Old Norse Poetry in Performance [1 ed.] 9781032252315, 9780367408305, 9780367809324

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
List of Contributors
Introduction
Part I The Social Dynamics of Performance
1 Framing Old Norse Performance Contexts: The Wedding at Reykjahólar (1119) Revisited
Part II Voice and Performance
2 Revisiting Zumthorian Vocality in Old Norse Poetry Studies
3 . . . með skarða skjöldu ok skotnar brynjur: The Distribution and Function of Aural Sense Impressions in Old Norse Poetry
4 Dramatic Implications of Echoed Speech in Skírnismál
Part III Collocation and Quotation
5 Eddic Poetry and the Uses of Anonymity
6 Accretive Quotation and the Performance of Verse in Fagrskinna
Part IV Material Culture
7 Performing Old Norse Poetry in Visual Art: A Comparative Perspective with the Islamic World and a Scandinavian Box in Spain
8 How the Hell Do You Read This?: The Evolution of Eddic Orality Through Manuscript Performance
Part V Modern Approaches to Performing Old Norse Poetry
9 Old Norse Poetry in Performance: Perils, Pitfalls and Possibilities
10 Interview with Leif Stinnerbom
11 Interview with Einar Selvik
12 Beowulf, the Edda and the Performance of Medieval Epic: Notes from the Workshop of a Reconstructed ‘Singer of Tales’
13 ‘ıð beſta eꝛ quæðeð fm̄ flutt’: Kveðnar Drápur og Kveðnar Rímur
Index

Citation preview

Old Norse Poetry in Performance

This book presents a range of approaches to the study of Old Norse poetry in performance. The contributors examine both eddic and skaldic poems and consider the surviving evidence for how they were originally recited or otherwise performed in medieval Scandinavia, Iceland and at royal courts across Europe. This study also engages with the challenge of reconstructing medieval performance styles and examines ways of applying the modern discipline of Performance Studies to the fragmentary corpus of Old Norse verse. The performance of verse by characters who appear in the Old Icelandic saga tradition is also considered, as is the cultural value associated not only with the poems themselves but with their various means of transmission and reception. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in the fields of Old Norse studies, Performance and Theatre History. Brian McMahon is Associate Lecturer in English at Oxford Brookes University and Artistic Director at Reverend Productions. Annemari Ferreira is Assistant Professor of English as a Foreign Language and Writing Centre Coordinator at SolBridge International School of Business, Woosong University, South Korea. She holds a research fellowship at the Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation at Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies

This series is our home for cutting-­edge, upper-­level scholarly studies and edited collections. Considering theatre and performance alongside topics such as religion, politics, gender, race, ecology, and the avant-­garde, titles are characterised by dynamic interventions into established subjects and innovative studies on emerging topics. ASHÉ Ritual Poetics in African Diasporic Paul Cater Harrison, Michael D. Harris, Pellom McDaniels Dancehall In/Securities Perspectives on Caribbean Expressive Life Patricia Noxolo, ‘H’ Patten, and Sonjah Stanley Niaah Circus and the Avant-­Gardes History, Imaginary, Innovation Anna-­Sophie Jürgens and Mirjam Hildbrand Aesthetic Collectives On the Nature of Collectivity in Cultural Performance Andrew Wiskowski Dance Data, Cognition and Multimodal Communication Carla Fernandes, Vito Evola and Cláudia Ribeiro Theatre and the Virtual Genesis, Touch, Gesture Zornitsa Dimitrova Old Norse Poetry in Performance Brian McMahon and Annemari Ferreira For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-­A dvances-­i n-­T heatre-­Performance-­S tudies/book-­s eries/ RATPS

Old Norse Poetry in Performance Edited by Brian McMahon and Annemari Ferreira

First published 2022 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Brian McMahon and Annemari Ferreira; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Brian McMahon and Annemari Ferreira to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-­in-­Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Names: Ferreira, Annemari, editor. | McMahon, Brian J. (Brian John), 1987– editor. Title: Old Norse poetry in performance / edited by Annemari Ferreira & Brian McMahon. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2022. | Series: Routledge advances in theatre and performance studies series page. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021054840 (print) | LCCN 2021054841 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367408305 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032252315 (paperback) | ISBN 9780367809324 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Old Norse poetry—History and criticism. | Oral interpretation of poetry. | Oral tradition—Scandinavia—To 1500. | Performing arts—Philosophy. Classification: LCC PT7170 .O43 2022 (print) | LCC PT7170 (ebook) | DDC 839/.61009—dc23/eng/20220215 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021054840 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021054841 ISBN: 978-­0-­367-­40830-­5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-­1-­032-­25231-­5 (pbk) ISBN: 978-­0-­367-­80932-­4 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9780367809324 Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of Illustrationsviii Acknowledgementsx List of Contributorsxii Introduction

1

TERRY GUNNELL

PART I

The Social Dynamics of Performance17   1 Framing Old Norse Performance Contexts: The Wedding at Reykjahólar (1119) Revisited

19

STEPHEN A. MITCHELL

PART II

Voice and Performance45   2 Revisiting Zumthorian Vocality in Old Norse Poetry Studies

47

INÉS GARCÍA LÓPEZ

 3 . . . með skarða skjöldu ok skotnar brynjur: The Distribution and Function of Aural Sense Impressions in Old Norse Poetry

63

SIMON NYGAARD

  4 Dramatic Implications of Echoed Speech in Skírnismál HARRIET SOPER

85

vi  Contents PART III

Collocation and Quotation109   5 Eddic Poetry and the Uses of Anonymity

111

JOHN MCKINNELL

  6 Accretive Quotation and the Performance of Verse in Fagrskinna

134

HELEN F. LESLIE-­J ACOBSEN

PART IV

Material Culture157   7 Performing Old Norse Poetry in Visual Art: A Comparative Perspective with the Islamic World and a Scandinavian Box in Spain

159

REBECA FRANCO VALLE

  8 How the Hell Do You Read This?: The Evolution of Eddic Orality Through Manuscript Performance

191

FROG

PART V

Modern Approaches to Performing Old Norse Poetry217   9 Old Norse Poetry in Performance: Perils, Pitfalls and Possibilities

219

BRIAN MCMAHON

10 Interview with Leif Stinnerbom

240

BRIAN MCMAHON

11 Interview with Einar Selvik

254

BRIAN MCMAHON

12 Beowulf, the Edda and the Performance of Medieval Epic: Notes from the Workshop of a Reconstructed ‘Singer of Tales’ BENJAMIN BAGBY

268

Contents vii

13 ‘ıð beſta eꝛ quæðeð fm̄ flutt’: Kveðnar Drápur og Kveðnar Rímur

282

PÉTUR HÚNI BJÖRNSSON

Index304

Illustrations

5.1 Tjurkö Bracteate I (SHM 1453:25) in the Statens historiska museer, Stockholm 7.1 A lion fighting a bull is one of the scenes represented in the pyxis of al-­Mughira, OA 4068 7.2 The legend of the bull and the lion in the fables of Kalīla wa-­Dimna. c. 1279–80. MS. Persan 376, fol. 74v 7.3 Silver pendant in the shape of a woman carrying a drinking horn (SHM 128) 7.4 Tjängvide picture stone (SHM 4171). In the top register, a woman receives a rider, perhaps holding a drinking horn 7.5 Ardre VIII picture stone (SHM 11118:8). Some scenes from the legend of Völundr the smith can be identified in the lower register 7.6 Scandinavian casket at San Isidoro, León (IIC-­3-­089-­002-­0009). Museo de la Real Colegiata de San Isidoro de León 7.7 Unrolled design of the casket 10.1 Daniel Lindman Agorander as Þórr, a hammer-­wielding god 10.2 The Norns: Verdandi (Sara Eriksson), Urd (Saga Widlund) and Skuld (Edith Nilsson) under the world-­tree Yggdrasil 10.3 Völva (Hanna Kulle) and Óðinn (Paul-­Ottar Haga) 10.4 Frigg (Evy Kasseth Røsten, in the middle), Sif (Margit Myhr, on the left), Freyr (Nadja Mirmiran, on the right) 11.1 Einar Selvik 11.2 Einar Selvik and Wardruna performing in the reconstructed Håkonshallen (King Håkon’s Hall) in Bergen, Norway 11.3 Einar Selvik and Wardruna performing in the reconstructed Håkonshallen (King Håkon’s Hall) in Bergen, Norway

112 164 165 169 170 174 175 178 251 252 252 253 265 266 266

Illustrations ix

12.1 ‘It was early in the ages when Ymir made his dwelling: there was not yet sand nor sea nor chill waves.’ From the beginning of Völuspá ‘Prophecy of the Seeress’ 12.2 Reconstruction of Germanic harp by Rainer Thurau (Wiesbaden, Germany) 12.3 A musical stave 12.4 A musical stave 12.5 A musical stave 12.6 Reconstruction of swanbone flute by Friedrich van Huene (Boston)

271 276 277 277 277 278

Acknowledgements

This book came about as the result of two conferences held at the University of Oxford in 2016 and 2019 under the title ‘Old Norse Poetry in Performance’. We would like to thank all those who attended and participated in these conferences for their insights and contributions. We are grateful to Somerville College and Christ Church for hosting these events and to the following organisations which generously sponsored them: Oxford Medieval Studies, TORCH (the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities), the Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature, the Viking Society for Northern Research, Reverend Productions, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Faculty of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford, and the Balliol Interdisciplinary Institute at Balliol College. The second conference benefited greatly from the organisational skills of Caitlin Ellis and William Brockbank, for which all involved were grateful. The editors record their thanks to the following copyright holders for permission to include certain images in this book: Rebeca Franco Valle for several of the photographs which accompany her chapter, along with the Musée du Louvre and the Bibliothèque Nationale, in Paris; Gabriel Hildebrand, Ola Myrin and Bengt A. Lundberg for their photographs of items in the collection of the Swedish History Museum; Museo de la Real Colegiata de San Isidoro de León for permission to include a photograph of the Scandinavian casket in its collection (IIC-­3-­089-­002-­0009); Christer Åhlin and the Swedish History Museum for the photograph of Tjurkö Bracteate I (SHM 1453:25) in John McKinnell’s chapter; Håkan Larsson for his photographs of Västanå Teater’s production of Eddan (2019); Daria Endresen, Roy Bjørge, Wardruna and Einar Selvik for the photographs of Einar Selvik in performance. Benjamin Bagby’s chapter, ‘Beowulf, the Edda and the Performance of Medieval Epic: Notes from the Workshop of a Reconstructed “Singer of Tales” ’, was originally published in Performing Medieval Narrative (2005; edited by Evelyn Birge Vitz, Nancy Freeman Regalado and Marilyn Lawrence, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer). We are grateful to the original editors and publisher for permission to reproduce it here.

Acknowledgements xi

Laura Hussey, Swati Hindwan and the whole team at Routledge have been unstintingly patient, supportive and encouraging. Additional thanks to Kevin Selmes, Ramachandran Vijayaragavan and Laura Magzis for their careful editing, oversight and project management. This book could not have come about without their hard work and generosity. The responsibility for any errors or lapses that remain lies entirely with the authors and the editors.

Contributors

Benjamin Bagby is a performer, teacher and scholar of medieval music. He directs the ensemble Sequentia, which he cofounded in 1977. Since the 1990s, when he began performing the Beowulf epic, his focus has been on the ‘Lost Songs Project’, searching for performance solutions for sung texts which have survived without musical notation. Annemari Ferreira is Assistant Professor of English as a Foreign Language at Woosong University, South Korea, and holds a research fellowship at the Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Along with Brian McMahon she is a co-­convenor of the ‘Old Norse Poetry in Performance’ project which generated this book. Rebeca Franco Valle is an art historian and archaeologist specialising in the Viking Age and Medieval Europe. Frog is a folklorist based at the University of Helsinki specialising in verbal art and mythology. Inés García López is a postdoctoral researcher and Lecturer of German Language and Literature at the Faculty of Arts, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain. She specialises in critical studies on the reception of Old Norse literature. Terry Gunnell is Professor of Folkloristics at the University of Iceland. Author of The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia (1995), he is also editor of Masks and Mumming in the Nordic Area (2007) and Legends and Landscape (2008) and co-­editor of The Nordic Apocalypse: Approaches to Völuspá and Nordic Days of Judgement (2013) and Málarinn og menningarsköpun: Sigurður Guðmundsson og Kvöldfélagið 1858–1874, which was nominated for the Icelandic Literature Award in 2017. Helen F. Leslie-­Jacobsen is a researcher at the University of Bergen, leading projects on Old Norse legendary material and medieval and early modern Norwegian law.

