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81-744: While alliteration is common in many poetic traditions, it is 'relatively infrequent' as a structured characteristic of poetic form. However, structural alliteration appears in a variety of poetic traditions, including Old Irish , Welsh , Somali and Mongol poetry. The extensive use of alliteration in the so-called Kalevala meter , or runic song , of the Finnic languages provides a close comparison, and may derive directly from Germanic-language alliterative verse. Unlike in other Germanic languages, where alliterative verse has largely fallen out of use (except for deliberate revivals, like Richard Wagner 's 19th-century German Ring Cycle), alliteration has remained

162-480: A blue edged Bright, sharp-pointed spear In a sheath tightly corded; The cause itself worthy to contain. Anonymous An example of a bardic poet can also be seen in the novel The Year of the French (1979) by Thomas Flanagan . In this book, a character by the name of Owen MacCarthy is a bard known for his training with the native language as well as English. He is turned to write specific, important letters by

243-483: A chieftainship, and soon acquired more property and additional chieftainships. Snorri and Herdís were together for four years at Borg. They had at least two children, Hallbera and Jón. The marriage succumbed to Snorri's philandering, and in 1206, he settled without Herdís in Reykholt as the manager of an estate. He also made significant improvements to the estate, including an outdoor bath fed by hot springs . The bath

324-471: A group named the "Whiteboys". They are in need of someone skilled with writing letters, such as a bard like MacCarthy. Snorri Sturluson Snorri Sturluson ( Old Norse : [ˈsnorːe ˈsturloˌson] ; Icelandic: [ˈsnɔrːɪ ˈstʏ(r)tlʏˌsɔːn] ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament,

405-533: A knife—intending, she said, to make him like his one-eyed hero Odin . Before the knife could strike its target, though, bystanders deflected the blow so it hit his cheek instead. The resulting settlement would have beggared Páll, but Jón Loftsson intervened in the Althing to mitigate the judgment and, to compensate Sturla, offered to raise and educate Snorri. Thus Snorri received an excellent education and forged connections he might not otherwise have been able to. He

486-456: A meeting with them and Kolbein the Younger, Gissur brought out the letter. Orm refused. Shortly after, Snorri received a letter in cipher runes warning him of the plot, but he could not understand them. After Gissur led seventy men on a daring raid to his house, achieving complete surprise. Snorri Sturluson was assassinated in his house at Reykholt in autumn of 1241. It is not clear that he

567-442: A noble warrior slain       Vengeance now on king is ta'en:   Wolf and eagle tread as prey       Princes born to sovereign sway.   Hallvard's body cloven through       Headlong in the billows flew;   Wounds of wight once swift to fare       Swooping vulture's beak doth tear.' Further details about Old Norse versification can be found in

648-535: A number of official roles, such as chroniclers and satirists . Effectively, their job was to praise their employers and curse those who crossed them. Their approach to official duties was very traditional and drawn from precedent, rather like the roles played by Welsh bards and Viking skalds , with a similar emphasis on complex, often highly alliterative forms of verse. However, even though many bardic poets were traditional in their approach, there were also some who added personal feelings into their poems and also had

729-527: A period of great literary stability due to the formalised literary language that changed very little. According to the Uraicecht Becc in Old Irish Law , bards and filid were distinct groups: filid involved themselves with law, language, lore and court poetry, whereas bards were versifiers. However, in time, these terms came to be used interchangeably. With the arrival of Christianity,

810-683: A proliferation of unaccented syllables. Generally these are parts of speech which would naturally be unstressed — pronouns , prepositions , articles , modal auxiliaries — but in the Old Saxon works there are also adjectives and lexical verbs . The unaccented syllables typically occur before the first stress in the half-line, and most often in the b-verse. The Hildebrandslied , lines 4–5: G arutun se iro g uðhamun,   g urtun sih iro suert ana, h elidos, ubar h ringa,   do sie to dero h iltiu ritun. They prepared their fighting outfits,   girded their swords on,

