FINAL YEAR PROJECT

Modern Languages

English Studies

-------

Of Monks and Skalds

A literary and linguistic comparative of Old English and Old
Norse alliterative poetry
--------

Ander Barón González

21-05-2015
 University of Deusto

Faculty of Social and Human Sciences

Department of Modern Languages and Basque Studies

Final Year Project

Degree in Modern Languages

2014/2015 Academic Year

Of Monks and Skalds:

A literary and linguistic comparative of Old English and Old
Norse alliterative poetry

by
Ander Barón González

English Studies

Deusto, Bilbao, on the 21st of May, 2015.

III
Abstract:

This paper makes a comparative and contrastive analysis of both the themes present in
the Old English and Old Norse alliterative poetries, as well as a linguistic one, by
comparing the rules governing alliteration, the nature and use of the lyrical resources
present, so as to establish the connection between both literatures.

Este trabajo efectúa un análisis comparativo y contrastivo tanto de los temas presentes
en las poesías alterativas Nórdica Antigua e Inglesa Antigua, así como un análisis
lingüístico, comparando las reglas que rigen la aliteración, la naturaleza y uso de los
recursos líricos presentes, para esclarecer la relación entre ambas literaturas.

Keywords: Old English, Old Norse, Alliterative Poetry, Metrics, Comparative

Literature.

Palabras clave: Inglés Antiguo, Nórdico Antiguo, Poesía Aliterativa, Métrica,

Literatura Comparada.

IV
INDEX OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction and State of the Art 1

2. Aims and working hypotheses 3

3. Analysis 5
3.1. Comparative and contrastive analysis of the themes present in
OE and ON poetries 5
3.1.1. Similarities:
Common issues addressed. 15
3.1.2. Differences:
Christian tropes vs. Pagan craic 16
3.2. Alliterative Poetry 17
3.2.1. Sound-governed poetry 17

3.2.2. Similarities and divergences in forming alliterative verses in

Old English & Old Norse 18
3.2.2.1. Old English Verse types vs. Old Norse meter variety 21
3.2.3. Usage and form of lyrical resources in OE&ON 22
3.2.3.1. Kennings in OE, Eddic ON and Skaldic ON 23

3.2.3.2. Heiti as a particular development of ON poetry 24

3.3. Main results and conclusions 26

References 29
External resources 30
Annex 31

V
 Introduction and State of the Art

1. Introduction and State of the Art

The study of Old English and Old Norse has been a quite prolific topic for
researchers over the years, and the more so in recent times, as digitalization
improvements have made crucial aspects of research such as document access and
availability far less difficult than, for example, ten years ago. We must remember that
the Germanic world has undoubtedly aroused passions for, roughly speaking, a period
encompassing some 500 years; be it in the form of the folklore research area in popular
Icelander song starting on the 16th century all the way to Wagner's inspiration for opera.
The beginning of the study of the heritage received from northern Europe began,
paradoxically, almost at the same time as the last remnants of resistance passed away to
folklore and folk-art in Iceland, which stood as the last bulwark of resistance of the old
ways up to the 16th century, on account of it being more isolated than other Nordic
areas. It has a deeply rooted appeal, an appeal that draws strongly on the mysticism
permeating those peoples who changed the face of a continent to such an extent, and yet
left so little evidence of their own, other than legends and poems, known, for the most
part, only to scholars.

Even nowadays, we are witnessing a surge in interest on the topic of all things
Germanic. One of the most remarkable manifestations of this phenomenon is the
enormous -and somewhat unexpected- success of the "Vikings" series, a joint-
production by the History Channel and Metro Goldwyn-Meyer. The series advances
depicting the events of Ragnar Lothbrok's sagas, with the added attractive of sequences
in both Old Norse and Old English, and also Langue d'Oïl Frankish romance as of late.
It seems that the Götterdammerung, the twilight of the gods, is far from happening, and
that Ragnarök will be held at bay.

This paper analyzes such remnants of the Germanic world, inasmuch as they are
related to the field of literature and linguistics. In doing so, it takes a two-pronged
approach: Literary themes found in Old English and Old Norse poems, on the one hand,
and meter and patterns of alliteration in both languages, on the other.

In order to illustrate about the state of the art regarding Old English poetry, its
themes and structure for versification, we have resorted to the quite comprehensible and

1
 Final Year Project

easy to grasp notions summarized, on the one hand, in the collection of books
comprising the Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England series, more specifically to
the works by H. Momma (1997), Carol Braun Pasternack (1995) and Geoffrey Russom
(1998). As for Old Norse, the extremely thorough work done by Margaret Clunies Ross,
A History of Old Norse Poetry and Poetics (2005) proves itself to be a solid ground
upon which to elaborate.

Old English and Old Norse studies have both been extensively prolific fields
over the years, providing us with in-depth analyses of the thematic nature of the
surviving texts, that is to say, their genre, as well as the structures of the alliterative
verses present in their midst. Entire volumes have been written speaking about the
particularities of verse types, thorough analyzing of the literary themes in Beowulf, etc.
Surprisingly, all of these have been devised as hyper-focused monographic texts.
However, there seems to be little research done from an interdisciplinary approach,
clarifying how these two literatures are related to each other, and, as such, the wide
public usually takes for granted that they are basically the same.

Summarizing what has been proposed in scholarly works regarding both topics,
they are interpreted as distinctly individual literatures, and hence their monographic
treatment in research, with some tropes that coincide and that draw strongly on the
socio-cultural syncretism of their producers. Old English poetry has a definitely
discernable evolution from more inherently "pagan" genres or topics, such as the
traditional heroic examples, epitomized by Beowulf, to more metaphysical examples,
probably as a combination of Anglo-Saxons leaving their -quite likely- polytheist
beliefs and traditional social organization aside and adopting more "feudal" customs.
We could, in fact, consider that the turning towards Christianity in Anglo-Saxon society
-circa 7th century- was genuinely an acculturation process strengthening the bond with
continental Europe in social, political and religious matters. Old Norse poetry, theme
wise, dilates the pagan heroic and mythological trope period much longer, roughly
speaking, up until the 11th century, when the advent of Scandinavian Christianization
and the generalization of Skaldic works (which indicates stark stratification), change the
paradigm - Skaldic poetry being courtly, and often serving to praise a given historical

2
 Aims and working hypotheses

Jarl or king's exploits-. The moment of Christianization, therefore, seems to stand as

one of the key players in the evolution of these literatures.

The thematic categorization of Old English surviving poems to be referenced in

this paper has been sensibly established by Craig Williamson (2011) in a quite
straightforward volume, wherein we can find the major ones assorted by genre. For the
purposes of this paper, we will be following said categorization and we shall address the
poems as heroic/historical, elegies, riddles, "wisdom" poems, and religious poems. Old
Norse poetry, inasmuch as can be extrapolated from the analysis of Margaret C. Ross
has a somewhat different range of genres: epic/legendary/heroic lays (as in Eddic
examples), Eulogies, Nið or slander poetry (scarce at best), love poetry, and Historical
poetry.

Regarding the actual structure of the poems and the rules that govern alliteration,
we shall make extensive reference to Sievers' typology , as found in Hasenfratz &
Jambeck (2005), due to it being comprehensible and quite generalized amongst scholars
of Old English, and we shall resort to Seiichi Suzuki's (2013) and Larrington's (2014)
(for Eddic poetry) and Scragg's (1994) or Ross' (2011) for the Skaldic poetry aspect of
verse.