Contributors xiii

John McKinnell is Emeritus Professor in the Department of English Studies at Durham University and has published widely on Old Norse literature, with a particular focus on mythological poetry. A collection of his Essays on Eddic Poetry, edited by Donata Kick and John D. Shafer, was published in 2014. Brian McMahon is Associate Lecturer in English at Oxford Brookes University, a published playwright and Artistic Director at Reverend Productions. Along with Annemari Ferreira he is a co-­convenor of the ‘Old Norse Poetry in Performance’ project which generated this book. Stephen A. Mitchell, the Robert S. and Ilse Friend Professor of Scandinavian and Folklore at Harvard, works in a variety of genres and periods of Nordic culture and literature, especially the popular traditions of the medieval and early modern periods. He was one of the editors of The Handbook of Pre-­Modern Nordic Memory Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches (2018) and is the author of, among other works, Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages (2011). Simon Nygaard is Assistant Professor in the Department of the Study of Religion, Aarhus University, Denmark. His primary research focus is on pre-­Christian Nordic religion and ritual as well as oral poetry and performance in the Old Norse world. Pétur Húni Björnsson is a kvæðamaður – a performer of traditional Icelandic rímur. He holds master’s degrees in Folkloristics and Medieval Studies and is currently a doctorand at the University of Iceland, studying late medieval/early modern rímur and fornaldarsögur. Einar Selvik is a Norwegian composer, the main musician and founder of the Norwegian musical constellation Wardruna, a project renowned for its innovative and genre-­creating renditions of older Nordic traditions. By using the oldest Nordic instruments, poetry and poetic metres in a contemporary soundscape, Einar has managed to merge the scholarly with the pop-­cultural and has given a new voice to old thoughts, tools and techniques, reaching a worldwide audience and experimenting beyond the limitations of musical genres. Harriet Soper is Simon and June Li Fellow in English at Lincoln College, Oxford. She has published on various aspects of medieval poetry and her research often focuses on issues of individual and social identity at an intersection with form. She earned a PhD in 2018 at the University of Cambridge. Leif Stinnerbom has been the Artistic Director and Director of Västanå Teater, in Sunne, Värmland, since 1990.

Introduction Terry Gunnell

Most people encounter Old Norse poetry for the first time in the form of writing, and, even though they soon become aware that this material was originally presented orally, they still tend to look at these works much as we look at poetry in our own times: as something that is carefully ‘composed’ (and preserved) as a whole in some form of writing and then later performed live for audiences in the same form. Dating such works would thus seem to be comparatively simple. Since these poems tend to be viewed as complete ‘works’, logically, if one line shows Christian influence, the whole work must have been composed after the Christianisation process in the Nordic countries. Similarly, if the metrical form used for the poem is complicated enough, and if written records suggest that the named poet lived in the ninth century, then there can be little question that the poem must have been preserved intact for centuries before it came to be recorded on pergament in the thirteenth century or later. Such an approach to Old Norse poetry, or indeed any form of traditional oral poetry, can be regarded as somewhat naïve (to say the least), and arguably reflects the degree to which academia (and not least the study of poetry and prose) has in more recent times tended to be based on the written word. The fact is that writing as we know it did not enter the Old Norse world in any practical fashion until the eleventh century, and even though runic inscription on wood or stone was well known long before that, one needs to quickly abandon the image of a budding poet jotting down newly created poetry or a saga in runic form on a block of wood or stone. If we wish to understand how Old Norse poetry was conceived and experienced by poets and audiences in the medieval period, we need to put reading and writing to one side, and to start considering these works more in terms of theatre, slam poetry and jazz improvisation; in other words, in terms of sound, vision and momentary experience. In short, we need to start by considering them in terms of performance, looking at the words we encounter on the page more in the way that we look at musical notation: not as the work itself, but rather as the skeleton about which the artistic performative ‘body’ is formed, bearing in mind the fact that when alive this body gained meaning by interacting with others in a particular time, space and situation. DOI: 10.4324/9780367809324-1

2  Terry Gunnell

Arguably, considerations about the more performative aspects of Old Norse poetry (in the sense noted above) can be said to go back to the late eighteenth century, when scholars such as Friedrich David Gräter (1768–1830) and Finnur Magnússon (1781–1847), who were both aware of accounts of masked performances of Nordic mercenaries in Constantinople in the mid-­tenth century, chose to see the dialogic eddic poem Lokasenna as a drama rather than a poem (see further Gunnell 1995, 2–6 for other early references; and Gunnell 1995, 1–76; Pettitt and Søndergaard 2001, 623–4 for more information about the masked gothikon performance in Constantinople). Such general ideas, which were rarely taken much further than loosely suggesting potential roots for certain eddic poems in ritual drama, can be said to have reached a peak with The Elder Edda and Ancient Scandinavian Drama (1920) by Bertha Phillpotts (1877–1932) (see further Gunnell 1995, 6–8), after which point the idea of eddic dramas largely disappeared from view for almost 70 years. (See nonetheless Gunnell 1995, 8–10, 2019 on other scholars who touch on ideas of dramatic presentation in the Nordic world during this time.) The first steps towards a new understanding of how oral poetry actually ‘works’ in performance can be said to have been taken in The Singer of Tales (1960) by Albert Lord (1912–91), building on the research work of Milman Parry (1902–35) with contemporary oral performers in Yugoslavia. While this work once again focussed largely on textual analysis, it opened up a new focus on the importance of the moment of oral performance, the creation and changeability of oral texts, and not least the interconnected roles of the artist, audience and environment in the way such works function. It also underlined the value of examining the dynamics of modern performances as a means of understanding those of the past. This ground-­breaking work, which would be effectively followed up by other scholars of orality such as John Miles Foley (1947–2012, see 1988, 1991, 1995, 2002) and Ruth Finnegan (see, for example, Finnegan 1988), soon found its way into discussions of the role of the oral tradition in Old English and Old Norse texts (see, for example, Scholes and Kellogg 1966, 17–56; Kellogg 1988, i–x; Harris 1979, 1983, 1985, 2000, 2003; Opland 1980; Gísli Sigurðsson 1986, 1992). In the years that followed, other fields of study began their own considerations of performance from different viewpoints, effectively opening other doors into what is ‘going on’ in the oral performance of a poem or play (see further Shepherd 2016, 3–53). As far back as the late 1940s, the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga (1872–1945) had considered how our daily lives (sports events, religious services, law courts and more) can be seen in terms of ‘play’ (Huizinga 1949 in Homo Ludens, a work that can be seen as providing a prelude for Bourdieu’s later ideas of ‘habitus’). Anthropologists began to take a slightly similar approach in the 1960s, when scholars like Victor Turner (1920–83) began considering how religious ritual could be analysed as a form of theatre and vice versa (see especially Turner 1969, 1982;

Introduction 3

see further Schechner 1985, 1993; Bell 2009, 72–6). Elsewhere, ideas of how ‘spaces’ were turned into ‘places’ by such performances and experiences were being introduced by geographers such as Yi-­Fu Tuan (see Tuan 1977), and folklorists drawing on socio-­linguistics were starting to consider the complex three-­dimensional nature of the performative storytelling ‘event’ (see, for example, Bauman 1977, 1986; Bauman and Braid 1998). Within the field of Old Norse studies, the first steps to move beyond considerations of the effects of orality on the stability of texts can be said to have been made by Lars Lönnroth with his discussion of what he termed the ‘double scene’ (see Lönnroth 1971, 1978, 1979), whereby the performance of a poem (especially a monologue) in a particular site at a particular time could result in the audience having a sense of two worlds interacting. Fifteen years later, such ideas were taken further in The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia (1995) by the present author, who had a background in both drama and theatre arts and Old Norse Studies. This work returned to the arguments made earlier by Bertha Phillpotts, now considering the extant dialogic eddic poems directly from the viewpoint of potential dramatic performance. Starting with the premise that the poems in question were essentially oral in nature, The Origins of Drama focuses on an attempt to see whether it would have been possible for a single performer to present the extant texts of these poems (all of which take the form of direct speech, and one of which, Lokasenna, has 16 speakers) without resorting to dramatic role-­play. It goes on to consider why the form of direct speech should have been chosen for these works, and what effects such presumed role-­play might have had on those watching and on the spaces in which it was performed, underlining that if such role-­play took place, the rudiments of dramatic activity must have been well known in the Old Norse world, just as they were elsewhere. It should be underlined, however, that ‘drama’ here is not seen in terms of modern naturalistic drama, but rather as those involved in theatre tend to see it, in other words as essentially ‘the momentary living recreation of an alternative world (or a section of it) within this one’. In short, the performer ‘acting [. . .] is acting not himself but someone or something else that “belongs” to a different time and/or place’, the result being an ‘ “illusion” of double reality’ that ‘creates its own costume and setting in the minds of both the performer and beholder’ (Gunnell 1995, 12).1 Alongside a close examination of the extant texts of these poems (recorded in the late thirteenth century) and their manuscripts, the book goes on to examine the archaeological, literary and folkloric evidence of Nordic masking traditions, past and present, that might have provided some support and/or context for such dramatic traditions having existed in the Old Norse world.2 In the years that have followed, the ‘performance archaeology’ approach taken here (which has many parallels to that taken by other scholars working in Performance Studies such as Richard Schechner [see especially Schechner 2020], and the Swedish folklorist Owe Ronström [see Gunnell and Ronström 2013]) has been developed by the present author to include further

4  Terry Gunnell

examinations into how the Viking Age hall might have occasionally served as a microcosmos and how semi-­dramatic performances like those previously noted might have interacted with these surroundings (Gunnell 2005); into how masks might have ‘worked’ in performance in the Bronze and Iron Ages (Gunnell 2012); and how eddic monologues and even some skaldic poems using direct speech might also have made use of dramatic role-­play, sound and rhythm to create soundscapes, atmosphere and a sense of double reality for audiences (Gunnell 2013, 2016; for other related works, see Gunnell 2001, 2006a, 2006b, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2016, 2020). In the past few years, these ideas have been effectively followed up by a number of young scholars who have focussed more on the performance of skaldic poetry, such as Anna Millward (2015) and Simon Nygaard (2018, 2019; see also the chapter by Nygaard in this volume); and then Brian McMahon, who has reconsidered performative aspects of prose storytelling in the Old Norse world (McMahon 2017). Bearing that in mind, it is also important to note the range of experimental dramatic performances of certain eddic poems that have taken place in recent years (see the overview of such performances given in Gunnell and Sveinn Einarsson 2018, 254–9; and most recently Leif Stinnerbom’s production of Jon Fosse’s Edda [2017] at the Västanå teater, Värmland, Sweden, in 2019: see Västanå teater [Edda]), all of which have offered new insights into exactly how well the dialogic and monologic eddic poems can work as dramatic works, whether one is drawing on recognised medieval styles of performance or others more accessible today. Yet another angle has been provided by Casja Lund’s work on the sounds of Bronze and Iron Age instruments (Lund 1975, 1981, 1986, 2012); and by the closely related experimental work carried out in recent years into the more ‘musical’ aspects of the eddic poems using medieval instruments and varying styles of presentation that draw not only on medieval music but also more traditional types of performance deep-­rooted in the North (such as the joik and shamanic chant). Worth particular mention here is the work of Benjamin Bagby and Sequentia (see Sequentia 1995, 2001; Bagby 1999; Heimir Pálsson 1999, and especially Bagby’s excellent performance of Beowulf from 2006); and that of Einar Selvik and Wardruna (2009, 2014, 2016, 2018). (On these modern experimental performances, see further the interviews with Leif Stinnerbom and Einar Selvik and the chapter by Benjamin Bagby that conclude this book). Alongside the ongoing research relating to the nature of textual and aural poetic performance noted earlier, it is also important to consider the exciting new work that has been carried out in the past decades by a number of post-­processual archaeologists working in the field of Old Norse archaeology, scholars who are interested in trying to understand the nature of the ritual performances that might lie behind archaeological remains, regularly drawing on approaches taken from other fields like those previously noted, a method effectively outlined in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology

