SnSt Ht 98^III

Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 98’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1206.

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

The metre is called Starkaðar lag ‘Starkaðr’s metre’ (heading in the left margin of R and also added by R* in the right margin). The metre is fornyrðislag (see st. 96) with two alliterative staves in the odd lines (Types A1 (ll. 3, 5, 7) and D2 (l. 1)) and anacrusis (Types C2 (ll. 2, 6, 8) and C3 (l. 4)) in the even lines.

There is a discrepancy here between the heading (Starkaðar lag) and the prose commentary, which does not mention that metre; rather, the features that characterise the present stanza appear to match the description of stikkalag ‘needle-metre’ given in the commentary (for that term, see also Anon Harst^II, Anon (Knýtl)^II and Anon Sǫrl^VIII (Sǫrla 1) although none of those stanzas is in the same metre as the present stanza). It is not clear which of the two terms (Starkaðar lag or stikkalag) is erroneous. It is interesting that the stanza exemplifying bálkarlag in TGT (TGT 1884, 68) is attributed to Starkaðr (see Note to st. 97 [All] above). — Starkaðr was a legendary Danish hero (see Stark Vík^VIII (Gautr 9-41), Saxo 2005, II, 675: Starcatherus and Note to Anon Mhkv 7/2). Most of the poetry attributed to Starkaðr (StarkSt Vík^VIII (Gautr 9-41); StarkSt Frag) is in fornyrðislag, but none of those stanzas displays consistently the metrical features of the present stanza. — The prose word order of the present edn basically follows SnE 1879-81, Konráð Gíslason (1895-7), Skald (NN §2189) and SnE 2007. The word order in Skj B is extremely convoluted and will not be discussed here.