Art of the Skalds: A brief introduction to dróttkvætt

 Dear James,

First of all, I apologize for the long delay between posts; I've been swamped with work, immigration business, and all sorts of stupid shit. I deeply enjoyed reading about the Not-Deer, and since that time we've had a few great discussions about Internet culture/folklore, cryptids, and other "esoterica of the past and future".

In light of my busy schedule, I'm not able to satiate you with anything overly analytic, I just hardly have the time for all that critical thinking. Instead, I thought I'd share with you, in what I hope to be an entertaining way, a most basic crash-course on the art of the skalds, that is, the prosody and metrical whimsies of skaldic poetry. 

As you know, scholars of Old Norse-Icelandic literature divide the poetry of the medieval North into two broad "genres" (or really, corpora), eddic poetry and skaldic poetry. The reasoning behind the division rests mostly in the questions of authorship, context (including manuscript preservation status, eddic poems mostly, but not exclusively, found in the Poetic Edda), and metrical form, although some distinctions between the two types are apparent in their inventories of figurative language and subject matter. In general, eddic poems are mythological or heroic in content and metrically simpler than their skaldic counterparts. For example, the reflex of the shared alliterative verse common to all North-West Germanic languages is called fornyrðislag (lit. "old story meter") in Old Norse, and boasts a metrical pattern very similar to that found in Beowulf (alliterating sounds bolded below, caesurae omitted):

 

Hljóðs bið ek allar helgar kindir,                                          Hearing I ask from all the tribes

meiri ok minni mögu Heimdallr.                                          greater and lesser, offspring of Heimdallr

viltu at ek, Valföðr, vel fyr telja                                            Corpse-Father, you wished me well to tell

forn spjöll fira, þau er fremst um man.                                 living beings' ancient stories, those I 

                                                                                                                remember  from furthest back.

(first stanza of Völuspá; trans. from Larrington 2014) 

Ða se ellen-gæst earfoðlice                                                 Then the great monster in the outer darkness

þrage geþolode, se þe in þystrum bad,                                suffered fierce pain, for each new day

þæt he dogora gehwam dream gehyrde                              he heard happy laughter loud in the hall,

hludne in healle; þær wæs hearpan sweg...                        the thrum of the harp....

(86a-89b of Beowulf, trans. from Chickering 2006)

Notice that vowels alliterate with all other vowels; in Old Norse, the clusters sp, st, and sk also only alliterate with words bearing the exact same cluster. There are a couple of other rules (incl. syllable restrictions, stress placements, etc.), but in general these are quite lax in eddic meters such as fornyrðislag when compared with the more demanding skaldic meters.

The most famous and certainly well-attested skaldic meter is called dróttkvætt ("court meter"), from drótt ("retinue, host, king's men"). The name conjures some of the characteristics of skaldic poetry as a "genre": it includes typically short poems composed by named poets (in constrast to the anonymous eddic poems) in court or aristocratic settings, often as praise-poetry or panegyrics.

Skaldic poets worked within a much more taxing set of metrical strictures than poets composing in other formats, and this sort of prosodic black-art is not found anywhere outside Scandinavia, probably originating around the beginning of the Viking Age. Snorri Sturluson's Edda was intended as a manual for the composition of such poetry, both in the instruction of content, including kennings, and in stylistic matters. The mathematical and aural beauty of this verse-form cannot be captured by describing it, but I hope that my brief breakdown of its structure can at least help you better appreciate the craft of the ancient poets of the North.

A standard dróttkvætt stanza has 8 lines, in contrast with often shorter eddic stanzas (see above, where the stanza has 4 lines; Old English poetry is not stanzaic), and each set of 4 stanzas comprises its own syntactic unit, such that one stanza is composed of two halves, each of 24 syllables. Skaldic poets were required to incorporate alliteration, internal rhyme, and intricate stress patterns into each set of lines. To illustrate, let's start with an example. This stanza is from Egils saga, and is spoken by the eponymous warrior-poet at the court of the English king Æthelsan (who, incidentally, would have probably struggled to discern the full meaning of the verse). He speaks this verse after the king hangs an arm-ring on the point of his sword out to Egill, and Egill likewise uses his sword to retrieve it:

Hrammtangar lætr hanga

hrynvirgill mér brynju

Höðr á hauki troðnum

heiðis vingameiði;

ritmœdis knák reiða

ræðr gunnvala bræðir

gelgju seil á galga

geirveiðrs, lofi at meira.