Introduction 5

of Ritual (Insoll 2011). One can mention in particular here the work of a number of key figures such as Neil Price (see Price 2008, 2010, 2014, 2019; Price and Mortimer 2014, on the performance of shamanic ritual, Viking ship burials, and helmet-­masks); Anders Andrén (2014, on ritual spaces and processions); Torun Zachrisson (2004, on ritual remains); and Terje Gansum (2002) and Jan Bill (2016) (both dealing with the Oseberg burial). Alongside these it is worth noting the closely related work of Steven Shema (2014) on the ‘performance’ of Viking Age battle, and the research of Simon Nygaard and Luke Murphy into the evidence for ritual processions (Nygaard and Murphy 2017).3 Particularly promising with regard to reconstructing such kinds of ritual and poetic performance is the work that has recently been carried out by archaeologists into the recreation of the aural aspects of archaeological spaces (see the articles in Papantoniou et al. 2014; Scarre and Lawson 2006). What, though, do we mean by ‘performance’, and what is entailed in ‘Performance Studies’? How, exactly, does this approach differ from earlier approaches to Old Norse poetry and ritual? As Richard Schechner writes in his Performance Studies: An Introduction (see most recently Schechner 2020), performance can be said to involve essentially a performer, something that is performed and someone who receives or experiences this performance (see Schechner 2020, 1–25). The element of ‘experience’, however, underlines the earlier-­noted complexity of the subject, which reaches beyond words into considerations of how all of the senses are involved in the reception of a live performative event alongside elements of association and expectation (both of which draw on memory). It also involves the need to consider various levels of temporary and spatial context, ranging from the immediate to the broad (see Schechner 2020, 38–60, on the use of different kinds of ‘framing’ for analysis; see also Foley 2002, 60, on the importance of considering context for any consideration of how oral poetry ‘works’). As can be seen, therefore, Performance Studies is by nature interdisciplinary, considering not only texts but also psychology, sociology, anthropology, folkloristics and the study of material culture (to name just a few fields). Like any study of daily life, it questions pigeon-­holed examination. Naturally, one can consider a written poem in terms of performance (in terms of how it ‘performs’ for the readers, who might even ‘hear’ the sounds of the text in their minds). Indeed, when it comes down to it, as Schechner underlines, anything can be considered as performance (Schechner 2020, 12–16 and 22–3) when it interacts with humans, since it will be received in a certain way by individuals on the basis of learned tradition (see, for example, Leach 2017 on the ‘performance’ of medieval manuscripts). An oral performance of a poem (or play), on the other hand, naturally involves the use of a great many more senses, ranging from the aural (tone, rhythm, volume, music) to the visual (stance, movement, appearance, setting, lighting and more), all of which have something to say in the way the work is understood at any given time. All of these features would have been borne

6  Terry Gunnell

in mind by the artist as part of their planning of the work, which would, of course, have varied in meaning to some degree for those present, depending not only on the time and place of performance but also the background, memory and expectation of each individual audience member. As Schechner notes, it is also important to bear in mind that all performances involve much more (for both performers and audiences) than the immediate performance itself. All of them involve in some way a period of learning or preparation (what Schechner calls ‘proto-­performance’), and also an ‘aftermath’, or long-­term effect, both of which also deserve consideration alongside the performance itself, the former helping to explain why a particular performance may have taken a particular shape, while the latter highlights the fact that the functions and meaning of a particular performance can vary over time. Indeed, as Schechner emphasises, considerations of the conscious or unconscious function of a performance can be extremely revealing: is a work ‘simply’ entertaining, or creating beauty, fostering community, making or changing identity, healing, teaching, or dealing in some way with the divine and demonic (or several of these at once: see Schechner 2020, 18–19). Closely related to this is the equally useful consideration of where any particular performance stands on what Schechner sees as a performative continuum that stretches from the field of play to that of ritual (see Schechner 2020, 23, 150–3). While play might temporarily ‘transport’ those involved away from the daily life, ritual is meant to have a longer-­term performative effect, potentially ‘transforming’ not only the participants but also the surroundings. Both involve a variable degree of otherworldly liminality of some kind, and both have the potential to create a sense of what Schechner calls communitas for those taking part (Schechner 2020, 144–52). Alongside considerations like those previously noted, as Schechner says, there is also good reason to consider the differing roles played by all of those involved in a performance (including the organisers and facilitators, as well as the audience and performers), and the dynamics that exist between them before, during and after the time of performance (Schechner 2020, 60–6). Any consideration of Old Norse poetry from this viewpoint naturally involves a degree of surmise and speculation, but it at least involves trying to understand these works as they were when they were created rather than as what they have become (silent texts contained within the covers of a book or on a screen). It is an approach that has regularly been used in attempting to understand the dramatic texts of the past, and it is quite logical that one should treat monologic and dialogic poetry and other kinds of oral text in a similar way to the way in which we deal with medieval drama or even the works of Shakespeare, making use not only of all the written and material information available, but also our own more detailed experiential knowledge of how similar performances ‘work’ with audiences in our own time (as Lord and Parry did). While we may never be able to place ourselves precisely in the footsteps of the medieval performers or audiences, this should not detract from the value of making some attempt to get there. At

Introduction 7

the very least, this work, be it in the shape of ‘performance archaeology’ or experimental re-­creation, has the potential to give us a deeper understanding of what was actually ‘going on’ when an Old Norse poem was originally brought to life in front of a live audience. The articles in this book have a background in two conferences organised at the University of Oxford by the present editors, Annemari Ferreira and Brian McMahon, on 25 and 26 June 2016 (at Somerville College, where Bertha Phillpotts wrote The Elder Edda and Ancient Scandinavian Drama [mentioned previously]) and on 22 and 23 June 2019 (at Christ Church), the aim of which was to bring together a range of scholars to consider and experience Old Norse poetry from the viewpoint of live performance, drawing on some of the approaches discussed herein. Both conferences were deliberately framed by live oral performances, underlining the need to begin with some consideration of the role played by sound, vision and surroundings (the performances of Völuspá by Sequentia and Einar Selvik in Somerville chapel and the medieval Christ Church cathedral before and after the Brexit vote underlining in no small way the degree to which meaning was enhanced by spatial and temporal context). While the first conference focussed on orality itself, the second aimed to tackle the more material aspects of performance, including visual context. This book contains 11 chapters based on or inspired by lectures presented at the aforementioned conferences, as well as two interviews with artists who have worked with experimental performances of this material in recent years. One of its main aims is to share with a wider audience the valuable insights that the editors feel were gained from these gatherings, which highlight in no uncertain fashion the intrinsic value of examining Old Norse poetry first and foremost as something that originally gained meaning in the shape of a live performance in front of an audience, rather than in the form of written symbols in ink on a page of pergament. In addition to providing a valuable insight into the background of his own long-­term personal interest in Performance Studies, Stephen A. Mitchell’s ‘Framing Old Norse Performance Contexts: The Wedding at Reykjahólar (1119) Revisited’ effectively applies the ideas of those scholars who inspired Mitchell to a famous literary account from the Old Norse saga corpus that describes an ‘event’ in which poetry is performed, namely the account of the Reykhólar wedding celebrations in Þorgils saga ok Hafliða. In this detailed case study, Mitchell shows how the Performance Studies approach can be efficiently used to ‘fill the interstices between the visible information in surviving written records and the larger picture of the past they are capable of painting,’ in other words ‘revivifying’ the text as a means of examining the various ‘social processes’ at work behind them, revealing ‘what’s actually going on here’. As the title suggests, ‘Revisiting Zumthorian Vocality in Old Norse Poetry Studies’ by Inés García López deals with approaches to the question of vocality (what happens when a text is orally transmitted or performed).

8  Terry Gunnell

Noting the work of academics such as Lacan, Derrida, and Barthes, García Lopéz pays particular attention to the work of Paul Zumthor and Ursula Schaefer, before going on to consider how comparatively rarely such questions have been dealt with by scholars working on Old Norse texts. As she notes, this approach has a great deal of potential for offering new insights. Simon Nygaard’s ‘með skarða skjöldu ok skotnar brynjur: The Distribution and Function of Aural Sense Impressions in Old Norse Poetry’ focuses on the creation of soundscapes, or ‘aural sense impressions’, as a means of ‘conveying meaning beyond that of the literal’ in the potential oral performance of various Old Norse poetic metres, following up and effectively building on an approach first introduced by the author of this introduction. As Nygaard shows, on the basis of a detailed examination of several poetic texts (Hákonarmál, Eiríksmál, Hrafnsmál, Grímnismál, Hávamál, Völuspá and Þrymskviða), the use of this feature seems to differ between metres, appearing more in the alliteration and assonance of málaháttr and fornyrðislag verses than in ljóðaháttr, where other types of performance marker tend to be employed. As the title suggests, Harriet Soper’s Dramatic Implications of Echoed Speech in Skírnismál’ deals with the role and nature of the numerous echo responses in this eddic poem. As Soper notes, such responses are a common feature in the dialogic ljóðaháttr poems and offer a great deal of potential in a performative context. Drawing on a wide range of linguistic research, and especially Du Bois’s theory of ‘dialogic syntax’ and the research of Enfield et al. into ‘echo answers’, Soper conducts a detailed examination into the role played by such retorts in the various power struggles that can be witnessed in Skírnismál, noting, among other things, the degree to which they echo visual territorial incursions. As Soper notes, if one considers the overall structure of the work, it is clear that many of these retorts are supported by both physical action and situation, which grant them additional levels of meaning. Alongside these features, some attention is given to the role that echo was evidently meant to play in the galdralag metre employed by Skírnir in the central curse he bestows on Gerðr. John McKinnell’s ‘Eddic Poetry and the Uses of Anonymity’ reconsiders what many earlier scholars have suggested about the differences between eddic and skaldic poetry, stressing that when it comes down to it, the only real difference is the question of anonymity. As McKinnell argues, this anonymity appears to be functional, reinforcing the fact that, much as with ballads, the material was viewed as being traditional, meaning not only that no one could ‘own’ such a poem but also that the poems, like ballads and those songs analysed by Lord and Parry (previously mentioned), would probably have existed in numerous versions. As McKinnell notes, this means that attempting to date entire eddic poems on the basis of a single line, phrase, formula or collocation (which could be new, ancient or simply archaic) is somewhat pointless. The chapter goes on to examine in some detail the collocations of two stanzas of Sigurðarkviða in skamma, considering the ways in which these might have ‘performed’ for those listening to or reading the poem.

