Birgit wrote:

> No, I was just trying to get away from doing it in modern
> Icelandic ... how do the Icelandic bards feel about having that
> extra syllable? If it does not bother them, maybe it was 4 1/2
> syllables in Old Norse after all?

Old Norse and Old English poetry in general don't have a fixed number
of syllables arranged in rigid "feet" or patterns like a lot of
English poetry does -- no iambic pentameter. What is usually counted
are stressed syllables, and there can be a variable number of
unstressed syllables in a line. Skaldic poetry was more formal in
structure than Eddaic poetry, and there's where you get your more
rigid syllabic construction.

Voluspa is Fornyrðislag, or "meter of ancient words", which is
composed both with and without a fixed number of syllables per line,
usually 4 syllables, more or less.

Other Old Norse meters:

Malahattr or "meter of speeches" -- like fornyrðislag but has a
regular number of syllables per line, usually five syllables in each
line.

Kviðuháttr or "meter of discourse" -- a variant of fornyrðislag in
which syllables are closely counted and the lines alternate, starting
with one line with three syllables, the next line with four.

Ljoðaháttr "meter of chants" -- made up of pairs of lines, each with
two stressed syllables and bound by alliteration, followed by a third
line called "the full line" which has its own alliteration and either
2 or 3 stressed syllables. Normally two segments of three lines make
up a stanza.

Galdralag "magic spell meter" -- a variant of ljoðaháttr, uses a
fourth line which echoes and varies the third line of the stanza.

Dróttkvætt "noble warrior's meter" -- Uses a three-stress line,
normally of six syllables, always ending in a long stressed syllable
followed by an unstressed one. The lines are linked in pairs by
alliteration, two intitial sounds in the first line matched by the
start of the first stressed syllable in the second line. There is
also a system of internal rhyme: in each line the last stressed
syllable must contain vowel and consonant that chime with those in an
earlier syllable. In the first line a half-rhyme should be found ---
also called skothending or "glancing hit" --- and in the second line
the rhyme should be full --- also called aðalhending or "full hit".
Each stanza contains eight lines, and there is usually a marked
syntactic division at the end of line four to make the whole into two
balancing halves.

Hrynhendr háttr "flowing meter" -- derived from dróttkvætt, and uses
all the dróttkvætt rules with the addition of requiring that the
basic unit be extended from a three-stress, six-syllable line to a
four-stress, eight-syllable line.

::GUNNORA::