Heill Llama!
> The History of the Gotlanders, Guta saga, contains two short
verses in the opening section relating to the mythical origins of
the island and its people:
>
> A. Alt ir baugum bundit. All is bound with rings.
> E? Bóland al þitta varþa, This shall be inhabited land,
> B. oc fáum þría syni aiga. and we will have three sons.
>
> A. Guti al Gutland aiga, Guti shall own Gotland;
> A. Graipr al annar haita, the second shall be called Graipr,
> C? oc Gunfiaun þriþi. and Gunnfiaun the third.
>
> What I'm wondering is, does this metre match anything in the West
Norse poetic tradition?
Not that I am aware of, but I suppose that the possibilities would
be vast enough to include it. This meter would, though, likely be a
traditional meter, rather than a skaldic one, I think.
> In some ways, just looking at the first couplets of each 'stanza',
it seems a bit like the metre Snorri calls 'háttlausa', in that each
line has three beats as in 'dróttkvætt' and no internal rhyme. But
it differs obviously by having three-line stanzas, instead of eight
(unless these are just partial stanzas quoted from a lost poem), and
the stress patterns seem a bit freer. E.g. I don't think it would be
possible to have a short final stressed syllable in a dróttkvætt
line, would it, as in the last line of St. 2--some kind of
contracted C-type line (depending how the diphthong was stressed)?
The 2nd line of St. 1 has seven syllables and no resolution; could
this count as an A-type draughent line, with -land as the unstressed
syllable after the first lift? Or could it be seen as an extended E-
line as in Gordon's fornyrðislag example from Þrymskviða 'áss's
stolinn hamri'? I'm thrashing around a bit here, and no doubt
showing my ignorance of Old Norse metrical matters...
Everyone is largely ignorant of ON poetric tradition, I think, even
with the survival of Snorri's excellent handbook. There are many
reasons to believe this, and the issue is so complex that I hardly
think it it can be dealt with in a post or a few. Nevertheless, I
think your post warrents a response, or perhaps many, if anyone else
cares to discuss the topic. Gulp. Dróttkvætt, and all of its many
variations (most of the verse types covered by snorri), was invented
when the language stage called ON was in place - that is, around 800
(possibly by Bragi Boddason, as later skaldic poets saw him as their
great mentor). It was socially encouraged through payment from kings
and earls, etc. and suited poets, as artists, well, as it had a very
complex and variable tradition, capable of showing virtuosity in
many different ways. The subjects were usually recent historical
events involving the patron employing the poet, but examples of old
mythic stories retold in dróttkvætt also survive, showing that the
tradition was flexible. However, as dróttkvætt did not exist as such
prior to the ON language stage, one has to ask, what did? While it
is liekly that earlier poets had also developed artistic meters of
some equivelence to dróttkvætt, especially if there were conditions
encouraging it socially, the only thing we know for certain about
the meters of that time is that the most have included meters of the
common Germanic stock, found in all Germanic languages, such as the
ON fornyrðislag (literally, the meter of _old words_). The meters
also survived throughout the viking period, but mostly as a vehicle
for traditional verse, inherited and common property material that
everyone knew who cared to. This is the type of material which would
relate to Gothic, for instance, as the Goths could not have shared
meters in common with the ON except those inherited from the common
Germanic stock, even if Gothic may have developed some new artistic
type meters of its own in addition (no one knows). Still, the Goths
must have used foryrðislag, for instnce, whatever they called it, as
so did the OE, OHG, etc. While much better attested in ON than any
where else, I would also consider ljóðaháttr in this category, as I
would the largely unnoticed málaháttr (the language of proverbs),
and galdraháttr (mentioned by Snorri), which has a reinforced line
(s) and would have been used in chant to bestow blessing/change the
weather/encourage warriors/cause folk to fall in love/etc.. This
last one is extremely poorly attested, as it would not have had any
purpose in a Christian society, as the Lord's prayer and the credo,
etc. were often used for such purposes. The Gutnish meter you quote
above would likely, I think, fit into the class 'traditional meters'
even if we can't find an ON equivalent. Looking at the content, one
sees that it consists of a traditional story about the settlement of
Gutland, something which would have happened a long, long time ago.
> Just from these examples, it's hard to know what the rules about
head-rhyme where, but the first couplet of each stanza seems to
follow the regular pattern of two stuðlar in the first line
alliterating with a höfuðstafr in the second line, the höfuðstafr
being on the first lift as in dróttkvætt. The final line of each
stanza has one stressed syllable that alliterates with at least one
stressed syllable of the previous line: þitta : þría; Graipr : Gun-.
>
> Another questions: Does anyone know if any more such verses survive
from Gotland, either from medieval sources or later?
I am not sure. I doubt it, but perhaps. More later.
-K
The only other
> piece of Old Gutnish verse that I know about is the lines of
> conventional fornyrðislag in the Guta lagh, as quoted in Gordon's
> notes to the reading selection from Guta saga:
>
> Blót iru man(n)um
> miec firibuþin
> oc fyrnsca all
> þann sum haiþnu fylgir.
> Engin má haita á
> huatki á
> hult eþa hauga
> eþa haiþin guþ.
>
> "Sacrificial feasts are strongly forbidden to men, and all the old
> ways that go with heathendom. None may pray to holts or howes or
> heathen gods."
>
> Finally, I wonder if it's a coincidence that the one piece of
Gothic
> poetry from the Crimea to have been recorded, as far we know, also
> consists of three lines (though again, who knows whether this is a
> complete stanza?), but it's even harder to work out the metre here,
> due to lack of information about the language and the probably to
some
> extent garbled nature of the text. There may be end-rhyme linking
the
> first two lines. There may be alliteration, but whether
structural or
> fortuitous is probably impossible to say, unless more examples
come to
> light.
>
> Wara wara ingdolou
> Seu (=scu?) te gira Galtzou
> Hoemisclep dorbiza ea.
>