2. Aims and working hypotheses

The research done in this paper would, ideally, give grounds to the claim that
although linguistically related, Old English and Old Norse literatures, in the form of
alliterative poetry, are substantially different, both in themes and format. This goes
against the notions regarding peoples of Germanic descent shared by the general public:
They would probably think of some romanticized, hollywoodesque horned-helmet-
wearing brute, hacking his way through a pile of bodies towards a tankard of mead
mounted at the figurehead of a longboat, with no education whatsoever, illiterate and
incapable of producing anything but echoing grunts and belches. The media have had a
quite substantial influence in this, ranging from Wagner's self-serving reworking of
Germanic myth in opera to the aforementioned depictions in action movies such as The

3
 Final Year Project

13th Warrior, both the computer-generated and regular adaptations of Beowulf, or

Outlander . Quite a gross picture, all in all.

Even for those more familiar with these peoples' actual history, society and
culture, cultural manifestations of Germanic descent are thought of as almost equal to
each other, which we interpret as an oversimplification. It is acceptable to think that
both of them being originated from the same culture, they do have common traits.
However, the divergent developments of both the Anglo-Saxon and the Norse/Viking
cultures would have given birth to very different artistic manifestations, despite the fact
of having originated from the same substratum and of sharing the same medium. There
seems to be very little academic work exploring the extent of the mutual relation and
difference between Old English and Old Norse, not just in literary analysis, but also in
meter, and that is precisely the void in which this paper intends to shed some light.

It has been claimed that what we nowadays know of as "Poetry" rose, in the
distant past, from a blend between storytelling and song. That much we can extrapolate
from contexts as diverse and far away in space as ancient Greece, where the rhapso̱doí
told and retold the ancient legends of the Hellenic peninsula in verse, or Australia,
where, as Lehmann tells, for the native aboriginals, who lack the development of a
written medium of their own, their legends, geography, biology, laws, and lore take the
shape of songs (1997:225). The aboriginal peoples' oral artistry ranges from
mythological songs to things seemingly as prosaic as to have songs detailing the
location of wells -which may shock westerners, but which is certainly precious
information on the arid plateaus of central Australia-. The urge to create poetry,
therefore, is a universal human trait, location and time notwithstanding, and that is
precisely the drive that motivates the inception of Germanic poetries.

Germanic peoples would, as many of their Indo-European counterparts, have

developed a strong oral tradition, for both artistic and practical reasons. Lacking a full-
fledged system of writing, they had to resort to other ways of codifying and passing
down their knowledge, and that, in the oral medium, takes the form of song. However,
given the socio-historical unraveling of events from the 5th century onwards in northern
Europe, the 'Pan-Germanic song/poetry' -understanding it as a more or less unified form

4
 Analysis

of art, shared in some degree by the many tribal societies- would have been fragmented,
and its shards would, in turn, have individual courses to tread.

Therefore, the (vast majority) of Old English poetry would have been composed
on a much more rigid and 'civilized' setting (if we understand a greater social
stratification and more elaborate power and economic structures as the backbone of
civilization), with earlier influence from the church, where the authors, probably monks,
would have drawn on a pre-existing pan-Germanic artistic medium and adapted it to
their own purposes, whilst heavily relying in traditional format, by then codified and
easy to respect and maintain. Parallel to this flourishing of the written word, the
Scandinavian areas would still be relying on oral tradition, and henceforth developed it
further, up to the extents compiled as late as the 13th century in Snorri Sturlusson's
Edda.

In short, this paper intends to reflect how the Old English poetry became heavily
influenced by its cultural and material surroundings, in the form of the early Christian
Church, whilst the Norse counterpart remained "untainted" -lacking a more accurate
term- by outside forces, and continued the natural development of the genre. Britain
being a province of the Roman Empire until the 5th century had much to do with this,
since Christianity would have certainly been present on the island, and well established
enough by the time of the Anglo-Saxon arrival; Scandinavian areas, on the other hand,
were never reached by the legions and therefore remained intensely pagan. The overall
aim of this paper would be supporting the claim that these two artistic forms evolved in
distinct ways, each with its own particularities, and thus inform the general perception
of the subject.

3. Analysis

3.1. Comparative and contrastive analysis of the themes present in OE and ON poetries

It must be said, first and foremost, that researching Old English and Old Norse
poses a difficulty to begin with: There really is not much evidence remaining from these
languages or cultures, and whatever is left has survived almost by chance alone. A

5
 Final Year Project

perfect example of this are the many Anglo-Saxon hoards discovered all over southern
Britain by accident, on geological surveys, by amateur metal-detectorists, or by
ploughing fields -paradigmatic in the Sutton Hoo burial-. As of late, the Telegraph
reported the astonishing unearthing of the Aylesbury hoard, 5.251 10th and 11th century
Pfennings, found by a club of metal-detectorists buried within a lead bucket so as to
preserve them1.

That, however sadly, is for 'hard evidence' only, and pristine-condition

manuscripts are, as of yet, unheard of. Klinck remarks that the Exeter Book itself, which
will be extensively referenced later on, shows that "the folios are increasingly affected
by burn damage [...]" (2001:13). In the particular case of Old English, there is a
significant amount of written material throughout the historical lifespan of its creator
culture, amounting to some thirty thousand lines, but Old Norse poetry, on the other
hand, has virtually no significant existence until Snorri Sturlusson's Edda. Not to
mention that time is often unforgiving with ancient documents, damaging or destroying
them, which may account for the loss of many a manuscript on the grounds of banalities
such as re-utilizing the vellum upon which it was written. And hence the scarceness of
surviving documents in these languages. As a matter of fact, in the particular case of
Old English literature, we may even suspect the Benedictine reform of the ninth century
to have caused literary losses, which disregarded local artistic manifestations of the
Anglo-Saxon tradition in favor of more 'centralist' Roman biblical works.

We should bear in mind one additional difficulty: Considering the lack of

structure as we understand it according to our modern notions of what poems are, the
format in which Old English poetry has been preserved -without caesura, punctuation
and arrangement of lines, covering entire pages top to bottom- poses a further problem.
As indicated by Pasternack (1995:18), it has been rightly argued that there is no factual
way of determining whether what we consider a poem or unit is actually a finite whole,
or not. The groupings of verses by modern scholars answer to their own notions, which,
educated as though they may be, remain subjective. We may yet see cases in which

1
The Telegraph: 'Amateur treasure hunter's £1m find of Anglo-Saxon coins', by Rosa Silverman (1 Jan.
2015). Web. Last consulted: 15 Apr. 2015.
Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/archaeology/11320503/Amateur-
treasure-hunters-1m-find-of-Anglo-Saxon-coins.html

6
 Comparative and contrastive analysis of the themes present in OE and ON poetries

future evidence could introduce the possibility of canonical units such as The Wanderer
being, in fact, fragmented into two or more distinct pieces.

However, it is indeed possible to work with whichever texts have survived, and
extract evidence from them. In order to explain the actual origin of Old English and Old
Norse poetry, we should follow the explanations given by Shippey (2011:XI) on the
preface of Williamson's anthology: Germanic cultures developed their poetry from
song, and both song and verse were the ultimate cultural product of these societies, to
the extent of their music having a crucial social role, in that it was both entertainment
and a codification of their own cosmovision. This, incidentally, links Germanic peoples
with other groups of Indo-European descent, such as the Celts, who in some cases
maintained the tradition of employing bards in noble households, so as to sing and play
in social or religious occasions and increase the prestige of their employer in a very
similar way to that of 12th century skalds, as late as in the 18th century2.