Introduction 9

‘Accretive Quotation and the Performance of Verse in Fagrskinna’ by Helen F. Leslie-­Jacobsen takes an original look at the prosimetra found in many of the sagas, and especially those dealing with the kings of Norway, suggesting that this has a background in the way historical stories were told and verse performed in the Old Norse world. Focussing on the now lost Fagrskinna manuscript containing some of the earlier kings’ sagas, Leslie-­Jacobsen looks at the way the skaldic verses are used (and presented) in the saga, pointing up the fact that they are used mainly either as evidence or speech by characters, most having the former role. She goes on to divide such evidence stanzas into two types: ‘simple evidence stanzas’ in which stanzas are quoted with no interlinking prose, and ‘complex evidence stanzas’ which contain interlinking prose, which Leslie-­Jacobsen refers to as ‘accretive quotation’. As several detailed case studies relating to Fagrskinna carried out by the author have shown, this approach involving the interrelation of prose and poetry has numerous benefits. The poetry serves to lend authoritative support to the story being told as well as aesthetic beauty, the prose meanwhile helping to explain and give context to the often complex poetry. For Leslie-­Jacobsen, this would have been a natural way of transmitting the world of the past into the present for medieval audiences. ‘Performing Old Norse Poetry in Visual Art: A  Comparative Perspective with the Islamic World and a Scandinavian Box in Spain’ by Rebeca Franco Valle considers poetic performance from a valuable new viewpoint, foregrounding, among other things, the way in which the creation of skaldic poetry in particular was often compared to the creation of a material object. Moving on from here, and building on parallels in the Islamic world, Franco Valle suggests that there is good reason to consider Old Norse poetry (in terms of creation and performance) alongside other artistic representations from the Viking Age, such as the Mammen and Ringerike styles of decoration, the Gotland stones, and animal imagery found on objects like a tenth-­or eleventh-­century Scandinavian casket preserved in the Basilica of San Isidoro on the Iberian Peninsula. ‘How the Hell Do You Read This?: The Evolution of Eddic Orality Through Manuscript Performance’ by Frog takes an original approach to the vexed question of the apparent opposition that existed between oral performance and written texts, emphasising that a great deal of interaction probably existed between the two. Focussing on the early manuscripts of the Poetic Edda, and reminding us of what D. H. Green underlined in his Medieval Listening and Reading (1994) about the ‘orality’ of the medieval manuscript which would have been commonly read aloud for others, Frog pays particular attention to the common use of abbreviation in the manuscripts (especially for repeated passages). As he notes, in many cases, this seems to demand an initial familiarity with the oral tradition that lived behind the poems, suggesting that over time one can imagine that the manuscript actively served as a means of preserving and even teaching the tradition.

10  Terry Gunnell

Brian McMahon’s ‘Old Norse Poetry in Performance: Perils, Pitfalls and Possibilities’ compares the implicit differences in value between considering Old Norse poetry in terms of ‘performance archaeology’ (in other words, using extant materials to consider how a poetic work or drama may have been performed or experienced) and more modern ‘resuscitation’ whereby the work is brought back to life in a form more accessible to a modern audience, much in the same way as Shakespeare’s work is commonly presented today. (A typical example of such an approach might be that used with the eddic poems by Leif Stinnerbom in Sweden, as noted; see further the interview with Stinnerbom elsewhere in this volume.) The chapter concludes by applying these two approaches to the eddic dialogue Hárbarðsljóð, underlining that both have their value in providing new insights into the implicit nature of the work and the ways in which it might have ‘worked’ with audiences. This is followed by an interview taken by Brian McMahon with the Swedish theatre director Leif Stinnerbom about his recent production of Jon Fosse’s Edda at the Västanå teater, Värmland, then an interview with Einar Selvik of Wardruna about his somewhat different approach to skaldic and eddic poetry, and his personal experiments with sound spaces and early medieval instruments. As noted, both of the conferences that inspired this volume involved a number of oral performances of medieval texts, and the book ends by paying special attention to those who have personal experience of performing Old Norse poetry or preparing it for performance in some way. In ‘Beowulf, the Edda and the Performance of Medieval Epic: Notes from the Workshop of a Reconstructed “Singer of Tales” ’, Benjamin Bagby of Sequentia discusses his work with oral performances of Beowulf and the eddic poems. Finally, in ‘ “ıð besta eꝛ quæðeð fm̄ flutt”: Kveðnar Drápur og Kveðnar Rímur’, Pétur Húni Björnsson, who has been performing Icelandic rímur poetry for more than 20 years, looks at the textual evidence for the early performance of both skaldic performance and that of rímur. He underscores that the earliest known rímur were composed in the fourteenth century by a poet who also composed skaldic poetry, and in addition to sharing several stylistic features, both forms of poetry are said to have been kveðið, a verb that seems to imply something closer to song than speech in terms of sound, something that was regarded as having a particular beauty. As Pétur Húni notes, there can be little question that performances of skaldic poetry, like those of rímur, often attracted more attention than their content. He follows this by describing his own experiences of rímur performance.

Notes 1 For further considerations of such an understanding of the roots of drama, see, for example, Heilpern (1999), Brook (1972) and Southern (1968). 2 For an example of some of the (comparatively rare) criticism that has been made of the ideas presented in this work, see Clunies Ross (2020, 121): ‘It is attractive, it chimes

Introduction 11 with contemporary interests in performance theory, but it depends in the long run on the validity of Gunnell’s claim that speaker identifications in the main manuscripts of the Poetic Edda poems are unique in Scandinavia and indicative of dramatic performance, and he himself admits that on its own, this claim is incapable of proof.’ In answer, one might say that claims of this kind reflect the slightly out-­dated approaches to oral poetry noted at the start of this introduction. They also conveniently ignore the solid facts that indications of this kind in other manuscripts from the period (in the Anglo-­Norman area) have been used as indications of dramatic performance by a number of other scholars in other fields (Gunnell 1995, 300–20); the fact noted previously that there is clear evidence of masked performances by Nordic warriors involving dance and text in Constantinople in the late ninth century; the fact that satirical dances were evidently being performed in Iceland in the thirteenth century (Gunnell 1995, 160–1); and the facts that early masking traditions still had firm roots elsewhere in the Nordic world in the ninth century, and would go on being popular here in the centuries that followed (Gunnell 1995, 36–80 and 93–181, 2007; Vedeler 2019, 72–86). The demand for contemporary descriptions of ritualistic theatrical presentations (something potentially implied by Adam of Bremen’s talk of the rituals at Gamla Uppsala taking place in a theatrum, and Saxo Grammaticus’ later idea that these rituals involved mimi (performers with dramatic skills) [Gunnell 1995, 78–80 and 358–64, 1996]) naturally glides over the fact that (as noted) writing did not reach the Nordic countries until the advent of Christianity, and that we have very few first-­ hand descriptions even of Shakespeare’s plays in performance, and even fewer of those performances that lay behind the extant texts of medieval drama. As with such early dramas, in the case of eddic and skaldic poems, we are naturally forced to go back to the texts themselves along with other forms of evidence if we wish to draw conclusions about how such works might have been performed. Most important is the need to remember that, as noted at the start of this introduction, in the case of all recordings of oral texts, we need to start by accepting the basic fact that they were not read but heard, observed and experienced in a particular space at a particular time (see Foley 2002, 60). 3 See also Gunnell, forthcoming a and b on reading the experience of ritual from saga and other historical accounts (which can be compared to the remains found in a grave); and on inferring the intangible, more performative aspects of a ritual from the tangible remains of a grave.

Bibliography Andrén, Anders. 2014. Tracing Old Norse Cosmology: The World Tree, Middle Earth, and the Sun in Archaeological Perspectives, Vägar til Midgård 16, Lund: Nordic Academic Press Bagby, Benjamin. 1999. ‘The Reconstruction of Eddic Performance’, in the booklet accompanying Sequentia. 1999. Edda. Deutsche Harmonia Mundi: 05472 77381 2, 11–4 Bagby, Benjamin. 2006. Beowulf, DVD recording of an oral performance by Benjamin Bagby with an Anglo-­Saxon harp including a discussion of medieval oral performance by Bagby with John Miles Foley, Thomas Cable and Mark Amodio, Loch/Charles Morrow Productions LLC and Jon Aaron Bauman, Richard. 1977. Verbal Art as Performance, Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press Bauman, Richard. 1986. Story, Performance and Event: Contextual Studies of Oral Narrative, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Bauman, Richard and Donald Braid. 1998. ‘The Ethnography of Performance in the Study of Oral Traditions’, in Teaching Oral Traditions, ed. by John Miles Foley, New York: Modern Language Association, 106–22 Bell, Catherine. 2009. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, Oxford: Oxford University Press

12  Terry Gunnell Bill, Jan. 2016. ‘Protecting Against the Dead? On the Possible Use of Apotropaic Magic in the Oseberg Burial’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 26:1, 141–55 Brook, Peter. 1972. The Empty Space, Harmondsworth: Pelican Clunies Ross, Margaret. 2020. ‘Archaeology and Textuality in the Study of Pre-­Christian Scandinavian Religion’, in Old Norse Myths as Political Ideologies: Critical Studies in the Appropriation of Medieval Narratives, ed. by Nicolas Meylan and Lukas Rösli, Acta Scandinavica: Cambridge Studies in the Early Scandinavian World 9, Turnhout: Brepols, 117–28 Einar Selvik and Warduna. 2009. Runaljod: Gap var Ginnunga, Oslo: Indie Recordings, Fimbulljóð Einar Selvik and Warduna. 2014. Runaljod: Yggdrasil, Oslo: Indie Recordings, Fimbulljóð Einar Selvik and Warduna. 2016. Runaljod: Ragnarok, Oslo: Fimbulljóð Productions: BHM002CD Einar Selvik and Warduna. 2018. Skald, Oslo: Fimbulljóð Productions: BHM014CD Finnegan, Ruth. 1988. Literacy and Orality: Studies in the Technology of Communication, Oxford: Blackwell Finnegan, Ruth. 1992. Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Significance and Social Context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Foley, John Miles. 1988. The Theory of Oral Composition: History and Methodology, Bloomington: Indiana University Press Foley, John Miles. 1991. Immanent Art: From Structure to Meaning in Traditional Oral Epic, Bloomington: Indiana University Press Foley, John Miles. 1995. The Singer of Tales in Performance, Bloomington: Indiana University Press Foley, John Miles. 2002. How to Read an Oral Poem, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press Fosse, Jon. 2017. Edda: Den eldrer Edda i en scenisk versjon ved Jon Fosse, Leikanger: Skald Gansum, Terje. 2002. ‘Fra Jord Til Handling’, in Plats och Praxis: Studier av nordisk ritual, ed. by Kristina Jennbert, Anders Andrén and Catherina Raudvere, Vägar til Midgård 2, Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 249–86 Gísli Sigurðsson. 1986. ‘Ástir og útsaumur: Umhverfi og kvenleg einkenni hetjukvæða Eddu’, Skírnir 160, 126–52 Gísli Sigurðsson. 1992. ‘Horfin hefð: Hvernig nálgumst við eddukvæði?’ Skíma 15:3, 21–6 Green, D. H. 1994. Medieval Listening and Reading, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Gunnell, Terry. 1995. The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer Gunnell, Terry. 1996. ‘The Rights of the Player: Evidence of Mimi and Histriones in Early Scandinavia’, Comparative Drama 30, 1–31 Gunnell, Terry. 2001. ‘Grýla, Grýlur, “Grøleks” and Skeklers: Medieval Disguise Traditions in the North Atlantic?’ Arv 57, 3–54 Gunnell, Terry. 2005. ‘Hof, Halls, Goðar and Dwarves: An Examination of the Ritual Space in the Pagan Icelandic Hall’, Cosmos 17, 3–36 Gunnell, Terry. 2006a. ‘Narratives, Space and Drama: Essential Spatial Aspects Involved in the Performance and Reception of Oral Narrative’, Folklore: An Electronic Journal 33, 7–26 Gunnell, Terry. 2006b. ‘ “Til holts ek gekk”: Spacial and Temporal Aspects of the Dramatic Poems of the Elder Edda’, in Old Norse Religion in Long Term Perspectives: Origins, Changes and Interactions: An International Conference in Lund, Sweden 3–7 júni, 2004, ed. by Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert and Catharina Raudvere, Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 238–42 Gunnell, Terry, ed. 2007. Masks and Mumming in the Nordic Area, Uppsala: Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademien för svensk folkkultur