891-533: A prominent feature of modern Icelandic literature , though contemporary Icelandic poets vary in their adherence to traditional forms. By the early 19th century, alliterative verse in Finnish was largely restricted to traditional, largely rural folksongs, until Elias Lönnrot and his compatriots collected them and published them as the Kalevala , which rapidly became the national epic of Finland and contributed to

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972-464: A resolution of the Althing , where Snorri exerted much influence due to his political ties and legal acumen. In 1220, Snorri returned to Iceland and by 1222 was back as law speaker of the Althing, which he held this time until 1232. The basis of his election was entirely his fame as a poet. Politically he was the king's spokesman, supporting union with Norway, a platform that acquired him enemies among

1053-406: A result of phonetic changes from the original common Germanic language, many unstressed syllables were lost. This lent Old Norse verse a characteristic terseness; the lifts tended to be crowded together at the expense of the weak syllables. In some lines, the weak syllables have been entirely suppressed. As a result, while we still have the base pattern of paired half-lines joined by alliteration, it

1134-497: A sign of decadent technique from ill-tutored poets and as an artistic innovation giving scope for additional poetic effects. Either way, it signifies a break with the strict Sievers typology. Essentially all Old Norse poetry was written in some form of alliterative verse. It falls into two main categories: Eddaic and Skaldic poetry. Eddaic poetry was anonymous, originally orally transmitted, and mostly consisted or legends, mythological stories, wise sayings and proverbs. A majority of

1215-402: A structural, defining role only in more traditional forms. Old English classical poetry, epitomised by Beowulf , follows the rules of traditional Germanic poetry outlined above, and is indeed a major source for reconstructing them. J.R.R. Tolkien 's essay " On Translating Beowulf " analyses the rules as used in the poem. Old English poetry, even after the introduction of Christianity ,

1296-481: A very strong convention that, in each line, two lexically stressed syllables should alliterate. In view of the profound influence of the Germanic languages on other aspects of the Finnic languages and the unusualness of such regular requirements for alliteration, it has been argued that Kalevala meter borrowed both its use of alliteration and possibly other metrical features from Germanic. Germanic alliterative verse

1377-546: A vital feature of Icelandic poetry. After the 14th Century, Icelandic alliterative poetry mostly consisted of rímur , a verse form which combines alliteration with rhyme. The most common alliterative ríma form is ferskeytt , a kind of quatrain. Examples of rimur include Disneyrímur by Þórarinn Eldjárn , ''Unndórs rímur'' by an anonymous author, and the rimur transformed to post-rock anthems by Sigur Ros . From 19th century poets like Jonas Halgrimsson to 21st-century poets like Valdimar Tómasson , alliteration has remained

1458-428: A wide range of styles and forms, ranging from poems in strict Old English or Old Norse meters, to highly alliterative free verse that uses strong-stress alliteration to connect adjacent phrases without strictly linking alliteration to line structure. While alliterative verse is relatively popular in the speculative fiction (specifically, the speculative poetry ) community, and is regularly featured at events sponsored by

1539-452: A wide variety of stanzaic forms that combine the alliterative structure described above with rhyme ( rimur ), including quatrain structures like ferskeytla that rhyme ABAB, couplet structures ( stafhenduætt ), tercet structures like baksneidd braghenda , and longer patterns, in which rhyming and alliteration patterns run either in parallel or in counterpoint. Traditional poetic synonyms and kennings persisted in Icelandic rimur as late as

1620-554: Is also accepted. Like Germanic alliterative verse, Somali and Mongol verse both emerge from oral traditions. Mongol poetry, but not Somali poetry, resembles Germanic verse in its emphasis on heroic epic. The Old High German and Old Saxon corpus of Stabreim or alliterative verse is small. Fewer than 200 Old High German lines survive, in four works: the Hildebrandslied , Muspilli , the Merseburg Charms and

1701-529: Is not the only alliterative verse tradition. It is thus worthwhile briefly to compare Germanic alliterative verse with other alliterative verse traditions, such as Somali and Mongol poetry. Like German alliterative verse, Somali alliterative verse is built around short lines (phrasal units, roughly equal in size to the Germanic half-line) whose strongest stress must alliterate with the strongest stress in another phrase. However, in traditional Somali alliterative verse, alliterating consonants are always word-initial, and

