A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry in alliterative verse, the other being Eddic poetry. Skaldic poems were traditionally composed to honor kings, but were sometimes ex tempore. They include both extended works and single verses (lausavísur). They are characteristically more ornate in form and diction than eddic poems, employing many kennings, which require some knowledge of Norse mythology, and heiti, which are formal nouns used in place of more prosaic synonyms. Dróttkvætt metre is a type of skaldic verse form that most often use internal rhyme and alliteration.
More than 5,500 skaldic verses have survived, preserved in more than 700 manuscripts, including in several sagas and in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, a handbook of skaldic composition that led to a revival of the art. Many of these verses are fragments of originally longer works, and the authorship of many is unknown. The earliest known skald from whom verses survive is Bragi Boddason, known as Bragi the Old, a Norwegian skald of the first half of the 9th century. Most known skalds were attached to the courts of Norwegian kings during the Viking Age, and increasingly were Icelanders. The subject matter of their extended poems was sometimes mythical before the conversion to Christianity, thereafter usually historical and encomiastic, detailing the deeds of the skald's patron. The tradition continued into the Late Middle Ages.
The standard edition of the skaldic poetic corpus, Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning, was edited by Finnur Jónsson and published in 1908–1915. A new edition was prepared online by the Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages project and began publication in 2007.
Etymology The word skald (which internal rhymes show to have had a short vowel until the 14th century) is perhaps ultimately related to (). Old High German has , and . The Old High German variant stem , etymologically identical to the skald- stem (), means "to scold, blame, accuse, insult". The person doing the insulting is a or . The West Germanic counterpart of the skald is the . Like , which is related to Modern English scoff, the word skald is probably cognate with English scold, reflecting the importance of mocking taunts in the poetry of the skalds.
Skaldic poetry
Skaldic poetry and Eddic poetry stem from the same tradition of alliterative verse, and in Old Norse as well as Icelandic, the word skald simply means "poet" or "composer". Skaldic verse is distinguished from Eddic by characteristically being more complex in style and by using dróttkvætt ("court metre"), which requires internal rhyme as well as alliteration, rather than the simpler and older fornyrðislag ("way of ancient words"), ljóðaháttr ("song form"), and málaháttr ("speech form") metres of the Eddic poems. Skaldic poetry is also characteristically more ornate in its diction, using more interlacing of elements of meaning within the verse and many more kennings and heiti. This both assisted in meeting the greater technical demands of the metre and allowed the poets to display their skill in wordplay. The resulting complexity can appear somewhat hermetic to modern readers, as well as creating ambiguity in interpretation; but the original audiences would have been familiar with the conventions of the syntactic interweaving as well as the vocabulary of the kennings.
Eddic poems are characterized by their mythological, ethical, and heroic content,Hollander, Lee M. The Poetic Edda. University of Texas Press (Austin), 1962. ISBN 0-292-73061-6, p. xv while skaldic verse has a wider range of subject matter. One of the main topics was mighty kings and the deeds of courtly patrons.Clunies Ross, p. 22. Eddic poetry typically includes a large amount of dialogue and rarely recounts battles; skaldic poetry, the reverse. Skalds also composed spontaneous verses reacting to events, insult verses (níðvísur) such as Þorleifr jarlsskáld's curse on his former patron Jarl Hákon SigurðarsonEinarsson, p. 61. and the níð that provoked the missionary Þangbrandr into killing Vetrliði Sumarliðason, and occasionally love poems and erotic verse called mansöngr. Hallfreðr Óttarsson and especially Kormákr Ögmundarson are known for their love poetry.Einarsson, p. 60.
A large amount of Eddic poetry has been preserved in the Codex Regius manuscript. Skaldic verses are preserved in a large number of manuscripts, including many sagas, and some skaldic poetry, including prophetic, dream, and memorial poems, uses the simpler metres. Medieval Scandinavians appear to have distinguished between older and more modern poetry rather than considering skaldic verse as a distinct genre.Clunies Ross, pp. 13–16.
Compositions done without preparation were especially valued, to judge by the sagas. Egill Skallagrímsson is supposed to have composed his Höfuðlausn in one night to ransom his head.Hollander, p. 67. King Harald Hardrada is said to have set his skald, Þjóðólfr Arnórsson, as he was walking down the street, to compose two stanzas casting a quarreling smith and tanner through the choice of kennings as specific figures first from mythology and then from heroic legend.Turville-Petre, pp. 100–01.Hollander, pp. 189–91. It is not common though that skaldic verse are a spur of the moment thing.
Although there is no evidence that the skalds employed musical instruments, some speculate that they may have accompanied their verses with the harp or lyre.
Forms A large number of the preserved skaldic verses are individual stanzas, called lausavísur ("loose verses"), often said to have been improvised. Long forms include the drápa, a praise poem consisting of a series of stanzas with a refrain (stef) at intervals, and the flokkr (similar to drápa, without a refrain), vísur 'verses, stanzas', or dræplingr 'little drápa', a shorter series of verses without refrain.Hallberg, Peter. Translated by Paul Schach and Sonja Lindgrenson. Old Icelandic Poetry. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln (1975) ISBN 0-8032-0855-3, p. 107 There are also some shield poems, which supposedly describe mythological scenes on a shield presented to the poet by a patron.Einarsson, p. 46.Hollander, pp. 26–27.