Introduction 13 Gunnell, Terry. 2008. ‘The Performance of the Poetic Edda’, in The Viking World, ed. by Stefan Brink in collaboration with Neil Price, London and New York: Routledge, 299–303 Gunnell, Terry. 2011. ‘The Drama of the Poetic Edda: Performance as a Means of Transformation’, in Progranicza teatralności: Poezja, poetyka, praktyka, ed. by Andrzeja Dąbrówki, Studia Staropolskie, Series Nova, Warsaw: Instytut Badań Literackich Pan Wydawnictwo, 13–40 Gunnell, Terry. 2012. ‘Masks and Performance in the Early Nordic World’, in Masken der Vorseit in Europa (II): International Tagung vom 19. bis. 21. November in Halle (Saale), ed. by Harald Meller and Regine Maraszek, Halle (Saale): Landesamt fur Denkmalpflege und Archaologie Sachsen-­Analt, 183–96 Gunnell, Terry. 2013. ‘Vǫluspá in Performance’, in The Nordic Apocalypse: Approaches to ‘Vǫluspá’ and Nordic Days of Judgement, ed. by Terry Gunnell and Annette Lassen, Brepols: Turnhout, 63–77 Gunnell, Terry. 2016. ‘Eddic Performance and Eddic Audiences’, in A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, ed. by Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn and Britanny Schorn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 92–113 Gunnell, Terry. 2019. ‘Folke Ström and kultdrama’, in Religionshistorikern Folke Ström, ed. by Andreas Nordberg and Olof Sundqvist, Uppsala: Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademien för svensk folkkultur, 137–46 Gunnell, Terry. 2020. ‘Performance Archaeology, Eiríksmál, Hákonarmál and the Study of Old Nordic Religions’, in John Miles Foley’s World of Oralities: Text, Tradition, and Contemporary Oral Theory, ed. by Mark C. Amodio, Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 137–53 Gunnell, Terry. Forthcoming a. ‘Intangible Aspects of Icelandic and West-­Nordic Burial Customs in the Viking Age’ Gunnell, Terry. Forthcoming b. ‘Reading the Performance of Ritual’ Gunnell, Terry and Sveinn Einarsson. 2018. ‘Theatre and Performance (1830–2018)’, in The Pre-­Christian Religions of the North: Research and Reception, Vol. II: From c. 1830 to the Present, ed. by Margaret Clunies Ross, Turnhout: Brepols, 227 -­ 64 Gunnell, Terry and Ronström Owe. 2013. ‘Folklore och Performance Studies: En introduction’, in Folkloristikens akutella utmaningar: Vänbok til Ulf Palmenfelt, ed. by Owe Rönström, Georg Drakos and Jonas Engman, Visby: Högskolan på Gotland, 21–55 Harris, Joseph. 1979. ‘The Senna: From Description to Literary Theory’, Michigan Germanic Studies 5:1, 65–74 Harris, Joseph. 1983. ‘Eddic Poetry as Oral Poetry: The Evidence of Parallel Passages in the Helgi Poems for Questions of Composition and Performance’, in Edda: A Collection of Essays, ed. by R. J. Glendinning and Haraldur Bessason, Manitoba: University of Manitoba Press, 210–35 Harris, Joseph. 1985. ‘Eddic Poetry’, in Old Norse-­Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide, ed. by Carol J. Clover and John Lindow, Islandica 65, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 67–156 Harris, Joseph. 2000. ‘The Performance of Old Norse Eddic Poetry: A  Retrospective’, in The Oral Epic: Performance and Music, Intercultural Music Studies 12, ed. by Karl Reichl, Berlin: VWB, Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung, 225–32 Harris, Joseph. 2003. ‘ “Ethnopaleography” and Recovered Performance: The Problematic Witnesses to “Eddic Music” ’, in Models of Performance in Oral Epic, Ballad, and Song, ed. by Joseph Falaky Nagy, Western Folklore 62:1–2, 97–117 Heimir Pálsson. 1999. ‘The Performance of the Eddic Poems’, in the booklet accompanying Sequentia. 1999. Edda. Deutsche Harmonia Mundi: 05472 77381 2, 9–10

14  Terry Gunnell Heilpern, John. 1999. Conference of the Birds: The Story of Peter Brook in Africa, London and New York: Routledge Huizinga, Johan. 1949. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-­Element in Culture, trans. by R. F. C. Hull, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Insoll, Timothy, ed. 2011. Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion, Oxford: Oxford University Press Kellogg, Robert. 1988. A Concordance to Eddic Poetry, Medieval Texts and Studies 2, East Lansing: Colleagues Press Leach, Elizabeth Eva. 2017. ‘Performing Manuscripts’, in Performing Medieval Text, ed. by Ardis Butterfield, Henry Hope and Pauline Souleau, Cambridge: Legenda – Modern Languages Research Association, 11–19 Lord, Albert B. 1960. The Singer of Tales, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Lönnroth, Lars. 1971. ‘Hjálmar’s Death Song and the Delivery of Eddic Poetry’, Speculum 46, 1–20 Lönnroth, Lars. 1978. Den dubbla scenen: Muntlig diktning från Eddan til Abba, Stockholm: Bokförlaget Prisma Lönnroth, Lars. 1979. ‘The Double Scene of Arrow-­Odd’s Drinking Contest’, in Medieval Narrative: A Symposium, ed. by Hans Bekker-­Nielsen, Peter Foote, Andreas Haarder and Preben Meulengracht Sørensen, Odense: Odense University Press, 94–109 Lund, Cajsa. 1975. ‘På rangel’, Årbók Stavanger Museum 84, 45–120 Lund, Cajsa. 1981. ‘The Archaeolomusiology of Scandinavia’, World Archaeology 12:3, 246–65 Lund, Cajsa, ed. 1986. The Bronze Lurs (Second Conference of the ICTM Study Group on Music Archaeology, Stockholm, 19–23 November  1984), Stockholm: Royal Swedish Academy of Music Lund, Cajsa. 2012. ‘Sound Tools, Symbols or Something Different’, in Studien zur Musikarchäologie, ed. by Ricardo Eichmann, Fang Jianjun and Lars-­Christian Koch, Vol. 8, Rahden: Verlag Marie Leidorf, 61–73 McMahon, Brian. 2017. ‘The Role of the Storyteller in Old Norse Literature’, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Oxford Millward, Anna. 2015. ‘Skaldic Slam: Performance Poetry in the Norwegian Royal Court’, unpublished masters thesis, University of Iceland Mitchell, Stephen. 2013. ‘Memory, Mediality, and the “Performative Turn”: Recontextualizing Remembering in Medieval Scandinavia’, Scandinavian Studies 85:3, 282–305 Nygaard, Simon. 2018. ‘ “. . . nú knáttu Óðinn sjá”: The Function of Hall-­Based Ritualised Performances of Old Norse Poetry in Pre-­Christian Nordic Religion’, in The Fortified Viking Age, ed. by Mette Bruss and Jesper Hansen, Odense: Odense City Museums and University Press of Southern Denmark, 26–34 Nygaard, Simon. 2019. ‘Poetry as Ritual in Pre-­Christian Nordic Religion’, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Aarhus Nygaard, Simon and Luke John Murphy. 2017. ‘Processioner i førkristen nordisk religion’, RVT 66, 40–77 Opland, Jeff. 1980. Anglo Saxon Oral Poetry: A Study of the Traditions, New Haven: Yale University Press Papantoniou, Giorgos, Apostolos Sarris, Christine E. Morris and K. Vionis Athanasios, eds. 2014. ‘Unlocking Sacred Landscapes: Digital Humanities and Ritual Space’, Open Archaeology 5:1 (Special Issue) Pettitt, Thomas and Leif Søndergaard. 2001. ‘Traditions of the People: Customs and Folk Drama’, in The Medieval European Stage, 500–1550, ed. by William Tydeman, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 615–65

Introduction 15 Phillpotts, Bertha S. 1920. The Elder Edda and Ancient Scandinavian Drama, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Price, N. S. 2008. ‘Bodylore and the Archaeology of Embedded Religion: Dramatic Licence in the Funerals of the Vikings’, in Belief in the Past: Theoretical Approaches to the Archaeology of Religion, ed. by D. M. Whitley and K. Hays-­Gilpin, Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press, 143–65 Price, N. S. 2010. ‘Passing into Poetry: Viking-­Age Mortuary Drama and the Origins of Norse Mythology’, Medieval Archaeology 54, 123–56 Price, N. S. 2014. ‘Nine Paces from Hel: Time and Motion in Old Norse Ritual Performance’, World Archaeology 46:2, 178–91 Price, N. S. 2019. The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia, 2nd revised edn., Oxford and Philadelphia: Oxbow Books Price, N. S. and Paul Mortimer. 2014. ‘An Eye for Odin? Divine Role-­Playing in the Age of Sutton Hoo’, European Journal of Archaeology 17, 517–38 Scarre, Chris and Graeme Lawson. 2006. Archeoacoustics, Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research Schechner, Richard. 1985. Between Theatre and Anthropology, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press Schechner, Richard. 1993. The Future of Ritual: Writings on Culture and Performance, New York: Routledge Schechner, Richard. 2020. Performance Studies: An Introduction, 4th edn., New York and London: Routledge Scholes, Robert and Robert Kellogg. 1966. The Nature of Narrative, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 17–56 Sequentia. 1995. Edda, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 05472 77381 2 Sequentia. 2001. The Rhinegold Curse, DeutschlandRadio and Westdeutscher Rundfunk; Marc Aurel edition MA 20016 Shema, Steven Daniel. 2014. ‘Grímr-­Visaged War: Viking Age Battle, With an Eye to Performance’, unpublished masters thesis, University of Iceland Shepherd, Simon. 2016. The Cambridge Introduction to Performance Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Southern, Richard. 1968. The Seven Ages of the Theatre, 2nd edn., London: Faber Tuan, Yi-­Fu. 1977. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Turner, Victor. 1982. From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play, New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications Turner, Victor. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-­Structure, Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company Västanå teater (Edda), www.vastanateater.se/event/eddan/ Vedeler, Marianne. 2019. Oseberg: De gåtefulle billedvevene, Oslo: Scandinavian Academic Press Zachrisson, Torun. 2004. ‘The Holiness of Helgö’, in Excavations at Helgö, ed. by Helen Clark and Kristina Lamm, Vol. 16, Stockholm: Kungl. Vitterhetsakademien, 143–75

Part I

The Social Dynamics of Performance

1 Framing Old Norse Performance Contexts The Wedding at Reykjahólar (1119) Revisited Stephen A. Mitchell1 Performance and Ethnographies of Communication: A Personal Journey In retrospect, perhaps the most consequential half-­dozen pages I was asked to read as an undergraduate – pages that in many ways remain central to how I now frame matters related to Old Norse poetry in performance – had nothing to do with Old Norse at all.2 The text was Charles O. Frake’s ‘How to Ask for a Drink in Subanun’, part of the special issue of American Anthropologist edited by Dell Hymes and John Gumperz titled The Ethnography of Communication (1964). In this remarkable essay, Frake presents and analyses the rules for, and the use of verbal art within, structured drinking games at festive gatherings among the Subanun,3 and especially how one’s social standing ‘can be extended, defined, and manipulated through the use of speech’ (1964b, 131). In discussing the difference between, on the one hand, the grammatically correct equivalent in Subanun of an English request for a drink and, on the other, what a person needs to understand about making such a request in culturally appropriate ways, Frake comments, ‘Our stranger needs more than a grammar and a lexicon; he needs what Hymes (1962) has called an ethnography of speaking: a specification of what kinds of things to say in what message forms to what kinds of people in what kinds of situations’ (Frake 1964b, 127). The notion that unwritten codes of behaviour govern speech acts may seem obvious to modern readers, but it was not so apparent in the late 1960s. After all, what are today sociolinguistic ‘classics’ (e.g., William Labov’s work on language and society) were at that time just beginning to gain currency – and, in any event, Frake’s perspective and central argument were certainly revelations to me as a college freshman. I realise that to many Frake’s work on the extra-­linguistic dimensions of speech acts in Subanum may seem curiously out of place in a volume on Old Norse poetry in performance, but unwinding that short essay’s significant ramifications for interpreting culture is in my opinion at the heart of everything that should matter to us as medievalists about theories of performance and about how we can best understand medieval narratives, DOI: 10.4324/9780367809324-3

