SnSt Ht 33^III

Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 33’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1140.

Interactive view: tap on words in the text for notes and glosses

This dróttkvætt variant is called veggjat ‘wedged, inserted’. It consists of the systematic insertion in the even lines of an additional syllable between metrical positions 4 and 5, thus creating heptasyllabic even lines. The first internal rhyme in all even lines falls in metrical position 2.

The heading is veggjat (Tˣ, U(47r)). The inserted syllables are mjǫk ‘most certainly’ (l. 2), framm ‘forwards’ (l. 4), ván ‘hope’ (l. 6), þar ‘there’ (l. 8). All these words are directly preceded by short-stemmed, disyllabic words in metrical positions 3-4, and Sievers (1879, 270-1; 1893, 109-10 Anm. 1) thinks it possible that these disyllabic words may have been fully stressed and resolved. That is unlikely, but they may have been neutralised in unstressed position preceding the secondarily stressed words in metrical position 5, thus creating lines with six metrical positions. The variant is not attested elsewhere in the extant corpus of skaldic poetry, and it could have been invented by Snorri. — This stanza must refer to events that took place in 1213 at a legal assembly at Strinda, near Trondheimsfjorden. King Ingi Bárðarson and Skúli had a showdown with the farmers at that assembly (Bǫgl 1988, II, 125): K. Ingi bad sit Folck føre sit Banere tilbage, thi hand vilde icke stride mod sine egne Bønder, oc Kongen vigede tilbage med sit Folck, da forfulde Bønderne hannem, oc sloge nogne ihiel aff hans Mænd, thi raabte Skule Kongens Broder, at Kongen skulde vende om igien,  thi de søgte efter oc dræbte hans Folck, da vende Kongen om igien, oc bad føre fram sit Banere, oc blefue da Bønderne slagne, og maatte de fly ‘King Ingi told his men to bring his standard back, because he did not want to fight against his own farmers, and the king retreated with his men. Then the farmers pursued him and killed some of his men. Therefore Skúli, the king’s brother, shouted that the king should turn back again, because they pursued them and killed his people. Then the king turned back again, and he commanded his standard to advance, and then the farmers were defeated and they had to flee’. See also Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar (E 1916, 480), where the legal assembly is called Raumaþing.