76
[‘stanza-word’]) always ends with a close – i.e.
its last two syllables must always be filled by
an ON phonetic structure known as a long
disyllable, defined as any word-form that has a
first, long-stem syllable (i.e.
a long vowel plus
a short or long consonant or a short vowel plus
a long consonant or a consonant cluster), and a
second, final, short syllable (a short vowel
followed by, at most, a single consonant). The
long disyllable is the most frequent phonetic
pattern of ON. Most of the close-filling words
from our poem could have been used in a
classical
dróttkvætt close, e.g.
máni (4.2),
Bolli
(5.2) etc. Some words, however, present
difficulties from this point of view.
First, consider
fullur in line 4.1 and
merkur
in 6.1: both are MI forms featuring an
epenthetic
-u- inside the final consonant cluster
where ON had
fullr and would have had
*
merkr (see also the possible reading
brúður <
ON
brúðr in 5.5). In MI, these are two-syllable
wordforms, but in ON they both were single-
syllable forms, unfit for a close.
9
Such forms
fill the requirements of the classic close
orthographically (cf. MI
fullur [‘full’] with an
authentic
ON
long
disyllable
frillur
[‘concubines’]) and also phonetically according
to the phonology of the Icelandic of the time
(Kristjan Árnason 1980).
10
Whether one
assumes the survival of
dróttkvætt past the
classical period or not, admittance of forms
such as
fullur into the close necessarily
constitutes an innovation (as
they did not exist
in ON), yet it must be regarded as an
innovation that could have developed naturally
with historical linguistic change.
Second, the stanzas also feature short
disyllables as close fillings,
such as 1.4
gǫfug,
2.1
ala, 6.5
gera, and 7.3
bera.
From the point
of view of the classical rules, these are
inadmissible in classical
dróttkvætt. The
appearance of such forms in the close may be
simply explained by the MI context of the
application of an ON rule: classic
dróttkvætt
calls for a long disyllable and in MI all stressed
syllables are ‘long’ (Kristjan Árnason 1980:
213–216), thus
bera was pronounced and
perceived in MI as a long disyllable although it
was not in ON, and thus would formally
conform to the requirements of the close.
Another explanation, possibly working in
unison with the former, stems from the likely
mode of composition of our poem and the
likely source for our poet’s knowledge of
dróttkvætt. Unless the
dróttkvætt tradition
survived orally in the post-classical period, our
poet’s likely source was a written one, and one
of the best candidates is
Laufás Edda (see
above). Importantly, that text presents not only
skaldic metres but also eddic ones, including
ljóðaháttr (Sievers 1893: 79‒90, §§53‒58),
and quotes, as
Snorra Edda does, long sections
of
ljóðaháttr poems. The key metrical feature
of
ljóðaháttr is the so-called ‘complete line’
(
Vollzeile in German terminology) which, like
that of
dróttkvætt, features a regular close
(Sievers 1893: 82‒89, §57). The filler of the
ljóðaháttr close is the short disyllable.
11
In this
light, it is perhaps intriguing that
ljóðaháttr’s
complete line and
dróttkvætt’s line have other
similarities: metrical, where both have three
metrical stresses per line
12
and a marked
cadence or close,
13
as well as poetic
similarities (e.g. Smirnitskaya 1994; Sverdlov
2011; 2012). Collectively, these factors could
have led our 18
th
-century
dróttkvætt imitator to
perceive the similarity of these meters and to
use in his close what would have been
perceived as a short disyllable in ON.
Alliteration
The first metrically interesting feature in the
poem is the use of an extra set of alliteration in
certain even lines in addition to regular
alliteration and stem-rhyme (e.g. in 2.4 and
2.8). Classical
dróttkvætt only has three lifts in
the even lines (Sievers 1893: 25‒28, §8‒9),
marked by two stem-rhyming words and
another word that alliterates with two other
words located in the previous odd line. ON
dróttkvætt stem-rhymes alternate between
skothending in odd lines, where syllables’ final
consonant(s) are the same but preceding
vowels must differ, and
aðalhending in even
lines, where both the final consonant(s) and
preceding vowels are identical. In stanza 2, the
poet has an extra pair of alliterating words
inside two even lines, both located at the end
of the respective half-stanzas (regular
dróttkvætt alliteration is in bold; additional
line-internal alliteration in bold italic; stem-
rhymes underlined):
2.3‒4:
fríðr gaf
fyllir dáða
Fáfnis bing
Hjarð-
hylt-ingum.