20  Stephen A. Mitchell

both conventional ‘storytelling’ in prose and poetry and cultural accounts of other sorts. These extra-­literary narratives are part of an all-­embracing view I  cherish of what we should mean by terms like ‘stories’ and ‘performances’, that is, as topics for study that include everything from overtly creative works of fiction to recondite narratives submerged into and hinted at by chronicles and other historical monuments; that is, the full range of what makes these bygone eras so interesting to us today. That it is a desirable goal to understand the cultural codes that shape behaviour, including performance and other communicative acts, in medieval northern Europe is a given, but accomplishing a goal of such magnitude is obviously no simple task, as it implies reverse-­engineering from the archival materials the various rules that govern conduct, ritualised behaviour, the presentation of self and the extra-­linguistic dimensions of speech acts. Where does one begin? Such an analysis is in my view best – and most likely to be  – accomplished when framed as an ‘ethnography of performance’ (e.g., Bauman and Braid 1998; Reynolds 2018).4 Since at least the mid-­1960s, ‘linguistic competence’ has been a critical and much-­debated topic within linguistics, but in dealing with the Old Norse materials, I  believe we need instead to focus on establishing what has been called ‘cultural competence’, where ‘competence involves mastery of communication that extends beyond the utterance of sentences into the social and cultural rules that generate performance’ (Ben-­Amos 1997, 632, citing the views of Dell Hymes and Charles Briggs).5 The result would, one expects, be a generative model of social conduct, including performance, according to which actions, speech acts, gestures, and deportment of every kind are seen as surface manifestations actualised, or transformed, by individuals, based on society’s deep ‘institutional’ codes.6 And here, I believe, we see a distinctive way in which some scholars, certainly many of today’s folklorists, conceive of ‘performance’ – that is, not as some precisely circumscribed toolkit centred on theatrical staging, but rather as perspectives, as Ben-­Amos writes, that ‘point to a synthesis that encompasses cultural knowledge and experience – as they are available to members of the community in verbal, visual, musical, and mimetic symbolic forms – as the substance of performance’ (Ben-­Amos 1997, 632, here referring directly to the work of Roger Abrahams and John Foley, as well Hymes and Briggs). Of course, we can expect ‘performances’ of any sort to involve a degree of theatricality, staging, and display, but understood as sketched here, ‘performance’ also accepts the importance and vitality of actions not only in highly marked situations (everything from community festivals, ceremonial speeches, ritual activities and slam poetry to Broadway and the West End), but also marked speech and behaviour  – ‘performances’  – in much more quotidian contexts.7 Modern folkloristics is generally characterised now by being more behaviourally or contextually focussed than had been the case in folkloristics in the early twentieth century, a transformation in which performance plays a

Framing Old Norse Performance Contexts 21

very prominent role. The path to this remodelled perspective of the field was filled with considerable tension within the field. It was a change in orientation that had both strong advocates (e.g., Abrahams 1968; Bauman 1975) and outspoken critics (e.g., Wilgus 1973; Jones 1979). The necessity of such a discussion about reorientation harks back to a time when those collecting traditional materials were only vaguely, if that, interested in the lives of the individuals from whom they were collecting. As a consequence, methods were developed specifically suited to focus on folklore texts (e.g., Krohn’s 1926 Die folkloristische Arbeitsmethode). In contrast to these text-­centred practices, the application of ‘performance theory’ represented a movement within folkloristics away from an almost exclusive concern for folklore ‘products’ (i.e., texts of legends, ballads, and so on) and toward a vastly enhanced appreciation for both the individuals by whom, and the context in which, such materials were created and used.8 One means of expressing this change toward a contextually or behaviourally oriented folkloristics has been, as some wag or another put it, that one could now say that the focus has shifted from the ‘lore’ of ‘folk-­lore’ to its ‘folk’.9 I recognise that my comments thus far have been mainly oriented toward the debates of the 1960s and 1970s within the North American scholarly communities, but I  do not believe this change of perspective was by any means restricted to them. It was, after all, as a student in Lund in the early 1970s, for example, that I first heard reports of the negative assessments by D. K. Wilgus (as president of the American Folklore Society) about these trends toward a more context-­ oriented folkloristics.10 Similar concerns, although handled more sensitively, are to be seen in the comments by a leading Swedish folklorist and medievalist, Dag Strömbäck, after more than a quarter century at the helm of the prominent Nordic folklore journal ARV (1979a, 1979b). Addressing himself to the readers of ARV, Strömbäck notes that he sees this reorientation as a conflict between the study of folklore as he has known it, that is, as a field with intellectual roots in philology, archaeology, the history of religion, and the study of literature, and ‘firmly moored to the Scandinavian philological discipline and the critical-­historical method’ (1979b, 10), against a movement that, as he writes, ‘sweeps folklore research in the direction of cultural anthropology and sociology and statistical method’ (1979a, cf. 1979b, 10). As I  have previously suggested (Mitchell 2014), although this change of perspective toward the contextual was to my mind intellectually robust and helped move the field in the correct direction, one can at the same time empathise with Strömbäck’s quandary as he continues, ‘I have tried to respond to the set of both these currents, though I willingly admit that my heart is captured more by the study of traditions from olden times, particularly from the Middle Ages, and by the approach which interweaves historical fact, philological interpretation and textual criticism. In Nordic folklore research my inspiring models have always been Moltke Moe, Axel Olrik and Kaarle Krohn’ (1979b, 10–11).

22  Stephen A. Mitchell

It is, however, our good fortune that as folklorists and medievalists, rather than posing a binary choice, we are able to meld these approaches (cf. Bauman 1996; Mitchell 2014). And from my vantage point, performance theory in folklore has shown itself to be a critically important approach but a perspective only, and not the methodological diktat some seem to have feared.11 It is as a point of view, with its aperture open as wide as possible, that ‘performance’ in fact allows us to fill the interstices between the visible information in surviving written records and the larger picture of the past they are capable of painting; it is an approach that urges us to consider all aspects of our materials, to regard, for example, modes of production as a social process, not just the technology of ink production and other elements of the scriptorium (although they too are important). Admittedly, unlike the field linguist, medievalists have no possibility of checking their views against the observed behaviour of native speakers.12 Yet we hazard little by making the attempt and the potential of what may be gained in our understanding seems to me to far outweigh any possible disadvantage. Thus, the framing of what I  today understand as ‘performance theory’ or ‘performance studies’ came to me through linguistic anthropology writ large  – ethnolinguistics (e.g., Gumperz and Hymes 1964), ethnobotany (e.g., Berlin et al. 1973), folkloristics (e.g., Bauman and Sherzer 1975; Bauman 1975) and the inspiring work on ‘social dramas’ by Victor Turner (e.g., 1957, 1980). Not surprisingly, my subsequent encounters with the work being carried out on so-­called oral theory, oral-­formulaic composition, and so on, especially as expressed in, for example, Albert Lord’s classic The Singer of Tales (1960) made a deep impression. Lord’s Singer was anchored in his fieldwork in the Balkans, at first as an assistant to Milman Parry in Yugoslavia in 1934–5, and, following the latter’s death, largely based on his work over the next 25 years on South Slavic and Albanian ‘oral literature’, as it came to be known (although it should be noted that Lord also engaged deeply in comparative studies in oral literature). At the time I  encountered ‘oral theory’, my research interests were increasingly focussing on all things connected with medieval Scandinavia, and what I initially saw of value in the Parry-­Lord project and its intellectual progeny was very heavily influenced by the work of Lars Lönnroth in particular. In addition to the potential unlocking of much that was hidden or unclear about the medieval north, what made these new ideas so exciting frankly included the very difficulties themselves of applying the lessons from a living tradition of sung oral epics in south-­east Europe to the very different situation of the surviving medieval Norse materials (e.g., Lönnroth 1971). It became apparent, of course, that the intellectual and philosophical lessons to be learned from the Parry-­Lord model were indeed significant for non-­Balkan traditions of many disparate historical eras as well. That this is so is, of course, the central point the second half of The Singer of Tales takes pains to argue. Still, it is not so much in a direct application of the methods and empirical findings Parry and Lord presented with respect to the sung

Framing Old Norse Performance Contexts 23

tradition of South Slavic epic that their ideas’ noteworthiness resides for Nordicists; rather, the importance of their work comes, to me at least, through the broad philosophical approaches they urge, the ethnographic reorientation  – re-­imagining, even  – of literary scholarship their studies embody, and the (re-­) contextualisation of past performance practices through which Lord’s and Parry’s work reinvigorated scholarship (see further my comments in Mitchell 2001, 2013, 2018b; as well as those in Mitchell and Nagy 2000). As the significance of Parry’s and Lord’s findings spread throughout the humanities and social sciences and influenced the work of other scholars (e.g., Walter Ong, Harold Scheub, Paul Zumthor, Jeff Opland), it is not surprising that in his seminal article ‘Verbal Art as Performance’, Richard Bauman paid tribute to Lord’s work by noting, ‘Ultimately, one of Lord’s chief contributions is to demonstrate the unique and emergent quality of the oral text, composed in performance. His analysis of the dynamics of the tradition sets forth what amounts to a generative model of epic performance’ (Bauman 1975, 303). Among the great many scholars who have followed in Lord’s and Parry’s ground-­breaking footsteps, Gregory Nagy and John Miles Foley have been particularly important to my own thinking about how to apply these lessons to medieval northern Europe (e.g., Nagy 1996; Foley 2011); but I  recognise, of course, that other approaches to performance studies exist as well (e.g., Schechner 1977). Moreover, within the specifically Old Norse context, there are important considerations anterior to (e.g., Phillpotts 1920) or outside of (e.g., Lönnroth 1978; Gunnell 1995) the intellectual streams earlier outlined.13 Among the important overlaps between ‘oral theory’ and ‘performance theory’ is the degree to which they share an emphasis on the distinction between ‘product’ and ‘process’, recognising simultaneously the value of tradition as a concept (i.e., what is genuinely shared and communal) and individual acts of artistry and performance – and where to draw the boundary between these. Thus, in considering the differences between a narrative within a tradition and a raconteur’s performance of it, Lord’s unrehearsed remark at the Midcentury International Folklore Conference is telling: ‘Everything in the poem belongs to the group, but the poem itself and the formula in which it happens in a particular performance is the singer’s. Every item is the tradition. But when a great singer is sitting in front of an audience, his music, the expression of his face, and his particular version of the poem at the time is his’ (Lord 1953, 316).

Performance and Ethnographies of Communication: Þorgils saga ok Hafliða For those focussed on the pre-­modern northern world, quite a number of opportunities exist in the materials to ‘witness’ composition and performance (see, e.g., the cases cited in Hermann Pálsson 1962; Lönnroth 1978, 29–80; Buchholz 1980).

24  Stephen A. Mitchell

Some texts provide quite detailed stagings, as when Egill Skalla-­Grímsson ritually works a curse and sets up a niðstöng ‘insult pole’ against his adversaries (Sigurður Nordal 1979, 171–3), or when he works out the panegyric he will declaim the following day at the court of King Eiríkr, despite Queen Gunnhildr’s interference (Sigurður Nordal 1979, 181–3), or when Egill, in despair over the recent drowning of his son, Böðvarr, shuts himself up in his bed-­closet and is only brought out, figuratively, through his daughter’s clever stratagem and the composition of one of his most emotionally powerful poems, Sonatorrek (Sigurður Nordal 1979, 243–57). Other instances among the sagas, however, can be considerably more restrained in their references to what are quite clearly very notable events: a famous case of this sort occurs in Laxdæla saga, where we are told of Úlfr Uggason’s delivery of Húsdrápa, but without many particulars – missing from the saga is the poem itself, for example (although parts of it are preserved in Snorra Edda). Of the poem’s presentation, the saga says only, Þar var at boði Úlfr Uggason ok hafði ort kvæði um Óláf Höskuldsson ok um sögur þær, er skrifaðar váru á eldhúsinu, ok fœrði hann þar að boðinu. Þetta kvæði er kallað Húsdrápa ok er vel ort. (Einar Ól. Sveinsson 1934, 80) One of the guests at the feast was Ulf Uggason, who composed a poem about Olaf Hoskuldsson and the carved legends depicted in the hall, and this poem he recited at the feast; it is called the “House Lay”, and is an excellent poem. (Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson 1969, 112) Yet about the poem itself, the saga says little more, although it does describe the building in some detail, notes that the wedding feast had many guests in attendance, and mentions the generous reward Úlfr receives for his poem. There are, in fact, a number of feasts and other ceremonial gatherings in Laxdæla saga, and toward the end of the text, the author explains their significance in Icelandic society through Guðrún Ósvífsdóttir’s reaction to the fact that her fourth husband, Þorkell, recently returned from a prestige journey to the royal court in Norway, holds just such a festive occasion: Þorkell sitr nú heima um vetrinn í búi sínu. Hann hafði jóladrykkju at Helgafelli, ok var þar fjölmenni mikit, ok með öllu hafði hann mikla rausn þann vetr, en Guðrún latti þess ekki ok sagði til þess fé nýtt vera, at menn miklaði sik af, ok þat mundi ok á framreitum, er Guðrúnu skyldi til fá um alla stórmennsku. Þorkell miðlaði marga góða gripi þann vetr vinum sínum, er hann hafði út haft. (Einar Ól. Sveinsson 1934, 217)