On top of that, we must take into consideration that these two Germanic poetries
had differential evolutions, due to the branching-off of their Volk around the 5th
century. Whilst groups of Angles, Saxons and Jutes from the Frisian area in current
Germany -we are told by Bede- emigrated or were invited over to Britain in order to fill
the power void left by the Roman legions' withdrawal, other Scandinavian Germanic
peoples remained in their traditional settings, and would not meet again until roughly
the 8th century -and when they did, it would be at sword point, as the raiding of
Lindisfarne demonstrates-. The area encompassing modern-day northern Germany,
Denmark, Norway and Sweden would not have suffered the pressure of incoming
Eurasian steppe peoples, most infamous of which were the Huns, and whose approach
triggered the southern Germanic -Goths, Alans, Vandals, Suevians, Franks, and so
forth- migrations. It is not until the 8th century that the Vikingr meet their cousins from
Friese. Incidentally, that is the period in which these two Germanic dialects -and hence,
cultures, inasmuch as language is the key element of cultural distinction and
interpretation of the cosmos- would have evolved in separate ways to the extent of
becoming distinct languages. The cleft is most definitely shown by the fact that, as
Shippey (2011:XI) states, "Some Old Norse poems [...] are written in the meter they
2
The case in point being the Gael or Highlander Scots, descendants of the Irish Goidels that formed the
kingdom of Dalríada in Ulster and the North-Western Scottish Highlands and islands

7
 Final Year Project

called 'fornyrthislag', 'old-world meter', and this is effectively identical to Old English
[...].". This "Old World" style of versification would reference that traditionally shared
by Germanic groups, the substratum and commonality in rules shared by Old English
and Old Norse when both still were present on the European mainland. Then, the Anglo
Saxon branch would evolve into a regularized version of this style, by virtue of their
comparatively early acquiescence with the written word, whereas the still (largely)
illiterate Scandinavians would tread a much more 'liberal' path in the composition of
poetry, giving way to a much richer assortment of mutations upon the traditional verse
form, but at the cost of a lesser range of themes due to their disregard for outer cultural
forms.

That much being said, we must bear in mind that it is likely that Anglo-Saxon
literary production would have fallen in the hands of the church at an early stage,
O'Donoghue (2014:11) tells us, and hence "There is nothing in Old English literature
even approaching the apparently free-reined transmission of pagan traditions in Old
Norse [...].". We must therefore assume that there were significant contrasting
demeanors in either case: Old English retained stable metrics and incorporated themes
from the Christian tradition, whereas Old Norse relied on a stable array of themes which
were in turn further developed, but had substantial format innovations. The Anglo-
Saxon acculturation must have happened quite rapidly, if we take into consideration that
Caedmon's Hymn, a religious poem, as well as the first recorded poem in Old English is
dated in the eighth century, and Anglo-Saxons were a notoriously rural culture,
therefore making them somewhat loath to approach cities and other such hubs of culture
where Christianity was already present.

In the following section we will concentrate on a contrastive exposition of the

themes found in each poetry. Nevertheless, some introductory remarks seem to be
necessary, in order to provide a framework for the classification. The chronology forces
us to divide poetic production in both languages into pre- and post- 11th century
categories. The division is specially crucial in the case of Old Norse, since it is at the
beginning of the 11th century that Christianization begins to take place among the
higher social strata, giving birth to an aculturation-feudalisation process that was
already thoroughly established in the western European status quo, and inflicts changes

8
 Comparative and contrastive analysis of the themes present in OE and ON poetries

in the poetical tradition (by then largely courtly, that is to say, of the Skaldic variety). In
the English world, on the other hand, the Norman conquest in 1066 sweeps the Anglo-
Saxon art aside and triggers both the evolution of Old English to Middle English and
imports continental artistic traditions. From that moment on, Old English alliterative
poetry virtually ceases to exist -some attempts at maintaining it were apparently made,
but by then it was in strong decadence, and with no possible way to stop it-.

One of the main differences supporting this division is that of authorship, which
arrived with a paradigm-shifting influence. In the period between the 6th to 10th
century, almost no authors are known to have signed and endorsed their work. Old
English poetry has merely a few known names, and some of those in this reduced list
are only attributed authors. Caedmon would be the exception, as Bede's accounts tell us,
since the humble cattle-herder entered the halls of literature miraculously and overnight,
being suddenly gifted with a talent for poetry. No early authors have transcended the
realm of scholarly hypothesis in Old Norse, and thus the surviving poems from that
period which we can analyze come from later (12th-13th century) scholarly
compilations. When authorship barges into poetry, specifically, in Old Norse, it is the
product of a new social order. With the Christianization of Scandinavian leaders arrived
a more "segmented" social order, which led to a certain degree of stratification and the
establishment of regal dynasties, and thus the regular Jarl or Kónungr had to build a
personal paraphernalia of reasons backing his leadership. The Scandinavian courts then,
began to incorporate Skaldr, Skalds, poets, probably musicians and freemen, warriors
when needed to, who were tasked with creating the eulogies in favor of their lords.
Come Christianity, an obsession with the afterlife and with constructing a lasting
legacy seems to replace the simple "heathen" tenet of dying bravely in battle. Skaldic
poetry, in its most utilitarian sense stands as a tool for the legitimization of rulers.

Prior to the 11th century in Old Norse we have the collection of poems compiled
in the Codex Regius, of uncertain authorship but dating from circa 12703. The poems
present therein, Gunnell (2005:82) explains, are of the Eddic kind, that is to say, "those
anonymously transmitted 'poems' [...] that deal with the myths or heroic world of the

3
The Codex Regius is a compilation volume, that is to say, a volume containing poems that were
previously available only orally. It is generally acknowledged that the poems themselves are far more
ancient, considering what they deal with, and that they belong to the Eddic tradition.

9
 Final Year Project

Nordic countries [...].". He further elaborates explaining that, as has been proposed for
the case of Old English, this poetry would initially have been transmitted orally, in
declamation and performance, which establishes a clear link amongst the two cultures.
In any case, the compiled versions may have probably suffered changes throughout the
centuries. Among its themes we can count mythology, highly prolific, with examples in
the Völuspá, Þrymskviða, and so on, ten mythological poems all in all, whilst the
remaining nineteen are an assortment of heroic Germanic/Scandinavian characters from
the distant past. Heroic Eddic poems share something quite common to their Anglo
Saxon counterpart also in that they are somehow "atemporal"; the events they tell,
fictional or with some factual grounding, are deliberately unspecified in time, probably
so as to add a tinge of universality to them. Indeed, we have the presence of metal
weaponry and such items, sizeable settlements and the like, but the historicity has been
removed from them. There is no actual way of dating the events depicted therein, these
stories could have been in circulation in different versions throughout the Germanic
world since as far back as the Bronze Age, until their recording in the Middle Ages. The
segment of time spanned in between challenges the modern perception of stories as
something with shelf-life, to be consumed and thrown away. The very same thing
happens, for instance, as far as the Irish heroic cycles are concerned -Chuchulainn's
cattle-raiding and brawling exploits are nigh impossible to date as well-.

In the Old English landscape, on the other hand, the most remarkable poem
permeating this period would, of course, be none other than Beowulf. Albeit recorded in
the 11th century, the poem depicts events in 6th century Scandinavia, therefore making
it safe to assume that the general story had been in circulation for some 400 years
engulfing the entire pan-Germanic world. Epics about good and evil with a strong focus
on the implications of the death and legacy of their Heroes, inasmuch as they are
pictured as paragons of their communities, must have constituted a popular genre
indeed, if we take into consideration that both Anglo-Saxon oriented Beowulf and the
Old Norse Helgakviða present in the Codex Regius share this particular feature, and
they are both arranged around an Hero's Youth/Hero's Old Age division. It is impossible
to tell if there ever were other epics in the style of Beowulf composed in or at least
adapted to Anglo-Saxon, but the systematic prevalence of the "Lay" -depicting and

10
 Comparative and contrastive analysis of the themes present in OE and ON poetries

reflecting upon the death of heroic or mythological characters- subtype in heroic poetry
in Old Norse seems to point to this conclusion.