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1782-927: Is often taken to be the author of Egil's Saga . He was assassinated in 1241 by men claiming to be agents of the King of Norway. Snorri Sturluson was born in Hvammur í Dölum  [ is ] (commonly transliterated as Hvamm or Hvammr) as a member of the wealthy and powerful Sturlungar clan of the Icelandic Commonwealth , in AD 1179. His parents were Sturla Þórðarson the Elder of Hvammur (also known as Hvamm-Sturla) and his second wife, Guðný Böðvarsdóttir . He had two older brothers, Þórðr ( b.  1165 ) and Sighvatr Sturluson ( b.  1170 ), two sisters, Helga and Vigdís, and nine half-siblings . Snorri

1863-427: Is related to vowel length . A syllable like the li in little , which ends in a short vowel, takes less time to say than a syllable like the ow in growing , which ends in a long vowel or a diphthong . A closed syllable, which ends with one or more consonants, like bird , takes about the same amount of time as a long vowel. In the older Germanic languages, a syllable ending with a short vowel could not be one of

1944-484: Is still a living cultural tradition. Icelandic alliterative verse contains lines that typically contain eight to ten syllables. They are traditionally analyzed into feet, one per stress, with typically falling rhythm. The first foot in a line is considered a heavy foot , the second, a light foot, and so on, with the third and fifth foot counting as heavy, and the second and fourth as light. Icelandic lines are basically Germanic half-lines; they come in pairs. The head-stave

2025-561: Is that of Snorri Sturluson in the Prose Edda . He describes metrical patterns and poetic devices used by skaldic poets around the year 1200. Snorri's description has served as the starting point for scholars to reconstruct alliterative meters beyond those of Old Norse . Alliterative verse has been found in some of the earliest monuments of Germanic literature. The Golden Horns of Gallehus , discovered in Denmark and likely dating to

2106-502: Is the first stressed syllable in the second line in each pair, which must alliterate with at least one stress in the preceding line. The alliterating stresses in the first line in each pair are called props, or studlar , following the usual Germanic rules about which consonants alliterate. They are subject to the following rules: This system allows considerable rhythmic flexibility. Icelandic keeps some Old Norse forms, such as fornyrðislag , ljóðaháttur , and dróttkvætt . It also has

2187-472: Is the fragmentary Genesis (337 lines in 3 unconnected fragments), created as a reworking of Biblical content based on Latin sources. In more recent times, Richard Wagner sought to evoke these old German models and what he considered a more natural and less over-civilised style by writing his Ring poems in Stabreim . Both German traditions show one common feature which is much less common elsewhere:

2268-580: Is the writings produced by a class of poets trained in the bardic schools of Ireland and the Gaelic parts of Scotland , as they existed down to about the middle of the 17th century or, in Scotland, the early 18th century. Most of the texts preserved are in Middle Irish or in early Modern Irish , however, even though the manuscripts were very plentiful, very few have been published. It is considered

2349-510: Is very rare to have multiple-syllable dips. The following example from the Hávamál illustrates this basic pattern: Deyr fé   deyja frændr Cattle die;   kinsmen die... The terseness of the Norse form may be linked to another feature of Norse poetry that differentiates it from common Germanic patterns: In Old Norse poetry, syllable count sometimes matters, and not just

2430-479: The Wessobrunn Prayer . All four are preserved in forms that are clearly to some extent corrupt, suggesting that the scribes may themselves not have been entirely familiar with the poetic tradition. Two Old Saxon alliterative poems survive. One is the reworking of the four gospels into the epic Heliand (nearly 6000 lines), where Jesus and his disciples are portrayed in a Saxon warrior culture. The other

2511-641: The s ilver water plummets,   of glaciers swelling b road and b are       a b ove earth's fiery sinews —   the L ord pour out his l argess there       as l ong as earth continues! Alliterative verse appears to have been the dominant poetic tradition in Iceland until well after World War II. In the last generation, or so, a split appears to have developed between avant garde and traditionalist approaches to Icelandic poetry, with alliteration remaining frequent in all forms of Icelandic poetry, but playing