Let's start with syllable count: each line has six syllables, three of which demand stress. In Old Norse, stress always falls upon the first syllable of a word; in compounds, a secondary stress occurs in the second part. Furthermore, a distinctive feature of dróttkvætt is the mandatory trochaic pattern of the final stress, i.e., the final two syllables must have a stressed-unstressed pattern. If we underline our stress patterns in this stanza, we can see these rules in action:

 

Hrammtangar lætr hanga

hrynvirgill mér brynju

Höðr á hauki troðnum

heiðis vingameiði.

Rítmæðis knák reiða

ræðr gunnvala bræðir

gelgju seil á galga

geirveðrs, lofi at meira.

 

You may have already noticed, but the lines alliterate as well. The division is somewhat similar to the pattern we see in the fornyrðislag stanza above, except instead of half-lines alliterating, dróttkvætt alliterates between full-lines. Lines alliterate in pairs here, with the odd lines requiring two alliterating syllables and the even lines a single alliterating syllable that matches with the previous odd line. The first syllable of the even line must alliterate, and only stressed syllables can take part in the fun. Let's use bold for alliteration: 

Hrammtangar lætr hanga

hrynvirgill mér brynju

Höðr á hauki troðnum

heiðis vingameiði.

Rítmæðis knák reiða

ræðr gunnvala bræðir

gelgju seil á galga

geirveðrs, lofi at meira. 

 

One last element forms the essential core of a dróttkvætt stanza: internal rhyme (for end-rhyme, like in Modern English, the variant runhent meter can be used, in which Egill also composed). In each line, the second-to-last syllable (which, remember, needs to be stressed) always rhymes with the stem of another word that occurs in the same line, but unlike alliteration, this rhythmic feature does not necessarily cross line boundaries. Even lines require full rhymes, but odd lines tolerate half rhymes (i.e., when the same consonants surround a different vowel). Using italics for rhymes:

Hrammtangar lætr hanga

hrynvirgill mér brynju

Höðr á hauki troðnum

heiðis vingameiði.

Rítmæðis knák reiða

ræðr gunnvala bræðir

gelgju seil á galga

geirveðrs, lofi at meira. 

The picture is getting complex now. There's an obvious mathematical beauty to be found here: 48 syllables per stanza, 24 stressed syllables, 12 alliterating syllables, 8 full-rhyming syllables and 8 half-rhyming syllables, etc. But these requirements (especially those final trochaic rhyming syllables and the initial alliterative syllables on even lines) are exceedingly strict. How could skalds achieve poetic expression and still play by the rules? I won't go into too much detail--in truth I've only scratched the surface with this description above--but skalds circumvented and exploited these metrical requirements with widespread use of heiti and kennings and a very liberal approach to Old Norse syntax. Need an alliterative syllable but the word you're trying to use doesn't fit? Just use a heiti, a poetic synonym (and often a very arhaic one, at that; this phenomenon occurs in English verse as well, just look how many old-timey words we have for woman). Need to fill some space and circumvent a metrical snafu? Boy, do we have kennings for you! Have you got all the metrical criteria fulfilled, but your sentence is sorta hard to parse? No problem, form over function, vinr. That last point is an exaggeration, but the skalds regularly abused syntax and word order in abnormal ways, all to serve a higher metrical purpose. I don't want to present this as a sort of flaw; often, the syntactic obstacle courses and puzzles that skalds lay out in their poems provide qualities to the performance, nothing short of masterful. Pauses and gaps in syntax mimic the lulls between alliterations, thoughts and phrases lie uncompleted until their constituents bridge a metrical gap--all of these limitations, as we might call them, allow the poets a range of expression and artistry on a level that has to be dissected to be believed. I hope this short exposé has, in some small way, contributed to your appreciation of that fact.

And of course, I wouldn't leave you high and dry without a translation of Egill's verse like that:

The god of the armor [= warrior, i.e. Æthelstan] hangs

a jangling snare [= ring] upon my clutch,

the gibbet of hunting birds [= arm],

the stamping-ground of hawks [= arm].

I raise the ring, the clasp that is worn

on the shield-splitting arm,

on to my rod of the battle-storm [= sword],

in praise of the feeder of ravens [= warrior, Æthelstan].