No Anglo-Saxon mythological poetry has survived to our days, and references to

Germanic myth are extremely scarce in Old English texts, even in historical treatises
such as those of Bede. There is virtually no way of knowing about Anglo-Saxon pre-
Christian myth and worship, aside from a few -and somewhat dodgy- correspondences
between Anglo-Saxon dynasty-founder gods and Norse gods, as we understand the
latter from 13th century sources, as well as the naming of the days in the week - the
well-known Thursday/Thor's day pairing, etc-. Supposedly, Hengist and Horsa, the
quasi-mythical chieftains of Anglo-Saxon migration to Britannia traced their bloodline
to Woden, or Odin, but even though we can see the correspondence, post-migration
Christian scribes elaborate further back and grant the title of founding father to one of
the sons of Noah. Which raises the question of why weekdays were left as they were:
Could it be that their naming had lost all significance to say, a regular 10th century
farmer -Aethelhors by name- of a Wessex hamlet?

Nevertheless, the presence of Christian religious poems in Old English is

noteworthy for its earliness; Caedmon's Hymn, the very first poem dealing with this
topic is dated as early on as the 8th century. We can therefore extrapolate that the
abandonment of pagan beliefs had been quite rapid throughout the entire heptarchy, and
that the new faith was eagerly embraced. As argued in the case of conversion amongst
Celtic peoples of the druidic persuasion, one of the reasons for this would have probably
been that, unlike in pagan ceremonies, Christian ritual does not demand the sacrifice of
property, livestock, or even humans to appease the gods. The findings of metal age -
usually Iron Age- items in ponds and marshes abound throughout the European Atlantic
fringe, from Ireland to Germany, and it is easy to propose that, given the chance to do
so, medieval Englishmen and women would rather keep their property and lives than
forfeiting them in the form of blut or ritual sacrifice to appease fickle gods. Couple that
with the pressure coming from the European mainland's powers, be it in the form of the
pope, or the many regal dynasties -often times of Germanic descent too-, the fear of
excommunication from the political sphere and subsequent invasion, etc. Anglo-Saxon
kings would probably not have much choice if they chose to cling on to power, and

11
 Final Year Project

once the rulers converted, the vassal system machinery worked so that conversion
would extend downwards in the social pyramid.

As a counterpart, riddle poetry in Old English, which can be found anthologized

in the Exeter Book has no equivalence in Scandinavian sources. This is certainly
surprising, since it would be fairly easy to accept the hypothesis of elements for popular
entertainment, as riddles would undoubtedly have constituted in the dark ages,
transpiring to compilations of poetry such as the ones surviving today. Social gatherings
in mead-halls or any given communal area could easily have been lively with contests
of wit, and the intricacy of riddles could have been the provider of much entertainment.
Of course, both poetries share some 'riddle' elements within, via the usage of kennings
and such other figures of speech, by which the audience forcefully needs to interpret the
meaning behind the words. O'Donoghue (2014:6) rightly claims that "in building a
kenning, poets often drew on mythological stories or alluded to mythological figures.",
and hence a lack of knowledge in the interpretation would pose a riddle in itself. But, it
seems that there is a hint pointing to the actual presence of riddles in Norse culture, as
can be extrapolated from the riddle duel between Odin and the giant Vafþrúðnir, in the
third poem of the Codex Regius, and therefore much in the core of Norse mythology. Be
that as it may, there is no knowing why riddle poetry in Old Norse was never written
down, or, if it ever existed, how and why it came to be lost.

Elegiac poetry, that is to say, laments, seems to be another of the purely Anglo-
Saxon genres. It has been pointed out by Klinck (2001:25) that speaking of Elegy as a
genre in Old English poetry would be somewhat rash, since the "elegies" are not
grouped together, and they do not follow an established thematic pattern; rather than
that, she speaks of an 'Elegiac mood'. However, we consider this standpoint to be
excessively dependant on the traditionally genuine Greek elegy, that is, following a
specific meter and with a set of pre-established tropes. Undoubtedly, the genre -since
we consider it to be so- in itself was inherited from Mediterranean traditions, ancient
Greek and Roman, probably through the manuscripts safeguarded by the Church after
their introduction in Roman Britain. The Anglo-Saxon learned elite of the time would
have, upon discovery of traditional Elegies, have produced an approximation as best as
they were able to, if not by replicating formalisms, then by extracting the essence of the

12
 Comparative and contrastive analysis of the themes present in OE and ON poetries

genre and transporting it to their own culture. Klinck (2001:11) goes on explaining the
particularisms of Old English Elegy, inasmuch as "the concept of 'elegy' in an Anglo-
Saxon context provides us with a convenient locus for particular themes: exile, loss of
loved ones, scenes of desolation, the transcience of worldly joys.". These seem to be
thoroughly suitable topics to be entreated by the genre in question, and as such,
although they may not 'stick to the rules', the Old English Elegies do capture the very
soul of the matter at hand. We should also highlight that, given the great number of
poems considered to be elegies, or, for those reluctant to brand them, at least 'elegiac', it
could be fairly safe to state that these poems were popular. Arguably, the 'elegiac' mood
even wormed its way into heroic poetry.

As an explanation for this phenomenon, we could state that it is, arguably,

rooted in the Christian cosmology, whereby there is a constant sense of self-
mortification, contrition and lamentation as an integral part of life -the valley of tears-,
whereas in the Norse counterpart, there would not have been such drama. Different
cosmovisions would have created an appetite for different art, a maxim that remains
true to this day. In Old Norse poetry, whenever there is lamentation, it is due to anger,
rather than genuine sentiment for the loss of someone dear, as is the case in Wulf und
Eadwacer, present in the Exeter Book. Strong emotionality would have constituted a
rich vein from whence to draw inspiration, but for whichever reasons, it seems that the
Norse culture eschewed the very notion of it.

Should we venture into post-11th century types of poetry, we would forcefully

have to tackle the Skaldic tradition in Old Norse. Skaldic is the name given to the
tradition led by the skald, the Norse equivalent of a bard, who authored his -and, as late
theories suggest, even her- work and favored much more contemporary topics of the
age, notably historical, as part of a nobleman's courtly entourage. Nevertheless, it is also
necessary to remind ourselves about the fact that, as Mundal (2008:224) points out, "In
the Old Norse society Skaldic poetry in oral tradition existed side by side with Eddic
poetry in oral tradition, probably often performed by the same people". The
chronological division performed in this essay does not imply that these types of poetry
were mutually exclusive, that there was once only Eddic, and then only Skaldic; it
references the notion of which of the types was most important at a given period. It is

13
 Final Year Project

not as if there were no 'bards' until the 11th century and they appeared out of the blue in
Norwegian courts, materializing overnight, nor is it as if the demand for traditional
Eddic poetry had all but died out. Both coexisted, but in each period the scales tilted to
one side or the other.

This tradition is led by the Skald figure, a term originally from Iceland, roughly
equivalent with 'poet' or 'bard' but which extended to the entirety of the Scandinavian
world. The fact is that Icelander skalds were so well-learned and proficient in their art
that they were called upon by mainland aristocrats, which led to the commonplace and
generic usage of the term.

The Skald is employed by an aristocrat, and is mainly tasked with the

composition of praises about his patron, for all to hear and to extend his fame and
legacy. Skaldic poems, in our period of interest, differ from the traditional Eddic poems
in that, as indicated above, they have authors and are historically traceable. Moreover,
they introduce more intricate meters and some variations in themes, although the basis
is consistent with that of traditional heroic/mythological poetry: Even though the poems
praise historical characters, they do so in a 'larger-than-life' way, aggrandizing mere
humans and granting them a heroic status and prowess not too distant from that of
Beowulf himself, and thus these poems do have a certain tinge of the
heroic/mythological ethos.