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2592-521: The Althing . He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of the Prose Edda , which is a major source for what is today known about Norse mythology and alliterative verse , and Heimskringla , a history of the Norse kings that begins with legendary material in Ynglinga saga and moves through to early medieval Scandinavian history . For stylistic and methodological reasons, Snorri

2673-540: The Society for Creative Anachronism , it also appears in poetry collections published by a wide range of practicing poets. The poetic forms found in the various Germanic languages are not identical, but there is still sufficient similarity to make it clear that they are closely related traditions, stemming from a common Germanic source. Knowledge about that common tradition, however, is based almost entirely on inference from later poetry. Originally all alliterative poetry

2754-413: The prosodic patterns of early Germanic languages. Alliteration essentially involves matching the left edges of stressed syllables. Early Germanic languages share a left-prominent prosodic pattern. In other words, stress falls on the root syllable of a word, which is normally the initial syllable (except where the root is preceded by an unstressed prefix, as in past participles, for example). This means that

2835-1052: The 18th Century, but were criticized by modernizing poets such as Jonas Hallgrimsson, and dropped out of later usage. The following poem in kviðuhattr meter by Jónas Hallgrímsson with translation by Dick Ringler illustrates how the rules for Icelandic alliterative verse work. For convenience, lines starting with a head stave are indented and both props and headstave are bolded and underlined. Íslands minni     Þið þekkið fold með b líðri b rá,       og b láum tindi fjalla,   og s vanahljómi, s ilungsá,       og s ælu blómi valla,   og b röttum fossi, b jörtum sjá       og b reiðum jökulskalla —   d rjúpi' hana blessun d rottins á       um d aga heimsins alla. A Toast to Iceland     Our l and of l akes forever fair       be l ow blue mountain summits,   of s wans, of s almon leaping where      

2916-525: The 20th century and to date has been colored by the historical views adopted when Iceland sought to sever its ties with Denmark , any revision of which still has strong nationalistic sentiments to contend with. To serve such views, Snorri and other leading Icelanders of his time are sometimes judged with an element of presentism , drawing on concepts that came into vogue only centuries later, such as state , independence , sovereignty , and nation . Jorge Luis Borges and María Kodama studied and translated

2997-741: The 4th century, bear this Runic inscription in Proto-Norse : This inscription contains four strongly stressed syllables, the first three of which alliterate on ⟨h⟩ /x/ and the last of which does not alliterate, essentially the same pattern found in much later verse. The core metrical features of traditional Germanic alliterative verse are as follows; they can be seen in the Gallehus inscription above: Some of these fundamental rules varied in certain traditions over time. For example, in Old English alliterative verse, in some lines

3078-594: The Eddaic poetry appears in the Poetic Edda . Skaldic poetry was associated with individual poets or skalds, typically employed by a king or other ruler, who primarily wrote poems praising their patron or criticizing their patron's enemies. It thus tends to be more elaborate and poetically ambitious than Eddaic poetry. The inherited form of alliterative verse was modified somewhat in Old Norse poetry. In Old Norse, as

3159-745: The Finnish independence movement. This led to poems in Kalevala meter becoming a significant element in Finnish literature and popular culture. Alliterative verse has also been revived in Modern English . Many modern authors include alliterative verse among their compositions, including Poul Anderson , W.H. Auden , Fred Chappell , Richard Eberhart , John Heath-Stubbs , C. Day-Lewis , C. S. Lewis , Ezra Pound , John Myers Myers , Patrick Rothfuss , L. Sprague de Camp , J. R. R. Tolkien and Richard Wilbur . Modern English alliterative verse covers

3240-426: The Icelandic commonwealth and a position of high respect. In the summer of 1218, he left the lawspeaker position and sailed to Norway , by royal invitation. There he became well acquainted with the teenage King Hákon Hákonarson and his co-regent, Jarl Skúli . He spent the winter as house guest of the jarl. They showered gifts upon him, including the ship in which he sailed, and he in return wrote poetry about them. In