(from Sagas of Icelanders, trans. Bernard Scudder 1997)

Bestu kveðjur,

Matt

P.S. Sorry for any formatting screw-ups :/

Not Deer -- Not Folklore, but Effective Horror

Matt,

Sincere thanks for continuing to contextualize the cultural and religious perceptions of the Anglo-Saxons – your parsing of the pre-Christian and Christian notions in The Dream of the Rood is lucid and enlightening.  This was my introduction to this poem, which I, too, find beautiful in its febrility.  The term rood (or rōd, as you mention) reminds me of the term used in the Greek New Testament, stauros (stake or cross).  The term is referenced in the debate among theologists: was Jesus Christ executed upon a ‘t’-shaped cross, or just stuck on long, vertical stick?  We know that the Anglo-Saxons pictured it as the ‘t’-shape, so, it's cool how, later in the poem, the term gealgan is used in the plural tense (correct me if I’m wrong), meaning ‘gallows’ or, literally, ‘poles’ – what do you think?

I digress.  Additionally, I thank you for establishing the tone and style with which we will correspond, exploring the wide and abundant variety of topics within our diverse shared bailiwick.  

Currently, the trendiest cryptid online might be the “Not Deer,” creatures that resemble the white-tailed deer of the Eastern U.S. yet are ostensibly not deer due to certain disturbing, grotesque features.  Popular on Reddit, YouTube, and TikTok, users share stories suggesting that Not Deer have legs that bend both ways.  Predatory, forward-pointing eyes.  Necks that are a little too long.  A penchant for bipedalism… 

Tales of the cryptid have been integrated into SCP lore; #notdeer enjoys 88 million views on TikTok as of June 2022.  Notably, Not Deer stories typically stress the creatures’ prominence in Appalachian folklore.  Tumblr user Will-O-The-Witch explains:

Anyone who spends decent amount of time in Appalachia knows the Not Deer. If you’ve gone on the Blue Ridge Parkway at night, you’ve probably seen him.

This sense-of-place is baked into the myth’s DNA to the point where it’s often referred to as the “Appalachian Not Deer” in internet media.  In fact, Not Deer’s folkloric origins are apocryphal – put simply, it’s not part of Appalachian folklore, rather existing comfortably and entirely within the confines of the internet.

The term Not Deer does not exist earlier than 2019, and reports of freakish deer prior to that (on cryptid forums, 4chan, etc.) are highly uncommon and, in my own opinion, probably represent the primordial rumblings from which the current trend springs, rather than evidence of any long history.  I’m not the first to notice this, as JD Sword, writing for The Skeptical Inquirer, and Tumblr user idohistorysometimes have outlined – as well as criticized -- the myth’s history and origins far more thoroughly than I intend to here.  Rather, I see it as an effective horror story and a ripe opportunity to examine what makes an urban legend spread online.

While creatures such as the Jersey Devil or Sasquatch maintain venerable positions in American cryptozoology, the Not Deer is a brand-new addition to the cryptid legendarium – perhaps we would consider it a “fake” cryptid, but as horror fiction, I find it really well-done!  Of course, claiming a horror story’s factual origins is a fundamental device in the genre.  And, while plenty of previous internet-born horror figures (Slenderman, for instance) capitalize on this ‘false backstory’ technique, the Not Deer appears somewhat unique in that the majority of readers, whether or not they ‘believe’ in the cryptid’s existence, are unaware that the creature’s position in American folklore is wholly nonexistent.  In my opinion, feigning this pre-existing history for the Not Deer serves two purposes: it makes it more effective as a horror story, playing off a sense of uncanniness or liminality; and it’s essential to the legend’s internet virality as creates a plausible and potent platform onto which internet users can connect their own stories – and, critically, creates a sense of participation.

The sense of liminality which defines contemporary horror is effectively established both by the Not Deer’s cervid form and the legend’s Appalachian setting.  Although deer (I’m talking about the real animal here) are ubiquitous in rural North America, for many, they are uncommonly witnessed.  Suburbanites may notice a doe and her fawns wandering through a backyard a few times each season.  Maybe, for many residents of American cities, deer are seen only during long drives as mangled roadkill, or as a taxidermized head on the wall of the dingy restaurant your grandmother used to take you to when you were a little kid.

