Lausavísa — Hhal LvI
Hallbjǫrn haliKate Heslop 2012, ‘ Hallbjǫrn hali, Lausavísa’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 362. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1260> (accessed 19 April 2024)
The stanza (Hhal Lv) commemorates the poet Þorleifr jarlsskáld Rauðfeldarson (Þjsk), and is preserved only in ÞorlJ, in an anecdote summarised in the Context, to which several analogues exist. In these tales, a non-poet receives either lines of poetry or the gift of composition in a dream. Among the best-known examples are the story of the cowherd Caedmon in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica (Colgrave and Mynors 1969, 414-19), and a story about a verse commemorating Bede, which is preserved in the fourteenth-century Icelandic ms. AM 764 4o; see SnE 1848-87, III, 374-5; ÍF 9, c; Turville-Petre 1972b, 42-3, 49-50; see also Sigv Lv 1 for another skaldic stanza associated with a curious anecdote accounting for the gift of composing poetry. See the Biography above for theories of authorship and dating of Hhal Lv. Although doubt must remain, the late tenth-century dating is taken at face value in the present edition. The text is normalised accordingly, and the stanza is placed among late tenth-century poetry, following the poetry of Þorleifr jarlsskáld and Svtjúg Lv, which refers to Þorleifr. The mss used here are Flat, 4867ˣ and 563ˣ (see entry for ÞorlJ, in ‘Sources’ in Introduction to this volume).
References
- Bibliography
- SnE 1848-87 = Snorri Sturluson. 1848-87. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: Edda Snorronis Sturlaei. Ed. Jón Sigurðsson et al. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Legatum Arnamagnaeanum. Rpt. Osnabrück: Zeller, 1966.
- Colgrave, Bertram and R. A. B. Mynors, eds. 1969. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Oxford Medieval Texts. Oxford: Clarendon.
- ÍF 9 = Eyfirðinga sǫgur. Ed. Jónas Kristjánsson. 1956.
- Turville-Petre, Gabriel. 1972b. ‘Dreams in Icelandic Tradition’. In Turville-Petre 1972a, 30-51. Rpt. with a postscript; originally published in Folklore 69 (1958), 93-111.
- Internal references
- (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Þorleifs þáttr jarlaskálds’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=50> (accessed 19 April 2024)
- Kate Heslop 2012, ‘(Biography of) Þorleifr jarlsskáld Rauðfeldarson’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 367.
- Matthew Townend 2012, ‘ Sveinn tjúguskegg Haraldsson, Lausavísa’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 379. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=3060> (accessed 19 April 2024)
- R. D. Fulk (ed.) 2012, ‘Sigvatr Þórðarson, Lausavísur 1’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 699.
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