Framing Old Norse Performance Contexts 25

Thorkel spent the winter at home. He held a Christmas feast at Helgafell, with a great number of guests, and lived in style and state throughout the winter. Gudrun was by no means averse to this, and said that this was what money was for – to increase one’s prestige; and whatever Gudrun needed to entertain in lavish style had to be available. That winter, Thorkel shared out among his friends many of the valuable treasures he had brought from abroad. (Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson 1969, 230) Hospitality, gift-­ giving, drinking, eating, securing prestige, exchanging news and gossip, arranging marriage and business deals, and ‘performances’ (writ large) of various kinds, were all at the core of such festive occasions in Scandinavia itself, and no less so, if more difficult to achieve, in Iceland.14 An especially detail-­r ich scene of a feast in the Old Norse/ Icelandic world is provided in Þorgils saga ok Hafliða, which famously describes the events at a wedding at Reykjahólar in 1119. In doing so, it provides a scenario curiously reminiscent of those Frake sketches among the Subanun. For all of the cultural and chronological distance that exists between this late thirteenth century Icelandic text and the twentieth century world Frake describes from Mindanao Island (and these differences are substantial), there are also some basic similarities, for both cases are characterised by festive events at which the consumption of inebriating drinks is fundamental, imbibing which in turn results in barbs and poetry being declaimed in a competitive manner. And as a result of these events, social relations are manipulated.15 Þorgils saga ok Hafliða is part of Sturlunga saga, the large compilation of so-­called samtíðarsögur ‘contemporary sagas’, among which Þorgils saga ok Hafliða is generally thought to be the first historical saga.16 In 1897, W. P. Ker characterised this saga as a story treating ‘the growth of mischief and ill-­will between two honourable gentlemen, out of the villainy of a worthless beast who gets them into his quarrels’ (1897, 289). Ker also uses Þorgils saga ok Hafliða as an ‘illustration of the Icelandic method of narrative at its best’ (1897, 289). Similarly, Brown praises the saga’s style, noting that unlike the family sagas and later sagas in Sturlunga saga, Þorgils saga ok Hafliða is less objective exactly because ‘its theme is moral, ironic, and personal’ (Brown 1952, xxviii). McGrew apparently concurs and quietly emphasises the contrast of this saga with the general tenor of much of Sturlunga saga, writing that the saga is about two chieftains, Þorgils and Hafliði, equally dignified, politically astute, and socially powerful. Their feud is bitter but their actions are not savage; the denouement contrasts reconciliation with the anticipated possibilities of vengeance, and is achieved by recourse to Christian principles of forgiveness and generosity. (1986, 498)

26  Stephen A. Mitchell

Apart from the views of Ker, Brown and McGrew, however, much of the scholarship on this saga, especially the events at the wedding feast, has tended to focus on a few key themes, viz. establishing textual relations, and, of course, the episode treating the wedding at Reykjahólar in 1119, that is, either what the wedding scene tells us about Old Norse/Icelandic attitudes toward genres, the lygisögur ‘lying sagas’ in particular, or what the episode can reveal about the oral performance of sagas and poetry in medieval Iceland.17 Ker is certainly on point when he praises the narrative artistry of Þorgils saga ok Hafliða and describes this saga as ‘a good story, well told’ (1897, 289): for example, early in the story, we are provided with small but significant details about which characters have such features as balding pates or heads of thick, wavy hair. These points are made in anticipation of later sections of the saga, where references in the various lampoons and jibes to such features allow us to work out with ease (and a degree of certainty) who the intended targets are. I want to take note of this point about the quality of the saga as a whole, as I am here to some extent knowingly committing the ‘crime’ of focussing rather narrowly on a single episode from the saga. It is in this section of the saga, however, that we are presented with a very fine piece of writing in which the narrator shows a great deal of interest in what happens at a feast in medieval Iceland – by no means an ethnographic description in modern terms, but a very accomplished and revealing description of actions and speech acts nevertheless. As noted, at its heart, Þorgils saga ok Hafliða deals with two quarrelling chieftains, Þorgils Oddason and Hafliði Másson. Each man has a protégé who plays a key role in the story: in Hafliði’s case, it is his nephew, Már Bergþorsson, an unpopular and villainous type (Ker’s ‘worthless beast’); for Þorgils, it is Óláfr Hildisson, the son of an outlaw who been raised as fjórðungsómagi (3) ‘a public ward’ and who var löngum með Þorgils[i] á Staðarhóli (3) ‘was long [. . .] with Þorgils Oddason at Staðarhóll’. A further important player in the saga, especially for the wedding scene, is Hafliði’s son-­in-­law, Þórðr Þorvaldsson í Vatnsfirði, who is married to Hafliði’s daughter, Sigríðr. A series of misdeeds and court cases characterise the saga, events that precede and follow the scene of the wedding celebrations at Reykjahólar in 1119, at which, we are told, several prosimetrical sagas are performed. I first want to provide a general description of the event and then discuss selected aspects of it in greater detail. This episode, about a wedding celebration, starts when the soon-­to-­be bride’s mother, Yngvildr Þórðardóttir í Ísafirði, having been widowed, moves to Reykjahólar where she and Ingimundr the priest, who is the son of Þorgils’ cousin, set up their household. Both Þorgils Oddason and Þórðr Þorvaldsson í Vatnsfirði, Hafliði’s son-­in-­law, are to be in attendance at the feast, and despite the presence of other important guests, they are said to be the mestir virðingamenn (14) ‘most worthy men’, among the attendees. Much is made in the saga about the honours shown the two men, but always with the carefully calibrated acknowledgement that Þorgils is the

Framing Old Norse Performance Contexts 27

better treated of the two. As the celebrations get underway, several comments are made about the amount of drink available and the ensuing joviality of the attendees. An exception to this heavy drinking is Þórðr, who is described as eigi mikill drykkjumaðr (14), ‘not much of a drinking man’, and a man who is also cursed with dyspepsia, laboured breathing and bad breath. These ailments form the basis for several rounds of poetic jabs at the various important people present, alternating between the two camps. After several sets of increasingly offensive lampoons, Þórðr is incensed by one taunt in particular, even more so by its author, and having failed to have that individual ejected from the festivities, he takes his leave, along with his companions. Things now return to their previously festive state, and it is at this point that the saga famously reports, Þar var nú glaumr ok gleði mikil ok skemtan góð ok margskonar leikar, bæði dansleikar, glímur ok sagnaskemmtun (17) ‘There was increased merriment and joy now, good entertainment and many sorts of amusements – dancing, wrestling, and storytelling’. And then follows the well-­known list of fornaldarsaga narrations with their verses: Hrólfr tells a saga about a Viking, a barrow robber and a berserker, while Ingimundr narrates a story about the skald Ormr [B]arreyjarskáld, . . . ok vísur margar ok flokk góðan við enda sögunnar, er Ingimundr hafði ortan . . . (18) ‘with many verses and, towards the end of the saga, a good flokkr [poem] which Ingimundr himself had composed’. This scene of sagas being orally presented has often been mentioned with regard to the question of performance in the Old Norse world, yet the lampooning wordplay of the wedding guests that precedes these narrations strikes me as being of at least equal interest (cf. Mitchell 2001). It is apparent that these actions by the various guests are themselves performances, in both a theatrical and cultural sense, similar in important ways to medieval and post-­medieval Nordic games involving wordplay, especially the Old Norse genres of senna ‘flyting’ and mannjafnaðr ‘comparison of men’.18 In a scene of this sort in Þorgils saga ok Hafliða, that is, a special occasion with attendees arriving from afar for an event marked by copious amounts of alcohol and punctuated by ridiculing and ironic ditties aimed by guests at other guests (complete with outrage when the wordplay gets too rough or is not consistent with the cultural codes), there is more than enough to remind one of Frake’s judgement about a ritual among the Subanun on Mindanao Island centred on imbibing alcohol by turns, with displays of verbal art, and Frake’s view that a visitor to such an event needs ‘a specification of what kinds of things to say in what message forms to what kinds of people in what kinds of situations’ (1964b, 127). In the saga, we see both commitments to, and violations of, codes, so that by the time Þórðr and his group leave, a variety of cultural norms have been variously observed and violated. Examining the wedding scene in greater detail, then, what sorts of behaviours, rules and codes emerge?19

28  Stephen A. Mitchell Preparation and Propriety: margt annat gott mannval

The saga makes clear that the hosts are people of status. Yngvildr Þórðardóttir í Ísafirði is described as both a wealthy and worthy woman (auðug at fé ok virðingkona) (13), and as a widow, she has a wider range of behaviours open to her than do most women. Bandlien goes so far as to maintain that in this wedding, ‘it is Yngvildr herself who is the active party’ (2005, 160). Ingimundr too is a man of great gifts and status: Ingimundr var it mesta göfugmenni, skáld gott, ofláti mikill bæði í skapferði ok annarri kurteisi, inn mesti gleðimaðr ok fekk margt til skemmtunar (13) ‘Ingimundr was a most worthy man, a good skáld, a great show-­off both in temperament and in manners, a man always the life of the party and one who provided many sorts of entertainment’. Furthermore, he has strong ties to Þorgils, who is a relative, and when Ingimundr inherits the regional chieftaincy (the Reyknesing-­goðorð), he gives it to Þorgils. Among the important men Ingimundr and Yngvildr ask to attend, they first invite Þorgils, but noticeably, it is only Yngvildr who invites Þórðr (Ingimundr ok Yngvildr vildu bjóða fyrstum til þessarrar veizlu Þorgilsi Oddasyni. Síðan bauð Yngvildr Þórði Þorvaldssyni ór Vatnsfirði) (13–14). Other significant people are also invited (e.g., Hrólfr at Skálma[r]nesi)  – the phrase margt annat gott mannval (14), literally ‘many other good choice-­ people’, underscoring the sense of selectivity – but the text adds that Þorgils and Þórðr are the most notable people who are attending. Preparation and Propriety: Nú er mönnum í sæti skipat

Having made clear which important people will be present at the feast, the saga next puts everything and everyone in their proper places inside the hall. The importance of the hall, its design and use, and such prestige social issues as seating arrangements, has received a great deal of scrutiny in recent years.20 Þorgils saga ok Hafliða, although not often mentioned in these discussions, demonstrates brief but telling interest in these matters when the text reads, Nú er mönnum í sæti skipat (14) ‘Men were arranged in their places now’, and then Eftir þat fara borð fram, ok er bæði setit þröngt á bekkjum ok forsætum (14) ‘The table was then brought forward and people sat packed together on both the back benches and the movable benches’. The phrase Nú er mönnum í sæti skipat is by no means unusual, yet the sense is not that ‘people take their seats’ with some feeling of personal agency, but instead, as McGrew translates the phrase, ‘Men were arranged in their places now’, with people being treated rather like books or jars on a shelf being properly sorted.21 Adding to this sense of the attendees being classified and organised accordingly is the reference to the bekkir (benches against the walls, often on a raised platform or pallr), seating for people of higher status, and the forsæti (movable benches or stools, placed on the earth floor of the hall), for less significant attendees.22 Importantly, Þorgils, Ingimundr, and their companions sit on one side of the hall and opposite them,

Framing Old Norse Performance Contexts 29

Þorðr and his men, in preparation for the antiphonal-­style lampooning that will soon ensue.23 For Þórðr, however, these preparations bring only a looming sense of dread and he expresses his wish to have stayed home, for there he could have everything under his control (alt . . . undir mér at eiga) (14). His companions reassure him in various ways and point out that only Þorgils Oddason has had more honour from the trip than Þórðr has.24 Provisioning the Ceremony: tilföng góð ok nóglig