Additionally, the choice to place the legend in Appalachia is a significant one.  Compared to the sardine-like population density of the east coast, Appalachia retains some of its “frontier” spirit from the early days of European settlement – a spiritual border between urban and rural.  Contemporary horror is often founded in the uncanny dissolution of borders between the familiar and unfamiliar, the real and unreal, and even the liminal and subliminal.  The Not Deer legend effectively capitalizes on this, creating a creature which serves as a ‘guardian of the threshold.’  The Not Deer personifies the disquieting, unnatural dividing line between comfortable, domestic life and the sense of wild otherness that lies beyond it.  This is what makes it so effectively terrifying.  This device is so central to the legend that it is reflected in its very name, “Not Deer” – something which, simultaneously, is and is not.

Perhaps by suggesting the Not Deer belongs a folkloric lineage, the sense of impermanence that frequently accompanies viral internet trends is largely dispelled.  The legitimacy created this way presents a uniquely inviting platform for internet and social media users to grasp the legend’s tropes and share stories of their own, and, although I can’t say what truly motivates internet trends, I wonder if part of the legend’s popularity can be attributed to this.

As I said before, I am thoroughly aware that the “based on a true story ;)” trope is as old as storytelling itself, and that the Not Deer is not the first creepy creature the internet has created this way.  But, I find it unique in that the majority of people who read the stories actually believe it’s a genuine part of folklore – that’s what interests me about it.  Thanks for reading.

Jesus is My Hero: The Dream of the Rood and Anglo-Saxon Ethics

 

Dear James,

            At the HSPC 2022, you asked me a question about Christian influences on Old English and Old Icelandic heroic literature. I gave a rambling, somewhat-satisfying answer (hopefully, at least). If I recall correctly, I alluded to a notion that Christian imagery, themes, and morals may be embedded in these texts, whose characters are pagans, in a way not unlike how I have been reading themes of comitatus, gender, and alterity vis-à-vis the model of “legendary” literature. A few nights ago, in the throes of an uneasy sleep, I had a disturbing dream reminiscent of one of my favorite Old English poems, The Dream of the Rood. The dream took place in some sort of post-apocalyptic trash-heap, where for some reason or other an all-too-human-looking sloth-beast had been crucified and shot through with a thousand arrows in a strange sort of Kafkaesque rejuvenation ritual. I don’t remember why, but the whole sequence reminded me so strongly of the poem that I just had to reread it. This time, it made me think of you and your constant curiosity about the interplay between Christian and pre-Christian elements in these old, dusty texts. So, I wish to explore the overlaps and interchanges between Christian and heroic ethics in The Dream of the Rood as a way of better explaining my answer to your great question.

            The Dream of the Rood survives in a manuscript called the Vercelli Book, named after the Italian city that houses it. The manuscript is notable for a number of reasons: it contains large amounts of prose in the form of the Vercelli homilies; two of its poems are attributed to Cynewulf, perhaps the most well-known named Anglo-Saxon poet; and it’s the oldest of the poetic codices, dating from the late 10^th century. In The Dream of the Rood, as you may expect, the narrator recounts for us a dream they had about the rōd, an Old English word for the crucifix, in which the cross speaks to the narrator about the passion of Christ. Excepting a poem about diddling the altar boys in the confessionals, you can’t get much more Christian than having a fever-dream about the damn crucifixion.

            Yet much of the language of the poem bears striking resemblance to Old English’s heroic poems. The men who built the cross, exiling the tree that birthed it from the forest, are feondas (“enemies”), and Christ approaches the cross with elne micle (“with great courage/strength”). The Frean mancynnes (“Lord of mankind”) climbs strang and stiðmod (“strong and brave-minded”) onto the passive cross, as it stands there and takes the punishment. Strang, although common in modern English, seems to have carried a much more restricted meaning in Old English poetry; in Beowulf, for example, the word strang is only ever used to describe the titular hero himself. The rood and Christ are portrayed as lone warriors, standing amidst an onslaught of sin not unlike a mythic battle. Gruesome and gory imagery, similar to that found in Old Norse-Icelandic, enhances the tense and dramatic atmosphere: the rood describes how it was pierced with deorcan næglum (“dark nails”) and how eall ic wæs mid blode bestemed (“I was all drenched with blood”). Sounds like a Silencer song.