Several genres or themes arose within this tradition. One of the most remarkable
ones would be the Icelandic Family Saga, in which we can find the travels and struggles
of 10th century Scandinavian settlers -Norwegian in origin for the most part- in
Iceland. The reason for this particular genre to be so prolific is that Iceland had a most
particular character since its first settlement; separated from the mainland and populated
with daring adventurers or exiles, a sort of Atlantic wild frontier, it very soon developed
a stark sense of identity and a very distinct system for political organization -standing as
a republic with a parliament independent from Norway very early on-. Family Sagas
would therefore stand as the Icelandic 'genesis' and the birth of a nation, which is why
they were only composed within the Icelander setting. They stand as the reminder of
their character to a people that braved adverse conditions, a matter of pride and a
tradition perceived to be very much a matter of prestige.

14
 Similarities: Common issues addressed

On top of that, we have the very particular inception of 'slander' poetry, or Nið
poetry, which, although not particularly abundant, we believe is important in the
development of Old Norse poetry. Nið poetry, which is entwined in larger poems,
probably responds to the new order created in Scandinavian courts from the 11th
century onwards. With the greater amount of stratification that would have probably
developed at that point in time, the internal power struggles would certainly have
become rather 'cloak-and-dagger' political maneuvering.

It would be rather logical to assume that words had power in the Germanic mind,
considering that since almost no written media were available, word-of-mouth was the
way of transmission for almost every single piece of information. The very act of
speaking well or bad about any given topic or person would heavily influence audiences
otherwise unable to contrast the veracity of the statement. Incidentally, for continental
tribes of Germanic descent, the only way of setting down any messages were the runic
alphabets, which were not all that much used. The actual scarceness of runic texts points
to a key issue; runescript had not only an artistic character, but almost certainly a
religious one as well. Runes, incidentally, seem to have survived only in hard supports,
those being either wood or stone -tombstones in the latter case, a fact from which we
extrapolate a confirmed religious use-. Hence, it is fairly safe to argue that, as Ross
(2011:41) states, "'Níð' poetry is akin to sorcery, that is, the practice of magical arts
supposed to cause particular damage to their victims, whether physical or mental.".
Damaging a political opponent, weakening him/her would certainly be an attractive,
although potentially dangerous bargain.

Considering the points presented previously, we will introduce the

commonalities and differences found. The following section will highlight the extent of
the relation uniting or dividing these two poetries, and it also will support the idea of
them being quite distinct from each other -a notion very much present in the paper thus
far-.

3.1.1 Similarities: Common issues addressed

As far as the analysis performed in the previous section goes, we could argue
that the similarities in literary themes present in Old English and Old Norse poetries are

15
 Final Year Project

reduced to Heroic themes as in Beowulf, The Battle of Maldon, or Egil's Saga in the
Poetic Edda.

This starkly points out to a commonality at an early stage of development,

reminiscing of largely hypothetical periods encompassing the pre-historic past, when,
since as explained previously, both poetries would have shared the same cultural
scenario as well as material surroundings. Even in the case of rather 'historical' pieces,
such as The Battle of Maldon, we are still facing the ever-pervasive trope of the flawed
hero's undoing -the extensively discussed ofermōde of the leading Ӕtheling causing
attacking vikings to fight in a better position and hence bring defeat upon Anglo-
Saxons, in this particular case-, and the sacrificial nature of the Hero.

3.1.2. Differences: Christian tropes vs. Pagan' craic'

The previous analysis has shown us that there are actually a great many
differences between Old English and Old Norse themes in poetry, as well as other
crucial elements involved. Old English, first and foremost, is, to a large extent, of
anonymous authorship, whereas Old Norse poetry is a mixture of anonymous and
authored works, the latter specifically in the skaldic tradition. Whereas this is due to the
very differential and asynchronic context in which they were produced, it does make us
wonder why Anglo-Saxon poets, having all the proper media for artistic production (set
institutions, codified language, a tradition, even funding from patrons) refused to
acknowledge authorship. Was it out of humility, or was it a conscious choice of making
something that transcended the property -intellectual and material- of an individual, and
therefore was intended to belong to the whole community?

As we have seen, in the period ranging from the 6th to 11th century, which spans
the entirety of the Anglo-Saxon period and literary creation in the British context, and
the moment of preeminence of Eddic poetry in Scandinavia, the themes present in each
poetry vary significantly. Old Norse poems deal with two main themes, those being
heroic exploits and mythology; Old English poetry has a much wider variety of themes,
aside from the communal heroic poetry (elegies, riddles, religion, etc.), in which we can
see a clear influence of the Church.

16
 Alliterative poetry

Come the 11th century, the Norman Conquest puts an end to Anglo-Saxon
supremacy in Britain, obliterating their poetry, whilst Old Norse poetry continues its
development. The themes it deals with are of increasing particularity, and have no
equivalence across the Atlantic, as exemplified, for instance, by Icelander Family Sagas.

3.2. Alliterative poetry

3.2.1. Sound-governed poetry

In order to understand the actual internal workings of Old English and Old Norse
poetries, we need to have some previous notions about them4. When we tag Old English
and Old Norse poetries as 'alliterative', we are referring to the phenomenon of
alliteration, that is to say, the repetition of sounds inside the verses of a given poem.
These verses are normally to be arranged into halves, separated by a caesura or pause,
and only certain kinds of elements may be suitable to bear the alliterative sound -these
being nouns or adjectives for the most part-. The dominant element conditioning the
alliteration is to be found in the second section of the verse, after the caesura, and this
sound must have at least a pairing in the first section for the alliteration to work, as
explained by Hasenfratz and Jambeck (2005:482). There is also need to mention the
hypermetrical verses, which are rare, but nevertheless present.

Although it is customary to find syllabic count in both Old English and Old
Norse commentaries of verse, Ross (2011:22) explains that "eddic poetry is stanzaic
[...]. The lines, although of variable syllabic count, are usually considerably shorter than
those of other early Germanic verse, such as Old English, [...] the result of a strongly
realised syncope of syllabes that did not bear strong stress.". Therefore it is rather likely
that unstressed elements would have suffered syncope in some degree, which to the
native performer and audience highlighted only the stress-bearing elements. For
expositional purposes we shall also comment on the syllabic count of the verse-types,
but the reader should bear in mind that this aspect is a means of clarifying, and not
really that crucial.

4
This is especially true in the case of Spanish readers, and might just as well prove somewhat
complicated to readers belonging to other classical poetical traditions.

17
 Final Year Project

As Pasternack (1995:9) states, "This method of layout requires that the reader be
familiar with aural patterns and be prepared to interpret the structures of the texts.",
which would certainly be easy for native fluent speakers of both Old Norse and Old
English, but which nowadays is nigh impossible due to the uneasiness with which these
languages are uttered in recorded declamations5.

Moreover, and according to Momma (1997:2), "the Anglo-Saxons could

probably hear the difference between verse and every-day speech (and perhaps even
prose read-aloud from writings).". This stands starkly in opposition to, for example,
Spanish poetry, which works according to verse-final rhyme, set numbers of syllables
for each verse and arrangement of these in groups to adjust to a given template.

3.2.2. Similarities and divergences in forming alliterative verses in OE & ON

Once provided with that preliminary notion, we should tackle the actual way in
which versification happened. We should begin with the more 'basic' kinds of
alliterative verse, that is to say, Old Norse Eddic Fornyrðislag and any given Old
English verse.

