Basics of Germanic and Norse alliterative poetry

(Very basic.)

NB. This post is by no means a complete guide; the main purpose of it is to have a very basic introduction written up, so that I don’t have to constantly explain the basics of meter in every future post involving poetry.

The basic rules:

1. Common Germanic alliterative meter (ON fornyrðislag ‘law of ancient sayings’) is stress-based.

2. It consists of long-lines or couplets made up by two half-lines (the a-verse and b-verse) separated by a cæsura.

3. Each half-line generally has four positions: two lifts (stressed syllables) and two dips (unstressed syllables).

4. One or both of the lifts in the a-verse must alliterate with the first lift in the following b-verse. Alliteration is when two words begin with the same sound.

   1. Every vowel alliterates with every other vowel.

      1. In Old Norse, v- and j- are counted as vowels.

   2. In West Germanic, initial g- and j- alliterate with each other.

   3. All consonant clusters alliterate based on the initial consonant (e.g., ON knífr ‘knife’, krjúpa ‘creep’ and konungr ‘king’ all alliterate with each other),

   4. except for st-, sp- and sk-, which only alliterate with themselves, and not with s-.

To illustrate I reproduce a stanza from the Vǫlu-spǫ́ ‘the Spae of the Wallow’, about the rebirth of the world, with alliterations bolded. Note that lines 1a and 4a only have one alliteration, while lines 2a and 3a have two:

Sér upp koma · ǫðru sinni
jǫrð ór ę́gi · iðja-grǿna;
falla forsar; · flýgr ǫrn yfir
sá’s á fjalli · fiska vęiðir.

‘She sees the Earth rising out of the ocean
for a second time, ever green anew.
Torrents fall; an eagle flies above,
the one who catches fish in the mountain.’

Scaldic poetry

In the Wiking age Norwegian court poets (the scalds) invented the drótt-kvę́ðr (‘court-recited’) meter, the original and archetypical scaldic measure. drótt-kvę́ðr meter builds on the common Germanic measure described above, but is considerably more strict:

1. All a-verses must have two alliterations.

2. To the end of each classic four-syllable line a trochee is appended, giving six-syllable lines.

3. The first syllable of the trochee must be long.

4. The first syllable of the trochee must also assonate with another stressed syllable in the same line.

5. Assonance (or hending) is when two syllables share the same consonants following the vowel.

   1. Odd lines typically have a shot-hending (ON skot-hęnding), that is, the assonating syllables share the same consonants, but not the same vowel;

   2. even lines typically have an ethel-hending (ON aðal-hęnding), that is, the assonating syllables share both the same consonants and vowel.

As an example, a loose stanza by C11th Norse poet Sighwat Thurfrithson (Sighvatr Þórðarson), with alliterations bolded and assonances italicised:

Jór rinnr aptan-skǿru · all-svangr gǫtur langar,
vǫll kná hófr til hallar · —hǫfum lítinn dag—slíta.
Nú’s, þat’s blakkr of bękki · berr mik Dǫnum ferri;
fákr laust dręngs í díki · —dǿgr mǿtask nú—fǿti.

‘The horse runs famished on long tracks in the twilight,
on the way to the hall the hoof does scrape—we’ve little day left—the soil.
It is now that the steed bears me over the brook further from the Danes;
the gentleman’s colt stumbled with its foot—now day and night meet—in a ditch.’