generosity and erudition in all areas skaldic and non-skaldic supported and encouraged me throughout the editorial process, and our daily morning-evening email correspondence was highly treasured and served to keep me sane. Margaret has lent a helpful hand to all aspects of this volume, and without her it would not have come to fruition.
 
Kari Ellen Gade
Bloomington, Indiana, December 2008

References

1. Bibliography
2. SkP II = Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Ed. Kari Ellen Gade. 2009.