The poetry in this volume

Margaret Clunies Ross

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Vol. VIII. Poetry in the fornaldarsǫgur 7. Introduction 3. The poetry in this volume

3. The poetry in this volume

Margaret Clunies Ross 2017, ‘The poetry in this volume’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols [check printed volume for citation].

The poetry in this volume includes all extant poetry that is judged to be of medieval origin in manuscripts of twenty-one fornaldarsögur. In addition the volume includes the two poems named Merlínusspá I-II ‘The Prophecies of Merlin I-II’ (GunnLeif Merl I-II), attributed in Hauksbók’s version of Breta saga ‘The Saga of the British’ (Bret) to the Icelandic monk Gunnlaugr Leifsson (GunnLeif, d. 1218 or 1219). Bret is not a fornaldarsaga, strictly speaking, but its position as an Old Norse version of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s De gestis Britonum (or Historia regum Britanniae ‘History of the kings of Britain’) can be understood as creating a legendary history for the British in a manner similar to the Old Icelandic fornaldarsaga’s recreation of prehistoric Scandinavian history. In that context, Gunnlaugr’s poetic versions of a prose section of Geoffrey’s Historia, called Prophetiae Merlini ‘Prophecies of Merlin’, find a place in this volume.

The poem Skaufhala bálkr ‘Bálkr about Tassel-tail’ (Svart Skauf), whose author is presented here as the little-known Svartr á Hofstöðum (Svart, d. 1392), is also included in Volume VIII. This poem occurs outside a fornaldarsaga context, but is included here as its subject is in part a parody of the ævikviða ‘life-poem’ genre, which is found attributed to a number of the protagonists of fornaldarsögur, often on the point of death (see the discussion in Section 7.1 below). In Svart Skauf the speaker of the poem is a broken-down old fox whose days are numbered, and who reviews his hard life in the presence of his wife, the vixen. The poem shows the probable influence both of the beast fable and the fornaldarsaga genre in its tragi-comic imitation of the heroic life.

As is the case with the poetry recorded within sagas of Icelanders, forthcoming in Volume V, the poetry in fornaldarsögur is mostly attributed to named speakers who are also characters in the saga narrative, in contrast to the anonymity of the sagas themselves. While the identities of a few such speakers are independently attested from sources outside the fornaldarsaga texts, the majority cannot be traced elsewhere and indeed quite a few such speakers clearly belong to the world of myth or fantasy. The editorial policy of SkP is to treat all the poetry in this volume, and in Volume V, as the creation of the characters to whom it is attributed and these attributions are retained for convenience in this edition, whether credible or not. The case of Starkaðr gamli ‘the Old’ Stórvirksson (StarkSt) is a partial exception to editorial practice here, because he is provided with a skald biography and treated (at least in part) as if he had had an historical existence, even though, like the other characters represented as composing and reciting poetry in fornaldarsögur, Starkaðr is a figure of legend. However, several external medieval Icelandic sources, like Skáldatal ‘List of Skalds’, the Háttatal ‘Enumeration of Verse-Forms’ section (SnSt Ht^III) of SnE and the Third Grammatical Treatise (TGT) treat him as a human poet, so, following this emic classification, he is given a skald biography in this edition. Notwithstanding Starkaðr’s status in these Icelandic sources and in Book VI of Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum, the poem Víkarsbálkr ‘Víkarr’s Section’ (StarkSt Vík), attributed to Starkaðr, which is only recorded in manuscripts of Gautr, is edited with other stanzas from that saga in keeping with the general practice of this edition.

Another somewhat anomalous poem in this edition is Krm, which is classified in SkP as anonymous, even though one can legitimately interpret the manuscript witnesses to it as implying that it was considered to be the composition of the dying hero Ragnarr loðbrók. This poem appears as an integral part of Ragn in only one manuscript (AM 147 4° of c. 1400-1500), where it is presented as the utterance of the dying Ragnarr in King Ælle’s snake-pit. In other manuscripts it has either been recorded outside a saga context or, in two cases, immediately follows Ragn as a kind of appendix. In the present edition it has been associated with the poetry from Ragn and Ragnars sona þáttr ‘The Tale of the Sons of Ragnarr’ (RagnSon), but edited as a separate item.

References

2. The Icelandic fornaldarsaga

4. Manuscripts

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3. The poetry in this volume

References

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