Fornyrðislag roughly translates as 'Old-World', or 'Old Story'-metre, meaning

that, as mentioned before in this paper, it passed on to the realm of artistry codified as
referencing a previous stage in history. It consists of half lines separated by caesura,
with usually two stressed elements on each half, and the element determining the
alliteration is the first stressed element of the second half-verse, as explained by
Larrington (2014:XXVIII). In that it is virtually equal to Old English meter, which is
ruled by the very same principles (see Annex 1, containing Sievers' Old English verse
types), and where, for the most part, each line has four stressed syllables.

The following Old Norse example, provided by Larrington (Idem), should prove
useful in illustrating the actual form of Fornyrðislag. If we compare it to the sample Old
English verses provided in the annex, we should clearly spot the parallelism.

5
Several recitations of Old English poems are available in the electronic media, namely via Youtube, for
the interested reader.

18
 Similarities and divergences in forming alliterative verses in OE & ON

x x x x

Hér má Hödðbroddr Helga kenna,

x x x x

flótta trauðan, í flota miðiom;

x x x x

hann hefir eðli ættar þinnar

x x x x

arf Fiörsunga, und sic þrungit.6

Figure 1: Second Poem of Helgi Hundingsbani. v. 207

As we can see, Fornyrðislag is virtually identical to Old English verse in that it

also has four stressed elements. Note, likewise, the arrangement into half-verses with a
pause or caesura in-between, and the fact that the alliterative element on the second
half-verse -in italics- is the one to be included in the remainder of the line for
alliteration to work. In the example above, we would have the [x], [fl] for the second
line, and the vowels for the third and fourth lines.

Devices common in oral poetry throughout the world are also present in Old
Norse and Old English. Namely, repetition of set formulae, often in the form of
kenning, so as to address characters partaking in the action seems to be common. This is
not only exclusive of these poetries, since ancient Greek poetry also has the presence of
set epithets for referencing the heroes.

Scragg (1994:57) states that "All Old English poetry is of such uniformity in
form and language that it is impossible to establish even relative dating with any
certainty.", whence we should highlight the 'uniformity' part. In spite of Anglo-Saxon
6
Note that, both in Old English and Old Norse, any vowels can alliterate with each other, on account of
them being pronounced with something of a 'schwá' quality in declamation.
7
The 'x' above the verses mark the placement of the stress, whilst the italics highlight the alliterative
sound repeated inside each verse.

19
 Final Year Project

acquiescence with the written medium, it is certainly surprising to see how the very
same patterns of alliteration varied nigh to nothing in time, considering that poetic
creation would have been partaken by illiterate elements of society (although the ones
codifying it would certainly be monks). This may be an indicator of Anglo-Saxon poetic
tradition being much more corseted that its Norse counterpart, or that, if developments
upon versification arose, some sort of censorship would have prevented them from
appearing in any of the surviving compilations.

On the other hand, Old Norse verses experienced a gradual mutation over time,
even in the Eddic variety, that is, at early stages. Following the explanations of
Larrignton (2014:XXIX), we may find Málaháttr, or 'speech-metre', an augmented
eight-syllable Fornyrðislag of five stresses to each line and double alliteration in the
first half-line, the repetitive Galdralag, or 'spell-measure', or Ljóðaháttr or 'song-metre',
used for dialogues, with stanzas divided in halves, each half consisting of a long line
with four stresses and up to three alliterative syllables plus a short line with two stresses
and two alliterating syllables. Ljóðaháttr is remarkable due to the innovative
arrangement it creates, as we can see in figure 2.

x x x x

Hiarðir þat vito, nær þær heim scolo,

x x

oc ganga þá af grasi;

x x x x

enn ósviðr maðr kann ævagi

x x

síns um mál maga.

Figure 2. Sayings of the High One, v. 21

The alliteration in this example is achieved by the repetition of the [x] and the -
interchangeable eth and thorn as secondary alliteration in the first line, then the velar

20
 Similarities and divergences in forming alliterative verses in OE & ON

plosive [g] in the second line (or third half-verse). Afterwards, we would find the
vowels alliterating in the third line, and the [m] in the last line.

The Old Norse metre development goes even further in the Skaldic tradition;
Dróttkvætt or 'courtly-metre' being by far the preferential. It is stanzaic, each stanza
divided in halves, and each containing an statement. It has set hexasyllabic verses and
its main addition to Eddic poetry is that it adds internal rhyme on top of pre-existing
alliteration. Internal rhyme worked much like alliteration, only within the boundaries of
the verse: If for alliteration the governing sound had to have -at least- a pairing in the
first half verse, then internal rhyme required for these particular sound to be repeated
within the verse as well. We shall not delve into the particularities and classification of
Dróttkvætt verse according to internal rhyme for lack of space to do so in this paper -
volumes have been written about the topic-, but suffice to say that Kuhn established a
general categorization built upon Sievers' in Das Dróttkvætt (1983), whose possible
variations exponentially raise the available array of forms for versification in Old Norse.
Incidentally, this adds enormous amounts of complication to composition, and requires
expert artists to put their wits whole-heartedly into play, in contraposition with the
rather simple eddic Fornyrðislag. Yet it was also possible to go one step further, as
Ross (2011:22) explains: "There were a number of variants of the drótkvaett measure
[...]. Among the most notable is hrynhenda, in which the length of each line was
expanded from six to eight syllabes.", which calls for even further complication in
juggling with alliteration and internal rhyme.

Other types of skaldic verse would be the Runhenda, the only case of Old Norse
poetry where end-rhyme is used, and which was usually paired with Fornyrðislag. The
verses, according to Lyon (2003:254), themselves stand as regular eddic verses, only
following an "abababab" pattern. Aside from that, there is also the Kuiðuháttr,
consisting on lines of three and four syllables and lacking regular rhyme.

That gives us at the very least six further developments upon the common
alliterative verse shared both by Old English and Old Norse, making it plain to the eye
that the Scandinavian context would have benefitted from a quite remarkable climate of
compositional freedom at early stages, and a great specialization -academicism, even-
on the part of the performers on the latter part of its evolution. Old English, for

21
 Final Year Project

whichever reasons unknowable to us, seemed to focus on the traditional verse type
inherited from Germanic, and made little attempt at innovation.

3.2.2.1. Old English Verse types vs. Old Norse meter variety

As we have clearly seen in the previous section, there is much difference

between Old English verse types and the dazzling variety of Old Norse Meter. Whereas
Sievers establishes five patterns for the verse in Old English, all of which are but mere
variations on the position of the stressed elements in each half-verse, we have seen that
those serve as the basis from which Old Norse treads a path of increasing intricacy and
subtlety for the creation of poetry.

Summarizing what has been proposed, it seems clear enough that there is indeed
a divide between both poetries. Despite their common ancestry, and the fact of being
related with other poetries of Germanic descent (High-German, for example), crucial
factors as the separation from the European mainland and their own socio-historical
development, social structures, and so forth, would have steered them increasingly apart
from each other.

Although doubtful at best, given the desolating lack of evidence at hand, it is

quite appealing to entertain the notion of Old English poetry having developed some
more intricate verses, probably among performers quite outside of the settled channels
for the transmission of poetry. It certainly seems rather unlikely that secular poets (or
even the more adventurous characters within the monasteries) would merely have
resorted to the established patterns over some five centuries, with no variations
whatsoever. Then again, these hypothetical developments would have never entered the
surviving manuscripts, on account of the environment the latter were produced being so
secluded.

