5. Tøglag and hagmælt
Kari Ellen Gade 2009, ‘Tøglag and hagmælt’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols [check printed volume for citation].
Tøglag ‘journey metre’ and hagmælt ‘skilfully spoken’ are two variants of fornyrðislag with internal rhyme, here exemplified by st. 3 of Einarr Skúlason’s Haraldsdrápa II (ESk Hardr II; hagmælt, c. 1135):
Alls varð Ellu
ungr geitunga
lofaðr lífgjafi
lands ráðandi.
Ungr, lofaðr lífgjafi Ellu geitunga varð ráðandi alls lands. ‘The young, celebrated life-giver of Ælle’s <Northumbrian king’s> birds [eagles > warrior] became the ruler of the entire country.’
Einarr’s Hardr II is the only poem in SkP II that is composed in hagmælt. Þórarinn stuttfeldr’s Stuttfeldardrápa (Þstf Stuttdr, c. 1112) and Hjǫrtr Lv 1 (c. 1066) are in tøglag, in which the metrical restrictions are more relaxed and the odd lines need not contain skothendingar.
References
- Bibliography
- SkP II = Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Ed. Kari Ellen Gade. 2009.
- Internal references
- Kari Ellen Gade 2009, ‘ Þórarinn stuttfeldr, Stuttfeldardrápa’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 473-9. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1477> (accessed 22 November 2024)