My response is at the end.

--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Haukur Thorgeirsson
<haukurth@...> wrote:

> One of the stranger forms of Icelandic poetry is the
> 'trölla-slagur' or 'risa-slagur'. The words 'tröll' and
> 'risi' mean "troll" and "giant" but I'm not sure if
> 'slagur' means "fight, battle" here or perhaps
> "poem" or even "dance". In any case the poems look
> like they must have been danced to. Unfortunately no
> description of the dance has come down to us.
>
> The metre is peculiar. It looks like it is derived
> from some of the intricate 'dróttkvætt' metres but
> the difference between the even and the odd lines
> has been exaggerated.
>
> Here is my favorite 'tröllaslagur'. The first 10 lines
> are in the strange metre but the last 7 lines are in
> a simpler limerick-like end-rhymed form.
>
> Hríð gríðar hörð reið
> hrönnum svo tönnum að mönnum
> gnísti nistin gulls hast,
> sá gangur var langur og strangur.
> Söng spöngin seims grund
> sjálfar heims álfur þá skjálfa.
> Dundu undir dverglönd
> drósar við glósur á Ósi -
> dansaði fansinn ós unns
> svo öllum lá tröllum við föllum.
> Sá dagur er mér í minni
> meður þjáning sinni;
> hestar sprungu
> af harki þungu,
> heitur sem þeim brynni
> eldur í nösum inni
> þá Eyvör sprakk í skinni.
>
> Parts of this are quite difficult but I've attempted to translate:
>
> A hard snow-storm of the giantess rode
> waves with haste towards men so that
> the Nist of gold gnashed her teeth. (1)
> That walk was long and hard.
> The clothes-fastener, the ground of gold, (2) sung,
> then the very continents of the world tremble.
> The lands of the dwarfs resounded underneath
> by the non-sense (3) of the woman at Ós.
> The throng danced the river-mouth of Unnur (4)
> so that all the trolls were close to falling.
> That day is in my memory
> with its suffering;
> horses died (5)
> from their heavy toil,
> as if a hot fire
> was burning within their nostrils
> when Eyvör died (5) from exhaustion in her skin.
>
> 1. That first sentence is intricate. There's surely more
> than one way to interpret it. I don't know if 'hast' is
> to be taken as an adverb.
>
> 2. Weird syntax. If we had genitive (spangar) instead of
> nominative it would be more comprehensible.
>
> 3. The word 'glósur' is unexpected here. Its usual meaning
> is "notes" and I had thought it a rather modern word.
>
> 4. No promises that this is correct.
>
> 5. The verb 'springa', occurring twice, can mean "to burst"
> as well as "to die from over-exertion". I don't know if
> 'springa í skinni' has some particular meaning.
>
> There are some kenningar here.
>
> hríð gríðar (snow-storm of the giantess): mind
> nistin gulls (the Nist of gold): woman (Nist is a valkyrie)
> seims grund (the ground of gold): woman
> ós unns (the river-mouth of Unnur): poetry (Unnur is one of

Óðinn's names)

>
> From this specimen one might imagine that a 'tröllslagur' was

performed

> by a woman singing and a group of men dancing. Here is

another 'tröllaslagur'

> that might support this view:
>
>
> Tröllaslagur hinn forni
>
> Fer her ei fótspar
> flokkum vér brokkum með stokkum,
> undir grund og yfir lönd
> á eykjum svo feykjum vér reykjum.
> Vindur blindar vogsund,
> vökum vér tökum við rökum,
> hryllir illa, hríðgöll
> hreppum, vér sleppum af greppum.
> Gull er grams múta,
> geymdu það Rúta,
> látum slúta
> lengi lúta.
> Svo kváðu meyjar undir Skjaldbreiðarskúta.
> Fimtíu í flokki saman
> frömdu þetta gaman.
>
>
> I won't even attempt to translate this, as far as I can see
> the bulk of it has no coherent meaning. However, the last
> three lines mean:
>
> In such a way maidens sung under Skjaldbreiðarskúti (Broad-shield-

cave).

> Fifty together in a group
> performed this entertainment.
>
> My source for this is the excellent "Íslenzkir víkivakar og

víkivakakvæði"

> by Ólafur Davíðsson. He mentions Grímur Thomsen's view that the

troll fights

> were "obviously" related to the Norwegian 'springdans'

and 'Hallingdans'.

> Does that make any sense to you, Konrad?
>
> Kveðja,
> Haukur

Yes, it does make sense to me. I love these tröllaslagar. They are
truely enchanted and beautiful. They seem to bare all the marks of
having been sung and danced. The words seem to have been composed
for a specific melody, or type of melody, in each case. These words
could be sung anew by matching their meter and content to the right
old dance piece, or if need be, by composing a new one in the same
style. Depending on what the that style turns out to be, we could
also learn the dance steps - if these are still danced somewhere or
are available on videotape. These slagar have a very authetic feel.
They are also clearly Icelandic, as content of this type would not
have been tolerated in Norway during this period, even if in theory
the language had not been lost by this time. The first 300 years or
so of Lutheranism were entirely unalike modern Lutheran 'times' with
regard to the censorship of this type of material. In Norway, the
musicians often performed without words of any kind when they were
tolerated, which was not very often. Instrument burnings frequently
destroyed all of the available instruments in a particular area,
reducing the farmers to sheep calls and other vocal music. If even
instrumental music could be condemned as a product of the devil,
then one should have no difficulty imagining how these slagar would
have been viewed by the authorities and 'heldrafólk' of the 'times'.
As the words disappeared and the people died, the intrumental music
became increasing important as the only strait link with the ancient
past. It became at the same time extremely conservative, fossilized
and a replacement for poetry about the devil. Interestingly enough,
the 'troll-tuning' (tröllastillingin) is one of a small group of
special tunings which is believed to have unusual magical powers.
Pieces in this tuning evoke a trance-like state between the worlds.

Regards,
Konrad.