Anglo-Saxon verse is characterized by its stability and endurance -quite

surprising given the amount of time encompassed, we must add-, whilst Old Norse
would have trodden a path to increasing levels of elaborateness. So much so, that, in the
words of O'Donoghue (2014:6), "Its distinctive metre -'drótkvaett' or 'court(ly) metre'- is

22
 Usage and form of lyrical resources in OE & ON

extremely intricate, involving not only patterns of stress and alliteration [...], but also
syllabe counting and internal full and half ryme in the eight short lines of each stanza".
The more developed art form, therefore, and to the contrary of general regards about
Norse cultures being merely comprised by murderous, axe-heaving and plundering
brutes, is that of Old Norse poetry. Its Anglo-Saxon counterpart certainly pales by
comparison.

3.2.3 Usage and form of lyrical resources in OE&ON

The nature of the poetic figures used in these literatures stands yet another
important aspect upon which to comment. Alliterative rhyme aside, the other major
component differentiating Anglo-Saxon and Norse Poetry from everyday-speech would
quite clearly be the inclusion of figurative forms of speech in order to embellish the
poems. These lyrical resources are commonly categorized as either Kennings (or
Kenningar) and Heiti. In both cases, we face a phenomenon that has much to do with
semiotics: The relation between signifier and signified is twisted in figurative speech.

As far as the usage and form of the lyrical resources in Old English and Old
Norse are involved, we can clearly establish a divide between the two languages. Old
Norse appears to be the most prolific of the two in these matters, as will be explained
later, whilst Old English shows a, comparatively speaking, rather reduced presence of
Kennings.

3.2.3.1 Kennings in Old English, Eddic Old Norse and Skaldic Old Norse

Kennings are a common element uniting Old English and Old Norse poetries.
They consist of (usually) a noun phrase made up by two elements8, which are intended

8
Incidentally, the composition of the kenning essentially coincides with the ways for noun formation of
languages of Germanic descent, which are more clearly seen nowadays in German, on account of its
resistance towards loanwords and historical favoring of vernacular neologisms to supply additions to the
lexicon. It is fairly commonplace to find instances whereby composition is used to reference concepts,
even in cases as prosaic as Flugzeug (literally, 'flight device'), for instance. Compound nouns in German
clearly bear a resemblance to kennings in that they are normally restrained to two elements meant to
signify a single concept.

23
 Final Year Project

to convey the meaning of a term semantically unrelated to them. This they do via
relations of metonymy towards the signified, or by metaphorical allusions, often
connected to the mythological references associated to the signified. Hence, some
examples would be Old Norse Ӕgis dóttir (Aegis' daughter) to signify 'wave' -Aegis'
daughter Kólga is the mythological personification of waves-, or Old English hwæl-weġ
(whale's way) to signify the sea. Note that, when taken separately, none of the elements
in the Kenning, that is to say, the signifiers, have any semantic relation whatsoever to
the signified, but the literary value lies on the evocation of the image.

In the case of Old English poetry, we happen to stumble upon a quite puzzling
situation. As O'Donoghue (2010:66) explains, "Compared with Old Norse, there are
relatively few kennings in Old English, and they consist of only two elements linked in
a characteristically genitival relationship: the X of Y.". There is no way of actually
knowing why Anglo-Saxons made so little use of kennings, considering that at that
point in time the general trend followed that of all Germanic languages; the general
tendency was to supply lexicon by word formation mechanisms such as derivation or
composition, so it seems rather logical to expect the application of this principle to
poetry.

This seems to add further weight to the thesis of differential evolution regarding
Old English and Old Norse Poetries, since, as we will explain, the use of Kenningar in
Old Norse appears rather all-pervasive and constant in both Eddic and Skaldic
traditions. Eddic Kennings are of a more mundane nature, however, often referencing
contemporary everyday life items such as "warrior", "battle", "ship", etc., coupled with
mythological references for natural phenomena such as storms and the like -
commonplace events, all in all-, whereas it is in the Skaldic tradition that the majority of
mythological references arise. This last phenomenon is probably due to the
development of poetry as a prestige discipline, requiring a more extensive cultural
background to produce and understand.

Furthermore, Old Norse Skaldic examples appear to be fairly conventional, in

the sense that the structures and references tend to be set, even leading us to question
whether post-11th century Christianized Skalds would have really understood the
metaphorical contents, or if, on the other hand, the image had faded due to the turn of

24
 Heiti as a particular development of ON poetry

phrase becoming a conventionalism, yet another synonym. As Lindow (2005:28) states,

"[...] the narratives of myth had to be passed from generation to generation, even if
belief in them had died with the conversion.", or else there would have probably been
cases of Kennings with Christian references.

3.2.3.2 Heiti as a particular development of ON poetry

The poetical devices used both in Old English and Old Norse seem to stem from
a common source, inasmuch as can be extrapolated by their nature: The ruling principle
in both cases is the establishment of association to the signified element via
metaphorical allusion or metonymy. Once again, this points towards a common
inheritance from the Germanic past, but there seems to be a further development rather
exclusive to Old Norse, that is much less found in Old English poetry: The Heiti.

The Heiti seem to have been left aside by scholars of Old Norse, and hence
scarcely studied. That is to say that, as proposed by Bravo (1998:29), Heiti have
sometimes been disregarded as yet another type -or subtype- of Kenning, or even
altogether mistaken for the latter. Far from our intent to say that the Heiti constitute
research material for the composition of monographic treatises by themselves, after all,
they stand as rather simple single-term associations. However, the reason behind their
prevalent presence in Old Norse, whilst being eschewed in Old English poetry remains
a mystery, and ripe for hearty speculation.

The distinction between both figures was originally established by Snorri

Sturlusson -from whom we have also inherited the terminology to refer to them-,
whereby the Heiti are 'uncategorized' terms, and the Kenningar 'categorized' elements.
The lack of categorization has much to do with the terms used being general, whereas
the signified element of the kenning is very precise. As an example, a heiti for 'sword'
could be laufa,(leaf), quite a broad categorization, since the heiti is equally applicable to
anything vaguely leaf-shaped. A kenning for sword -of the many possible, since it is one
of the most abundant terms- would actually be much more precise, as in, for example,
naðr sára ('the snake of wounds'). Considering the sword a snake of wounds on account
of its elongated form, the gleam it shares with reptile scales, and the very fact that it is

25
 Final Year Project

used for biting into the flesh of an enemy certainly narrows down the array of possible
associations.

Heiti, as opposed to Kennings, seem to be a particular development present

mostly in Old Norse poetry. Heiti are individual, 'marked' terms, closely associated to
the signified and often constituting synonyms, but which substitute the prosaic noun for
a more elaborate one. It must also be noted that these are used mostly to refer to rather
commonplace terms. Thus, one would refer to a weapon by the generic and rather
metaphorical stál 'steel', instead of the common, everyday-use term, the skóðs rimmu
'battle's dangerous tool' Kenning being one of the possible alternatives. However, the
boundaries become somewhat blurry regarding some terms: One of the heiti for Odin
would be the widely known Alfǫðr 'All-father', which, although being a single term, has
more in common with kennings in that it draws upon myth for its significance.

Hypothetically speaking, the extensive presence of Heiti in Old Norse poetry

would be closely linked to the fact of this one poetry being far more elaborate in its
conception. The metaphorical allusions being present in both poetries, it seems
reasonable to think that Heiti followed in the wake of the Kenningar as a means of
further aggrandizing the language of the poem and of adding more richness to the final
product. Not only would noun phrases be metaphorical, but also single nouns would be
substituted by a more "poetical" surrogate in order to add grandeur to the events
narrated.

In short, what we propose is that the Heiti arose as a byproduct of an already

existing trend towards metaphorical speech, present both in Old English and Old Norse
under the form of the Kenning, but which was carried further on in the case of Old
Norse poetry, extending it to single terms as well. We would like to hypothesize this
phenomenon took place because of the addition of internal rhyme in skaldic meter. It
seems reasonable to expect that the choosing of a general over the original term could
have arisen due to practical reasons, so as to actually fulfill the format requirements of
the verse used.