3321-484: The ability to adapt with changing situations although conservative. While they were employed by kings and other powerful figures in Irish society, bards also acted independently and were highly respected individuals for their own power. Irish society focused largely on a fame or shame mentality. Which one you received largely depended on if the bard liked you or not, therefore, many people would go out of their way to please

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3402-421: The bards in the hopes that they would get a song or poem composed about them. The Irish people had no illusions about death, knowing that everything eventually died, but they believed the way into immortality was through a great story that only a bard could compose. This led the bards to have great power among the Irish because the ability to provide great fame or great shame to any individual. The bardic tradition

3483-496: The chiefs of Iceland. In 1262, the Althing ratified union with Norway and royal authority was instituted in Iceland. Each member swore an oath of personal loyalty to the king, a practice which continued as each new king came to the throne, until absolute and hereditary monarchy was formally accepted by the Icelanders in 1662. Snorri Sturluson's writings provide information and indications concerning persons and events influencing

3564-414: The chiefs. In 1224, Snorri married Hallveig Ormsdottir (c. 1199–1241), a granddaughter of Jón Loftsson, now a widow of great means with two young sons, and made a contract of joint property ownership (or helmingafélag ) with her. Their children did not survive to adulthood, but Hallveig's sons and seven of Snorri's children did live to adulthood. Snorri was the most powerful chieftain in Iceland during

3645-460: The companion article, Old Norse Poetry . Icelandic is not only descended from Old Norse, it is so conservative that Old Norse literature is still read in Iceland. Traditional Icelandic poetry, however, follows somewhat different rules than Old Norse, both for rhythm and alliteration. The following brief description captures the basic rules of modern Icelandic alliterative verse, which was the dominant form of Icelandic poetry until recent decades, and

3726-451: The critical last alliteration in the line, or headstave ) are indented and alliterating consonants are bolded and underlined. Nús h ersis h efnd       við h ilmi efnd;   gengr u lfr ok ö rn       of y nglings börn;   flugu h öggvin h ræ       H allvarðs á sæ;   grár s lítr undir       ari S narfara. 'For

3807-444: The deeds of their lords and ancestors: the Irish bard was not necessarily an inspired poet, but rather a professor of literature and letters, highly trained in the use of a polished literary medium, belonging to a hereditary caste of high prestige in a conservative, aristocratic society, and holding an official position therein by virtue of extensive training and knowledge. As officials of the court of king or chieftain, they performed

3888-486: The discovery of Vinland . To an extent, the legacy of Snorri Sturluson also played a role in politics long after his death. His writings could be used in support of the claims of later Norwegian kings concerning the venerability and extent of their rule. Later, Heimskringla factored in establishing a national identity during the Norwegian romantic nationalism in mid-19th century. Icelandic perception of Snorri in

3969-488: The eve of battle he dismissed those forces and offered terms to his brother. Sighvatur and Sturla drove Snorri into the countryside with a force of 1000 men, where he sought refuge among other goðar. Órækja undertook guerrilla operations in the fjords of western Iceland and fighting carried on. Haakon IV made an effort to intervene from afar, inviting all of Iceland's cheiftains to a peace conference in Norway. This maneuver

4050-543: The first half line had to contain four, and the second half-line, three syllables, while in ljóðaháttr ("song" or " ballad " meter), there were no specific syllable counts, but the lines were arranged into four-line stanzas alternating between four- and three-lift lines. More complex stanza forms imposed additional constraints. The various names of the Old Norse verse forms are given in the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson . The Háttatal , or "list of verse forms", contains

4131-462: The first sound of a word was particularly salient to listeners. Traditional Germanic verse had two particular rules about alliteration: The need to find an appropriate alliterating word gave certain other distinctive features to alliterative verse as well. Alliterative poets drew on a specialized vocabulary of poetic synonyms rarely used in prose texts and used standard images and metaphors called kennings . Old Saxon and medieval English attest to