Poems
Most of the longer skaldic poems were composed by court poets to honor kings and jarls. They typically have historical content, relating battles and other deeds from the king's career. Examples include: Glymdrápa ‒ the deeds of King Harald Fairhair, by Þorbjörn Hornklofi, partially preserved Vellekla ‒ the deeds of Jarl Hákon Sigurðarson, by Einarr skálaglamm, partially preserved Bandadrápa ‒ the deeds of Jarl Eiríkr Hákonarson by Eyjólfr dáðaskáld, partially preserved Knútsdrápa ‒ the deeds of King Cnut the Great, three poems by Sigvatr Þórðarson, Óttarr svarti, and Óttarr svarti (partially preserved) Geisli ‒ the deeds of King Olaf Haraldsson, Saint Olaf, a Christian drápa by Einarr Skúlason Hrafnsmál ‒ by Þorbjörn Hornklofi describing life and martial deeds of Harald Fairhair
A few surviving skaldic poems have mythological content: Ragnarsdrápa, a shield poem by Bragi Boddason, partially preserved: originally consisted of sections on two mythological scenes and two from the deeds of his patron, Ragnarr Haustlöng ‒ a shield poem by Þjóðólfr of Hvinir, partially preserved Húsdrápa ‒ by Úlfr Uggason describing mythological scenes depicted on the walls of Olaf the Peacock's feast hall in Iceland, partially preserved Þórsdrápa ‒ deeds of the god Thor, two partially preserved poems by Eilífr Goðrúnarson and Eysteinn Valdason Ynglingatal ‒ on the mythological and legendary history of the Ynglings, presented as ancestors of the Norwegian kings, by Þjóðólfr of Hvinir Háleygjatal ‒ a similar work on the Hlaðir dynasty, by Eyvindr skáldaspillir
To these could be added two poems relating the death of a king and his reception in Valhalla: Eiríksmál ‒ on the death of King Eric Bloodaxe, by an unknown skald Hákonarmál ‒ on the death of King Hákon the Good, by Eyvindr skáldaspillir
Some extended works were composed as circumstance pieces, such as the following by Egill Skallagrímsson: Sonatorrek ‒ a lament on the deaths of his sons Höfuðlausn ‒ in praise of Eric Bloodaxe, his enemy, to ransom his head Arinbjarnarkviða ‒ in praise of his friend Arinbjörn
History The origin story for poetry comes from a myth by Snorri Sturluson. The story depicts poetry as a liquid that takes various forms. The point of this is to show that poetry has gone through and will continue to go through change. The dróttkvætt metre appears to have been an innovation associated with a new fashion in formally more elaborate poetry associated with named poets. The metre has been compared to Irish and Latin poetic forms, which may have influenced its development.Ross, 22Gade, The Structure of Old Norse Dróttkvætt Poetry, pp. 8–11, 250–51, cited in Clunies Ross.Turville-Petre, pp. xxvi–xxviii. Origins in magic have also been suggested, because of the existence of skaldic curses (such as Egill Skallagrímsson's on King Eric Bloodaxe)Hollander, pp. 58–50. and because there are 10th-century magical inscriptions on runestones in the metre.Einarsson, pp. 44–45. Since the first example of skaldic poetry of which we know is Bragi Boddason's Ragnarsdrápa from the early 9th century, some have argued that he and his associates invented it,Turville-Petre, pp. xxi–xxiv. but his work is already highly accomplished, suggesting that this style of poetry had been developing for some time.Hollander, pp. 4, 25–26. Bragi (whom many scholars consider was deified as the god Bragi)Clunies Ross, p. 105. was a Norwegian, and skaldic poetry is thought to have originated in either Norway or the Scandinavian Baltic.Einarsson, p. 44.
Most of the skalds of whom we know spent all or part of their careers as court poets, either those of kings, particularly the kings of Norway, or those of jarls, particularly the Hlaðir jarls, a dynasty based in what is now Trøndelag some of whose members ruled all or part of Norway as heathens in alternation with the Christian converters King Olaf Tryggvason and King Olaf Haraldsson (Saint Olaf). They produced praise poetry telling of their patrons' deeds, which became an orally transmitted record and was subsequently cited in history sagas. One example of this is the Heimskringla by Snorri Sturlson. A third of the book focuses on Olaf II Haraldsson. Their accuracy has been the subject of debate, but the verse form guards against corruption and the skalds traditionally criticized as well as advised their patrons.Hollander, p. 6.Turville-Petre, p. lxxiv. Skalds at the court at Hlaðir have been credited with developing the Valhalla complex and the cult of Odin as an aristocratic, educated form of heathenism influenced by Christian eschatology. Poetic ability was highly valued; the art was practised by the Norwegian kings themselves,Hollander, p. 197. and several skalds, such as Egill Skallagrímsson, are the subject of their own biographical sagas.Hollander, pp. 6–7.