As we have explained previously, the developments in meter in Old Norse led to

increasingly complex types of verse, plus the internal rhyme, which would have led to a

26
 Main results and conclusions

need for re-structuring the original phrase into something that would follow said tenets
of syllable count and alliterative elements needed. An intelligent way to cope with the
increased difficulty would be actually inserting surrogates for terms that presented
problems of any sort, provided they met the required specifications and had some
relation to the original meaning.

3.3. Main Results and conclusions

Regarding the themes present in Old English and Old Norse poetry, the analysis
provided above seems to indicate that, following the hypothesis driving this paper, each
stands as a very particular movement with a differential evolution, despite their
common substrate. Old Norse poetry shows a much more varied array of themes, as
well as a far more elaborate nature in them, with the presence of very particular types
born of its own idiosyncrasies. Even the presence of lyrical resources such as Kennings
and Heiti is much greater in Old Norse in contraposition with Old English poetry,
despite the fact of the basic notions for their appearance and development being shared.
Old English poetry, on the other hand, has a more "stale" character, in contraposition
with the free-reined mutations of its Scandinavian cousin.

The same can be said regarding the metrics aspect of both Poetries: Whereas on
the one hand Old English remains stagnated in the traditional, two half-verse plus
caesura 'Old World' meter, Old Norse evolves exponentially increasing the technical
difficulty of its verses, as well as incorporating entirely new features.

We can therefore conclude that, as stated before, Old Norse and Old English
poetries are quite different from each other, and that they stand as very definite
individual literatures. The differences in terms of the advent of new themes in Old
Norse, its prolific character regarding more elevated forms of language, as well as the
evolution of Old Norse meters in contraposition with the rather fixed Old English ones
is due to the particularities of their socio-historical developments. The innovations in
themes in Old Norse are coincidental and closely linked with the advancement of Norse
societies as well as the colonization of new territories during the Viking age,
increasingly polishing and enhancing a previously folkloric art into more elaborate

27
 Final Year Project

forms. Needless to mention that there was a great difference in terms of population
potentially capable of producing poetry benefitting Old Norse poetry: The establishment
of settlements throughout the Atlantic in order to relieve demographical pressure in the
motherland would have been followed by a pervasive and constant demographic growth
in the newly settled areas. Thus, if more members of a given culture are born, the
chances of individuals to be able to dedicate themselves to the arts also rise. In short,
there would have surely been far more skalds than monks composing alliterative poetry
at any given rate.

Old English poetry, being confined to Great Britain alone and produced by a
more reduced group of literate intelligentsia of the period, is therefore more codified
and prone to much less innovation be it in terms of themes or meter. Aside from that,
the actual production period corresponding to Old English poetry is put to an end by the
Norman conquest in 1066, with the social changes it ensued, as well as the favoring of
continental romance traditions by the new aristocracy, not to mention the evolution of
English during the middle ages, with phenomena like massive borrowing of French
lexicon and changes in intonational stress patterns provoked by said language, which
would certainly have modified English, making it rather unfit for the composition of
alliterative verse following the traditional tenets.

These reasons should ideally add weight to the claim of these movements being
altogether separate traditions stemming from a common, prehistoric root, and hence,
help better clarify that the "Germanic" label stands as a generalization, not to be used
carelessly. In truth, what we face are two truly distinct poetries, created in the midst of
two definitely distinct cultures. If Anglo-Saxons, Germans and Scandinavians in general
stand as cousins, genetically speaking, then so are their cultural manifestations; they all
rise from a common root and a shared likeness, but each results in a definitely distinct
entity, not in some clone.

28
 References

References

 Bravo, Antonio. 1998. Los lays heroicos y los cantos épicos cortos en el Inglés
Antiguo. Oviedo: Universidad de Oviedo Publicaciones. Print.
 Hasenfratz, Robert & Jambeck, Thomas. 2005. Reading Old English: A primer
and First Reader (1st edition). Morgantown (WV, USA): West Virginia
University Press. Print.
 Gunnell, Terry. 2005. "Eddic poetry". A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic
Literature and Culture. Editor: McTurk, Rory. Oxford (UK): Blackwell
Publishing Ltd. P.82-101. Print.
 Klinck, Anne Lingard. 2001. The Old English Elegies: A critical Edition and
Genre Study. Montreal (Canada): McGill-Queen's University Press. Print.
 Larrington, Carolyne. 2014. The Poetic Edda (revised edition). Oxford: Oxford
University Press. Print.
 Lehmann, Petra. 1997. "The Music Culture and Music System of Aboriginal
Australia". Aratjara: Aboriginal Culture and Literature in Australia. Editors:
Riemenschneider, Dieter & Davis, Geoffrey V. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi. P.
225-231. Print.
 Lyon, Travis. 2003. Forms of Poetry. Pittsburgh (USA): TeaLemon
Publications. Print.
 Mitchell, Bruce & Robinson, Fred C. 1998. Beowulf: An Edition. Malden (MA,
USA): Blackwell Publishers Inc.. Print.
 Momma, H. 1997. The Composition of Old English Poetry. Cambridge (UK):
Cambridge University Press. Print.
 Mundal, Else. 2008. "Oral or Scribal Variation in Vǫluspá: A Case Study in Old
Norse Poetry". Oral Art Forms and their passage into Writing. Editors: Mundal,
Else & Vellendorf, Jonas. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. P. 209-225.
Print.
 Lindow, John. 2005. "Mythology and Mythography". Old Norse-Icelandic
Literature: A critical guide. Editors: Clover, Carol J. & Lindow, John. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press. P. 21-68. Print.

29
 Final Year Project

 O'Donoghue, Heather. 2014. English Poetry and Old Norse Myth: A History.
Oxford (UK): Oxford University Press. Print.
 O'Donoghue, Heather. 2010. "Owed to both sides: W.H. Auden's Double Debt
to the Literature of the North". Anglo-Saxon culture and the modern
Imagination. Editors: Clark, David & Perkins, Nicholas. Cambridge: D.S.
Brewer. P. 51-71. Print.
 Pasternack, Carol Braun. 2011. The Textuality of Old English Poetry.
Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press, 1995. Print.
 Ross, Margaret Clunies. A History of Old Norse Poetry and Poetics. Rochester
(NY, USA): D.S. Brewer. Print.
 Russom, Geoffrey. 1998. Beowulf and Old Germanic Metre. Cambridge (UK):
Cambridge University Press. Print.
 Scragg, Donald G. 1994. "The nature of Old English Verse". The Cambridge
companion to Old English Literature. Editors: Godden, Malcom & Lapige,
Michael. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. P. 55-71. Print.
 Suzuki, Seiichi. 2014. The Meters of Old Norse Eddic Poetry. Berlin: De
Gruyter GmbH.. Print.
 Williamson, Craig. 2011. Beowulf and other Old English Poems. Philadelphia
(PA, USA): University of Pennsylvania Press. Print.

External resources:

 Skaldic Project Academic Body Database.

Available at: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/skaldic/m.php?p=skaldic

30
 Annex

Annex:

Sievers' types of OE verse (Mitchell & Robinson 1998:30)

Dashes stand for the syllables carrying the alliteration in each half-verse, whereas the
"x" stand for unstressed syllables.

A: / x / x þrym gefrūnon or / x x / x lēode gelāēsten

B: x / x / purh mīne hand or x x / x x / hē þæs frōfre gebād

C: x / / x in geārdagum or x x / x ofer hronrāde

D: / / \ x þēodcynninga or / / x \ wēold wīdeferhð

E: / \ x / weorðmyndum þāh or / \ x x / meodosetla oftēah

31