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4212-430: The heroes, over ringmail   when they to that fight rode. The Heliand , line 3062:   S âlig bist thu S îmon, quað he, s unu Ionases;   ni mahtes thu that s elbo gehuggean   blessed are you Simon, he said, son of Jonah;   for you did not see that yourself (Matthew 16, 17) This leads to a less dense style, no doubt closer to everyday language, which has been interpreted both as

4293-580: The king and questions of loyalty but he nevertheless managed to build up the Norwegian state from what it had been. When Snorri arrived in Norway for the second time, it was clear to the king that he was no longer a reliable agent. The conflict between Haakon and Skúli was beginning to escalate into civil war. Snorri stayed with the jarl and his son, and the jarl gave him the jarl title, hoping to command his allegiance. In August 1238, Sighvatur and four of his sons (Sturla, Markús, Kolbeinn, and Þórður Krókur,

4374-517: The latter two executed after the battle), were killed at the Battle of Örlygsstaðir in Iceland against Gissur Þorvaldsson and Kolbein the Young, chiefs whom they had provoked. Snorri, Órækja, and Þorleifur requested permission to return home. As the king now could not predict Snorri's behavior, permission was denied. He was explicitly ordered to remain in Norway on the basis of his honorary rank. Skúli on

4455-518: The lifts. (This is the case in the Gallehus Horn inscription above, where all the lifts are nouns.) If it contains no stress-words, the root syllables of any particles will be the lift. Rarely, even a proclitic can be the lift, either because there are no more heavily stressed syllables or because it is given extra stress for some particular reason. Lifts also have to meet an additional requirement, involving what linguists term quantity , which

4536-471: The names and characteristics of each of the fixed forms of Norse poetry. Old Norse followed the general Germanic rules for alliteration, but imposed specific alliteration patterns on specific verse forms, and sometimes rules for assonance and internal rhyme. For example, drottkvætt ("courtly meter") not only required alliteration between adjacent half-lines, but imposed requirements for consonance and internal rhyme at specific points in each stanza. Old Norse

4617-406: The necessity to confront Skúli, who declared himself king in 1239. Skúli was defeated militarily and killed in 1240. Meanwhile, Snorri resumed his chieftainship and made a bid to crush Gissur by prosecuting him in court for the deaths of his brother Sighvatr and nephew Sturla. After the jarl's defeat, Haakon sent two agents to Gissur bearing a secret letter with orders to kill or capture Snorri. Gissur

4698-465: The number of lifts and dips. That depends upon the specific verse form used, of which Old Norse poetry had many. The base, Common Germanic alliterative meter is what Old Norse poets termed fornyrðislag ("old story meter"). More complex verse forms imposed an extra layer of structure in which syllable count, stress, alliteration (and sometimes, assonance and rhyme) worked together to define line or stanza structures. For example, in kvi ðuhattr ("lay form") ,

4779-482: The oral tradition alive. The next morning they would be allowed to write them down, perform them, and critique their compositions. Overall, these schools were at least partly responsible for keeping the bardic tradition alive into the modern era. The following is an example of a bardic poem from the translations of Osborn Bergin : Consolations Filled with sharp dart-like pens Limber tipped and firm, newly trimmed Paper cushioned under my hand Percolating upon

4860-411: The other hand gave permission and helped them book passage. Snorri must have had his own ideas about the king's position and the validity of his orders, but at any rate he chose to disobey them; his words according to Sturlunga saga , 'út vil ek' (literally 'out want I', but idiomatically 'I will go home'), have become proverbial in Icelandic. He returned to Iceland in 1239. The king was distracted by

4941-512: The peoples inhabiting North Europe during periods for which relevant information is scarce: thus, for example, he can be used to illuminate relations between England and Scandinavia during the 10th and 11th centuries. Snorri is considered a figure of enduring importance in this regard, Halvdan Koht describing his work as "surpassing anything else that the Middle Ages have left us of historical literature". He also provided an early account of