            Christ’s passion follows the logic of heroic ethics, as he requires bravery to face his fate and carries out a duty in service of his own Lord, the Father, and this heroic sense of his passion is only enhanced by the violent and gruesome narration of the rood. But how could this be? If Christianity abhors the reckless pride of heroes, why would the rood celebrate Christ’s apparent heroism? There is a fundamental difference between the sacrifice Christ makes on the cross and the “sacrifice” Beowulf makes when he stays overnight to fight with Grendel, but each poet characterizes these actions in the same heroic vocabulary of ellen and strang.

            Let’s think about comic book superheroes for a second. In the popular imagination, comic book “heroism” entails fulfilling a duty to protect the weak and defenseless, a responsibility afforded by virtue of great power or might, like Superman. Supervillains, by contrast, having that same might, embody self-interest, caring only for themselves and their goals, regardless of the effects their power has on the weak or poor; think Lex Luthor. But American culture celebrates self-interest and rewards its pursuit above almost all else; just based on the number of people licking Elon Musk’s boots on social media, I’m sure that if Lex Luthor were real, America would love him. So why, then, do we root for Superman, if our real-world culture encourages Luthor’s mindset? Superman’s dedication to his heroic duty is inspirational, and his willingness to sacrifice himself for others out of kindness reflects the moral values many of us ought to strive for. We aspire to be like Superman because he reflects both who we want to be within the context of our own culture of the self—a great, powerful, and virtuous person that others love—and an idea of who we ought to be for the sake of the community. On a basic level, the Superman author shows us the value of kindness and selflessness when possessed of great personal power and within a broader culture that encourages self-interest and rewards us for being selfish.

            The way I’m reading it, The Dream of the Rood portrays Christ a bit like Superman: through his heroic actions, he embodies a value system critical of the broader heroic culture and its fascination with boasting, vainglory, and feud. The singularity of Christ’s heroic qualities—his strength and courage—highlights the positive attributes a man should aspire towards, while the selfless, kind way in which he employs those heroic abilities, contrary to Beowulf’s boasting and egomania, offers an alternative to reckless contests and feud that leads one to salvation. The poet, then, synthesizes Christian ethics and notions of heroism by adjusting the focus of the heroic endeavor from personal glory and self-interest to personal sacrifice and kindness. This adjustment offers a pathway to avoid destruction and feud, leading to a different kind of glory in the eyes of God, which, in the poem, the Christ and the rood achieve. The poet suggests that we, the audience, employ our own heroic prowess in ways like Christ, striving for goodness above our own gain in order to avoid feud and achieve spiritual satisfaction. The rood itself emphasizes this responsibility of the powerful: Ealle ic mihte feondas gefyllan, hwæðre ic fæste stod (“I could have slain all of the enemies, yet I stood fast”). Christ and the rood are not victims; their choice to heroically sacrifice themselves represents a value to which the poet dares us to aspire towards.

            Thus, I view The Dream of the Rood as neither Christian nor heroic, but each at once, for neither ultimately “wins out”. Rather, the poem synthesizes these two contexts by realigning the cultural means of heroism along an axis of Christian decision making. Instead of replacing heroic ethics with a system of Christian behavior, the poet emphasizes that Christ himself achieved his greatest self-sacrifice, his service to all mankind, through the same heroism that has led other heroes (like, say, Beowulf) astray down the path of feuding violence. The fundamental difference between Beowulf and Christ, then, lies more in their motivations and restraint than in their solutions to ethical dilemmas. The Dream of the Rood does not resolve a conflict between two systems of ethics, but rather witnesses how these two models of behavior inform each other, and how values in one context can be achieved through the means of another. Furthermore, I believe this interchange between Christianity and heroic culture goes both ways, that is, it is possible in the world of Anglo-Saxon poetry to achieve heroic goals and aspirations through Christian means and behaviors, such as penance, but that is a story for another blog post.

            I should mention, I’ve left out some things. There has been great work done on how the rood is gendered by the poet, so as to emphasize the sexual nature of Christ’s sacrifice, or to reinforce the heroic interpretation of his actions by masculinizing him vis-à-vis the cross’s femininity. All very interesting stuff, but I don’t want this to be a whole ass paper. I encourage you to look into the poem yourself if you’re interested. I hope that answered at least part of your original (now forever lost) question. 

Bestu kveðjur,

Matt                                                                                                                                                     

 

The Ruthwell Cross, a stone Anglo-Saxon cross monument from the 8th century. It is often connected with The Dream of the Rood due to its inscription, which bears similarities to the poem.