E. The purpose of the Manual

The General Editors have spent a good deal of time and energy since 1997 developing a methodology for the skaldic edition. We have been very conscious all along of the need to develop a robust and consistent editing method and research plan. This will be especially important as the edition will be a joint effort of so many scholars. In such circumstances it is absolutely necessary that everyone works to the same plan and set of rules. Thus we do not apologise for being prescriptive, even though we will always remain open to suggestions from our Contributing Editors on how we might do things better and, in exceptional cases, how we might do things differently.

This Manual is the product of our deliberations between 1997 and the present, and supersedes the first edition of July 2000. We have tried to anticipate all the problems that will arise and all the decisions that will need to be taken by individual editors during the course of the editing process. In all probability, there will be others that we have not thought of or written down here, and it may be necessary to issue a further supplement to this document at a later date. If you are familiar with the first edition, please take particular care to check the changes that have taken place between it and the present edition, especially in Chapter 4, where there are a number of new instructions that have been necessitated by the demands of the electronic format in which the material will be encoded. Chapter 8, on General conventions, abbreviations and bibliographical guidelines, has been largely rewritten to include guidelines on how to present bibliographical references.

We expect all Contributing Editors to read the Manual carefully and follow its guidelines. It addresses both the principles of editing skaldic poetry that underlie our practice and the practical questions that will come up in carrying out the editing work. Chapter 7 gives guidelines for preparing the English translation, something we regard as important, for a clear and accurate translation (as far as this is possible for skaldic verse) will make this poetry much more accessible to the non-specialist reader and scholar than it has previously been. We are keen to make the edition accessible and user-friendly to students and scholars in other fields, such as archaeology, history, religious history and mythology. The Manual also addresses a variety of conventions that relate to the presentation of the edited text, including matters of abbreviation and in-text reference.

Chapter 9, Edition of Sample Verses, is intended to illustrate the guidelines in the manual. It presents specimen edited verses according to the guidelines for a variety of types of skaldic poetry.

There are three appendices: Appendix 1 gives information on the font ReykholtTimes and how to use it; Appendix 2 provides a sample layout of material as it is likely to appear in the printed edition. Appendix 3 is a checklist for editors; please refer to it when preparing your material for submission and before sending it in.

† The Supplement to the second edition of the skaldic Editors’ Manual (2002) was issued to all Editors to clarify and/or refine a number of the on-going issues that the General Editors felt had not been fully addressed in previous documents or which had been raised for the first time at the August 2003 General Editors’ meeting in Kiel. The Supplement is now incorporated into the third edition. The Supplement had input from all General Editors and the project’s three Research Associates, Kate Heslop, Valgerður Erna Þorvaldsdóttir and Tarrin Wills, but particular individuals had special responsibility for the following sections: Valgerður for section 1 (Transcription of younger mss); Guðrún for section 2 (Fourteenth-century verse); Tarrin for sections 3 (Kennings) and 4 (Web submission instructions), with input from Diana, Kate and Margaret for sections 3 and 4, and Margaret for sections 6 (Publication details) and 7 (Miscellaneous).

References