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5022-538: The poets were still given a high rank in society, equal to that of a bishop, but even the highest-ranked poet, the ollamh was now only 'the shadow of a high-ranking pagan priest or druid.' The bards memorized and preserved the history and traditions of clan and country, as well as the technical requirements of the various poetic forms, such as the dán díreach (a syllabic form which uses assonance , half rhyme and alliteration ). Much of their work consists of extended genealogies and almost journalistic accounts of

5103-487: The same alliterating consonant must carry through across multiple successive lines within a poem. In Mongol alliterative verse, individual lines are also phrases, with strongest stress on the first word of the phrase. Lines are grouped into pairs, often parallel in structure, which must alliterate with one another, though alliteration between the head-stress and later words in the line is also allowed, and non-identical alliteration (for example, of voiced and voiceless consonants)

5184-467: The second but not the first lift in the a-verse alliterated with the first lift in the b-verse, for instance line 38 of Beowulf (ne hyrde ic c ymlicor c eol gegyrwan ). Unlike in post-medieval English accentual verse , in which a syllable is either stressed or unstressed, Germanic poets were sensitive to degrees of stress. These can be thought of at three levels: If a half-line contains one or more stress-words, their root syllables will be

5265-483: The smooth slope The leaf a fine and uniform script A book of verse in ennobling Goidelic. I learnt the roots of each tale, branch Of valour and the fair knowledge, That I may recite in learned lays Of clear kindred stock and each person's Family tree, exploits of wonder Travel and musical branch Soft voiced, sweet and slumberous A lullaby to the heart. Grant me the gladsome gyre, loud Brilliant, passionate and polished Rushing in swift frenzy, like

5346-574: The summer of 1219, he met his Swedish colleague, the lawspeaker Eskil Magnusson , and his wife, Kristina Nilsdotter Blake , in Skara . They were both related to royalty and probably gave Snorri an insight into the history of Sweden . Snorri was mainly interested in history and culture. The Norwegian regents, however, cultivated Snorri, made him a skutilsvein , a senior title roughly equivalent to knight , and received an oath of loyalty. The king hoped to extend his realm to Iceland, which he could do by

5427-544: The three potentially alliterating lifts by itself. Instead, if a lift was occupied by word with a short root vowel followed by only one consonant followed by an unstressed vowel (i.e. '(-)CVCV(-)) these two syllables were in most circumstances counted as only one syllable. This is called resolution . The patterns of unstressed syllables vary significantly in the alliterative traditions of different Germanic languages. The rules for these patterns remain imperfectly understood and subject to debate. Alliteration fits naturally with

5508-433: The word fitt with the sense of 'a section in a longer poem', and this term is sometimes used today by scholars to refer to sections of alliterative poems. The trochaic tetrametrical meter that characterises the traditional poetry of most Finnic-language cultures, known as Kalevala meter , does not deploy alliteration with the structural regularity of Germanic-language alliterative verse, but Kalevala meter does have

5589-533: The year before Snorri married Hallveig. A period of clan feuding followed. Snorri raised an armed party under his nephew Böðvar Þórðarson, and another under his son Órækja, with the intent of executing a first strike against his brother Sighvatur and Sturla Sighvatsson. It is possible that Snorri perceived that only resolute, saga -like actions could achieve his objective, but if so he proved unwilling or incapable of carrying them out. Alternatively, he might have done this as military posturing or performance of power. On

5670-557: The years 1224–1230. Many of the other chiefs found his position as royal office-holder contrary to their interests, especially the other Sturlungar . Snorri's strategy seems to have been to consolidate power over them, at which point he could offer Iceland to the king. His first moves were civic. On the death in 1222 of Sæmundur, son of Jón Loftsson, he became a suitor for the hand of his daughter, Sólveig . Herdís' silent vote did nothing for his suit. His nephew, Sturla Sighvatsson, Snorri's political opponent, stepped in to marry her in 1223,

5751-428: Was being invited now to join the unionist movement. A meeting at the Althing was arranged for the summer of 1241 but Gissur and Kolbein arrived with several hundred men. Snorri and 120 men formed around a church. Gissur chose to pay fines rather than to attack. Hallveig died of natural causes. When the family bickered over the inheritance, Hallveig's sons, Klaeing and Orm, asked assistance from their uncle Gissur. Holding