77
2.7‒8:
bar, en
bygðisk af mægðum
Borgar
Eigils
ódeiga
Lines 2.4 and 2.8 are rather unusual as
dróttkvætt
lines:
only
odd
lines
can
(occasionally, as a special rule)
have four lifts,
i.e. have four different stems marked by line-
internal alliteration and line-internal stem
rhyme at the same time, for example in a stanza
by the 11
th
-century skald Hávarðr
halti
ísfirðingr [‘the Lame from Ice Fjord’] (
Skj B1:
181‒12.7‒8):
garðr svall gǫfug sólar / Gefn,
míns sonar hefna. Lines 2.4 and 2.8 are even
lines, where line-internal alliteration was
prohibited in classical
dróttkvætt. In classical
dróttkvætt scansion, each of these alliterating
and rhyming syllables should be a lift
(Smirnitskaya 1994: 349‒356, esp. 350), thus
the sound repetition tools would mark as many
as
five lifts: three regular ones,
Fáfnis (lift 1)
alliterates with
fríðr and
fyllir from line 2.3,
and
bing rhymes with
-ingum (lifts 2 and 3);
and two extra lifts, nos. 4 and 5, on
Hjarð- that
alliterate with
-hylt-. In line 2.8, one extra lift
is in an even line, as
Eigils (on which, see
below), already marked
by stem-rhyming with
deiga, also alliterates with the negative particle
ó-, elevating the latter to the position of the lift.
In classical
dróttkvætt, we never find even
lines that feature
two different sets of
alliterating words in addition to the stem
rhyme. Snorri Sturluson’s poem
Háttatal [‘The
List of Metres’] (
HT) contains several examples
of creative
dróttkvætt-derived stanzas where
the author deliberately introduces one extra
sound repetition in his lines (e.g.
HT stanzas
36, 38, 43–44). However, these are limited to
only a few stanzas, the stanzas are clearly
experimental, the sound repetiton used is stem
rhyme, not alliteration, and, importantly, the
repetition itself is
not a new one – the extra lift
is marked by repeating the sound sequence
from a key position, e.g. the close or the first
alliterating syllable, not by introducing an
entirely new line-internal sound repetition.
14
The presence of such manifold extra sound
repetition marks our stanzas as late:
as pointed
out by Ragnar Ingi Aðalsteinsson (2014), the
development of extra alliteration sets is a
typical feature of later Icelandic poetry.
Lines 2.4 and 2.8 also feature another
departure from
dróttkvætt metrical rules in
marking the syllable immediately preceding
the close (i.e.
-hylt- and
ó-) with alliteration. The
marking of this particular syllable is, basically,
forbidden in
dróttkvætt (Smirnitskaya 1994:
360), with a rule-governed exception.
15
Namely,
here we have a compound noun, that is, a noun
with a suffix and one with a prefix, crossing
into the close. Normally, there is a cæsura
before the close, but compound words are
allowed to cross this boundary provided the
phonetic splitting coincides with the morpho-
logical boundary (a hallmark of
dróttkvætt)
.
This is what happens in our case: the close
boundary splits
-hyltingum into two distinct
morphemes, the stem
hylt- and the suffix
-ingum;
ódeiga is correspondingly split into the
negative prefix
ó- and the stem -
deiga; this is
perfectly correct procedure, and the resulting
long disyllable ‘rumps’ of -
ingum and -
deiga
are perfect close-fillers. However, both
hylt-
and
ó- are single-syllable morphemes, and a
compound word that crosses into a close and
has a single-syllable morpheme as its first
element will never have this element marked.
16
The additional alliteration in lines 2.4 and
2.8 is thus in clear violation of rules of classical
dróttkvætt. One may, however, surmise that
our poet consciously aimed to produce a pair
of such deviating lines to complete each half-
stanza in an attempt to develop a new metrical
line subtype of his own invention, as a way of
marking the last line in each half-stanza.
Emergence of new subtypes of
dróttkvætt that
rely on picking a peculiar prosodic type of a
regular
dróttkvætt line (which has a rich
prosodic variety) and using it systematically in
a stanza is something that did happen in the
classical skaldic tradition, as seen in the
majority of
dróttkvætt stanzas in Snorri
Sturluson’s
Háttatal, which he claims are in
different ‘metres’. In this way, Tyrfingur’s
attempt parallels what went on in the classical
skaldic tradition.
Further, line 2.8 features what should be
regarded as an eye-rhyme, i.e. ‘rhyme’ based
on spelling rather than sound. The ON spelling
has the line running as
Borgar Egils ódeiga,
yet this is an even line, which means some
word there must stem-rhyme in full with the
close-filler
deiga. The word
Egils is
pronounced [eɪɪls], and the close-filler is
pronounced [eɪʒ], so no full rhyme, or
aðalhending, is possible phonetically. The poet