> What does this mean: "Þegar hafa borist allnokkur kvæði en lengi má
> gott bæta!" Is it that there´s always room for more poems, or every
> possibility that someone can improve on the ones they´ve got?
> I also found the variant 'alltaf má gott bæta'. The contexts
> seem to be that even if things are good, there's always "room
> for improvement", or some way in which things could be better.
> But I might be jumping to conclusions here.

You are exactly right. You could translate the phrase with
"there's always room for improvement" and it would, I hope,
capture the slightly ambiguous original text. They probably
mean "there's always room for improvement in the number of
poems we receive".

The winning poem was written by Einar Kolbeinsson, a farmer.

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Prinsinn af Wales - Kveðja frá íslensku þjóðinni

Norðan úr hafi hvar nákaldir vindar,
nauða við gluggann um síðkvöldin löng,
flytjum við dýrðar- og fagnaðarsöng,
því fljótlega marka skal endalok syndar.

Ástleitni mennina áfram mun teyma,
ofsögum þetta er tæplega sagt,
og nú verður brúðkaup með pompi og pragt,
en pínlegum ágalla skulum við gleyma.

Þjóðin leggst ekki í þvermóðsku og fýlu,
þó allir viti að staðan er sú,
að prinsinn sem eignast í alvöru frú,
aldrei mun ganga til drottningarhvílu.

Verðandi konungur heimsveldishirðar,
af hetjuskap sannlega axlar þær byrðar!
------------------------------------------------

This is a dactylic sonnet. There's anacrusis
in lines 4, 7, 8, 11 and 14. There's no vowel
elision. There's no over-alliteration or other
metrical faults.

> Hnísu söltum sultu
> (svanr gat Nikuz) skatnar
> (hold, hlenni logs ennis)
> hundmargir í grundum.

The third line has alliteration on the first
two syllables. I still haven't found an example
of that anywhere. The rest seems fine. There's
an 'aðalhending' instead of a 'skothending' in
line 3 but that's not serious.

Maybe we could swap 'hlenni' and 'logs' like this:

"Hnísu söltum sultu
(svanr gat Nikuz) skatnar
(hold, logs hlenni ennis)
hundmargir í grundum."

This would make the third line Type D1.
The first line is clearly Type A.
The second line has to be Type A too,
I think. But the third syllable is short,
which might be a problem. We could "fix" it
by substituting another name for Óðinn - say,
"Óðinn", but that would hurt the rhyme a bit.
The fourth line is Type E, although 'í' makes
for a somewhat crappy metrical foot.

This type business is arcane lore, though.
Very few people know it and even fewer claim
to understand it. But anyone interested in
poetry can identify wrong alliteration.

> Svanr Nikuz, hlenni logs ennis, gat hold.
> Hundmargir skatnar sultu í söltum grundum Hnísu.

The swan of Óðinn [raven], the thief of the fire
of the forehead [eyes], got some flesh. Extremely
many warriors perished in the salt grounds of the
porpoise [sea].

The imagery is evocative. I like "hlenni logs ennis",
is it an original idea?

Kveðja,
Haukur