5832-416: Was composed and transmitted orally, and much went unrecorded. The degree to which writing may have altered this oral art form remains much in dispute. Nevertheless, there is a broad consensus among scholars that the written verse retains many (and some would argue almost all) of the features of the spoken language. One statement we have about the nature of alliterative verse from a practicing alliterative poet

5913-400: Was deserted by Snorri on the battlefield in a flare-up over the chain of command. In 1237, Snorri thought it best to travel to Norway and join the king. The reign of Haakon IV (Hákon Hákonarson), King of Norway , was troubled by civil war relating to questions of succession and was at various times divided into quasi-independent regions under rival contenders. There were always plots against

5994-424: Was educated by Sæmundr fróði , grandfather of Jón Loftsson, at Oddi, and never returned to his parents' home. His father died in 1183 and his mother, as his guardian, soon squandered Snorri's share of the inheritance. Jón Loftsson died in 1197. The two families then arranged a marriage in 1199 between Snorri and Herdís, the daughter of Bersi Vermundarson. From her father, Snorri inherited an estate at Borg, as well as

6075-632: Was given the option of surrender. He fled to the cellar. There, Símon knútur asked Arni the Bitter to strike him. Then Snorri said: Eigi skal höggva! —"Do not strike!" Símon answered: "Högg þú!" — "You strike now!" Snorri replied: Eigi skal höggva! —"Do not strike!" and these were his last words. This act was not popular in either Iceland or Norway. To diminish the odium, the king insisted that if Snorri had submitted, he would have been spared. The fact that he could make such an argument reveals how far his influence in Iceland had come. Haakon went on suborning

6156-462: Was incredibly important to Irish society and even infatuated many outsiders. This sparked a tradition of founding bardic schools which often only would teach to people that had a bard in their family history. Other requirements included being skilled at reading and having a good memory. In these schools the fundamentals of being a bard were taught and often students would have to compose overnight so as to not be able to write things down, therefore keeping

6237-410: Was known as Snorralaug  [ is ] , and the buildings have been preserved to some extent. During his initial years at Reykholt he fathered another five children, with three different women: Guðrún Hreinsdóttir, Oddný, and Þuríður Hallsdóttir. Snorri quickly became known as a poet, and also functioned as a lawyer. In 1215, he became lawspeaker of the Althing , the only public office of

6318-488: Was raised from the age of three or four by Jón Loftsson , a relative of the Norwegian royal family, in Oddi , Iceland. Key to his political and cultural education was his fosterage at Oddi, which resulted from a settlement regarding his father's legal dealings. As Hvamm-Sturla was trying to settle a lawsuit with the priest and chieftain ( Goðorðsmaðr ) Páll Sölvason, Páll's wife Þorbjörg Bjarnardóttir lunged suddenly at him with

6399-417: Was rich in poetic synonyms and kennings, where it closely resembled Old English. Norse poets were sometimes described as creating "riddling" kennings whose meaning was not necessarily self-evident to the audience, perhaps reflecting competition among skalds. The following poem from Egil's Saga illustrates the basic principles of Old Norse alliterative verse. For convenience, the 'b' verses (the lines containing

6480-507: Was transparent to Sighvatur, who suspected, as apparently Snorri did not, that the king was planning a maneuver against the goðar in Norway. Instead of killing his opponents he began to insist that they take the king up on his offer. Órækja's fate was capture by his cousin Sturla during an ostensible peace negotiation at Reykjaholt. Þorleifur Þórðarson, a cousin of Snorri's, was also captured. Þorleifur had come to his assistance with 800 men, but

6561-669: Was uniformly written in alliterative verse, and much of the literature written in Old English, such as the Dream of the Rood , is explicitly Christian, though poems like Beowulf demonstrate continuing cultural memory for the Pagan past. Alliterative verse was so strongly entrenched in Old English society that English monks, writing in Latin, would sometimes create Latin approximations to alliterative verse. Irish bardic poetry Bardic poetry

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