The saga is keen to inform us about the ample and good preparations that have been made. As the celebrations get underway, the narrator declares, Þar váru bæði tilföng góð ok nóglig ok gengu ósparliga; skorti ok eigi drykk góðan (14) ‘Everything necessary was offered adequately and properly; generosity was unstinted, and there was no shortage of good drink’. Drinking continues to feature prominently in the event, with comments such as Drekka nú glaðir, ok rekkir þá brátt drykkrinn (14) ‘They all now drank happily and the drink soon made them boastful’ and Þeir drukku nú ákaft, ok f[æ]r á þá alla nökkut (15) ‘Everyone now began to drink heavily and grew somewhat intoxicated’. Rules Observed: mæla fyrir minnum

Alcoholic beverages thus flow quite freely at the wedding, but not before certain rules are agreed on. An apparently important formal aspect of the proceedings was to determine the drinking process, specifically who should propose toasts, and not just any toast, it would seem, but rather the tradition of mæla fyrir minnum. There has been a great deal of debate about this custom of commemorative minni ‘memory’ toasts, especially about whether it was a preconversion native practice, as it is often presented, or an imported idea, based on Christian practices.25 For Þorgils saga ok Hafliða, a text from the thirteenth century purporting to present events from the early twelfth, this argument, although important, is somewhat beside the point – it was clearly a fixed custom by then and the saga accordingly treats it as a customary practice. The substantial evidence of such practices at weddings in Iceland in the early modern period (on which see the survey in Sæmund Eyjólfsson 1896) and comparable guild activities in Norway in the medieval period (e.g., Storm 1896), suggest that to the audience of this saga, such a custom at a wedding would have seemed quite normal. The saga itself assumes this point, of course, and it is rather the question of the person to whom the honour of proposing such toasts should fall that concerns it. Specifically, Ingimundr suggests that Þorgils offer the ‘memory’ toast (Þorgils skyldi mæla fyrir minnum) (14). Rather than giving an answer as such, Þorgils takes this token of prestige, over which he now apparently has control, and asks Þórðr to whom the first such toast be drunk (en hann veik til Þórðar ok bað hann ráða, hvert minni fyrst væri drukkit) (14). This gesture

30  Stephen A. Mitchell

makes Þórðr very happy (kátr vel) (14) and he, in turn, takes this privilege and suggests to Ingimundr that it be someone in Ingimundr’s retinue who begins the feast (hefja gildit) (14), adding that he would support whatever sort of merriment (gleði) (14) they want. This token of status having thus made the rounds in a series of gift-­giving and ending back with the initial giver, the feast – and the drinking – get underway, and it is at this point the saga says, Drekka nú glaðir, ok rekkir þá brátt drykkrinn26 (14) ‘They all now drank happily and the drink soon made them boastful’. Rules Observed: hverr styngi annan nökkurum hnœfilyrðum

Formally opened now with the customary commemorative minni ‘memory’ toast(s), the drinking and wordplay can begin. Despite its obvious interest in assuring the audience that a great deal of drinking is taking place, the saga does not specify in any detail just what form this ceremonial imbibing takes.27 It is at this point in the text we are told that Þórðr is ‘not much of a drinking man’ and has problems with digestion, breathing and nausea. But the others are drinking heavily and growing intoxicated (Þeir drukku nú ákaft, ok f[æ]r á þá alla nökkut) (15). And things turn raucous now as people become talkative, even to the point that, as the narrator says,  .  .  .  at hverr styngi annan nökkurum hnœfilyrðum, ok er þó fátt hermt [af] þeira keskiyrðum í þessarri frásögn (15) ‘Everyone was stinging someone else with gibes – though few of these jokes are given in this account’. The terms used – stinga, hnœfilyrði, keskiyrði – all suggest relatively annoying but playful banter, and nothing yet of a vicious sort.28 At this point, as a preface to the poem he will deliver shortly, Ingimundr engages in a bit of performance art: leaning over to his benchmate and pretending as if the other had asked a question, Ingimundr ‘repeats’ the question, so that everyone hears it and then offers an answer (Ingimundr prestr laut at sessunaut sínum ok mælti við hann, svá sem hinn spyrði) (15): Hvaðan kennir þef þenna? Þórðr andar nú ha[n]dan. Of course, one should in reading these lines imagine  – ‘hear’  – that the speaker modulates his voice, that is, as if there were two different individuals speaking, just as an accomplished singer is able to give order and change of character to ballad texts, which as written texts suffer terribly from their notorious lack of speaker tags. A possible performance-­oriented version of the ditty, playing a bit with the translation in order to convey the sense with which it seems likely to have been acted out, might be: Voice 1: Voice 2:

Where is that stench coming from? Why, Þórðr’s breathing, just over there.29

Framing Old Norse Performance Contexts 31

The crowd laughs and is delighted by this mocking of Þórðr. When this joviality quiets down, Þórðr plays his part in the entertainment and retorts þá kveðr Þórðr í móti (15) (lit. composes and says ‘against’), still playing within the rules: Andi es Ingimundar ekki góðr á bekkjum. (15) Ingimund’s breath Brings no boon to the bench.30 Now we are told that gamanit ‘the game’ (15) grows rough due to these ‘taunts’ (d. pl. áköstum, sg. ákast, n. figuratively also ‘assaults’) (15) and that the lampooning ditties begin to hit or land on their targets (Ok af þessum áköstum tekr heldr at grána gamanit, ok koma kviðlingar við svá) (15). This is also the point at which, although we see that it is Þórðr who participates from the one side and continues to be the object of the versified derision from the other side, we are no longer told who those speakers from the other side are, although their identities are hinted at. Another round of verses takes place, now with Þórðr’s laboured breathing and balding pate in the crosshairs and his own retort again returning to the stench of the other’s belch. And now we are given to believe that these lampoons have been between Þorgils and Þórðr (Þorgils brosti nú at, en lagði aldri til um áköstin) (15). As Þorgils offers no response, and it being that side’s turn, Ingimundr suggests that one of their benchmates should give Þórðr an answer (at nökkurr þeira bekkjunauta skyldi sjá í móti við Þórð) (15). There follows a lampoon about Þórðr, but the saga only says, rather laconically, Þá var þetta kveðit ‘Now was this [poem] spoken’ with no sense of the speaker – yet. Þat es válítit, þótt vér reptim búðunautar af bolakjötvi,31 reptir Þórðr Þorvalds sonr, Kjartans sonar, af kana sínum. (15–16) That is harmless, although we belch, booth-­companions, from beef-­eating (?), Þórðr belches, Þorvaldr’s son, the son of Kajartan, from his porringer.32

32  Stephen A. Mitchell

The contrast here appears to be between those who consume luxury cuts of meat, such as joints of beef (af bolakjötvi), and those who eat something more akin to slops (af kana sínum).33 The calumny here no longer hinges directly on Þórðr’s physiology, but rather on the accusation of significantly differing social standings between the two groups. Rules Violated: lokkamaðrinn, sem sitr á forsæti á bekk Þorgils

Following this mocking verse, contrasting the well-­being and high status of Þorgils’ followers with the purported low status of Þórðr and his followers, no marked reaction at all is mentioned by the narrator: no peals of laughter, no delight from the crowd, only what we must imagine to be embarrassed, perhaps even stunned, silence as the game appears to move onto a new and more dangerous plane. Instead of mirth in the hall, we see Þórðr looking quietly toward the source of this verse, presumably not because of the words of the taunt, which are likely no worse than what might have been expected, but because rather than the lampoon coming from one of his social equals, Þórðr sees that it comes from a man sitting on a forsæti, a movable bench, located, as it turns out, in front of Þorgils’ bench (sem sitr á forsætinu á bekk Þorgils) (16). Þórðr now points him out and asks Yngvildr who that man with the wavy hair might be.34 She answers that it is Óláfr Hildisson. This is, of course, the man who has, because of his father’s exile, been raised as fjórðungsómagi ‘a public ward’, and is socially far inferior to Þórðr. Unable to accept this violation of decorum, Þórðr says that he will depart if the man is not asked to leave. Yngvildr, who had specifically invited Þórðr, attempts to reassure him, but also comments that she cannot by herself make the decision to send Óláfr away. She then speaks to Þorgils, who says that his obligations to Óláfr are such that he cannot tell the man to leave. Rules Violated: En ekki er getit, at neitt yrði af gjöfum við hann

Pleas to turn this man out having failed, Þórðr and his retinue prepare to leave, but not before two more insulting verses having to do with the malodorous character of Þórðr’s alimentary canal have been hurled at Þórðr, presumably also by Óláfr, although we are given no indication other than the same Þá var þetta kveðit (16, 17) ‘Now was this [poem] spoken’ formula. After the first of these two, the saga states simply, Eigi er þess getit, at Þórðr andœpti þessarri vísu (17) ‘It is not reported that Þórðr retorted to this obloquy’, and after the final insult, the saga says, Er svá sagt, at Þórðr væri með þessum kveðlingi út leystr. En ekki er getit, at neitt yrði af gjöfum við hann (17) ‘It is told how Þórðr was escorted out to this taunt, but it is not told that anyone spoke of giving him gifts’. This break with the normal custom of gift-­giving at leave-­taking is as abnormal as Þórðr’s own abrupt departure.

Framing Old Norse Performance Contexts 33

Final Comments With the social fabric having thus been rent by these events, it is perhaps not so surprising that the saga claims that things now return to normality, that is, to their previously festive state, commenting further that Þorgils and his companions find Þórðr’s behaviour – his and his company’s abrupt departure – næsta íbro[s]ligt (17) ‘almost ludicrous’. And it is in the context of this social rupture that the saga tells us, Þar var nú glaumr ok gleði mikil ok skemtan góð ok margskonar leikar, bæði dansleikar, glímur ok sagnaskemmtun (17) ‘There was increased merriment and joy now, good entertainment and many sorts of amusements – dancing, wrestling, and storytelling’, followed by the fascinating catalogue of declaimed poetry and storytelling for which Þorgils saga ok Hafliða has become so well known in recent decades. But there is much to learn as well from the preceding section, as we have seen. In fact, this episode is the story of a serious but temporary displacement of harmony at a feast, with the unwritten rules for such events being broken, it seems, by almost all parties. There are, of course, early attempts to adhere to such key matters as guest–host relationships. Every attempt is made by the hostess and most others to honour these relationships: in the invitations issued to Þorgils and Þórðr; in their receptions upon arrival; in the handling by Ingimundr, Þorgils, and Þórðr of the ‘memory’ toasts; in Yngvildr’s response to Þórðr’s concerns; and in Yngvildr’s attempts to honour these concerns while at the same time honouring Þorgils and his obligations to Óláfr, and so on. Layered on top of these responsibilities, Þorgils saga ok Hafliða specifies the further important consideration of kinship.35 In one way, this factor adds weight to the permission Yngvildr seeks, but is denied, from Þorgils to tell Óláfr to leave (recalling that Þorgils is Ingimundr’s cousin and friend, to whom he also has bonds as his ‘thingman’);36 at the same time, kinship ties make Þórðr, as Hafliði’s son-­in-­law, a suitable proxy in the ongoing disputes between the two chieftains. Hence, when Þórðr is taunted by Óláfr, a person of significantly lower social status than himself, the weight of the insults he endures would have been understood to accrue by extension to his father-­in-­law, Hafliði. Frake notes in a comment that has broad application, application so wide that it is relevant not only to its original referent, the Subanun of north-­ western Mindanao Island, but also to north-­western Iceland during the Middle Ages (and beyond, of course), ‘Especially for an adult male, one’s role in the society at large, insofar as it is subject to manipulation, depends to a considerable extent on one’s verbal performance during drinking encounters’ (1964b, 128–9). The wedding at Reykjahólar is certainly no exception to this fundamental truth, and it would seem that Óláfr Hildisson gambles, with temporary success,37 on such verbal performances enhancing his position. Thus, this portion of Þorgils saga ok Hafliða treats – one might be so bold as to say ‘performs’ – matters of status, the possibilities of social mobility, the

34  Stephen A. Mitchell

reciprocal responsibilities of the guest–host dyad, as well as those that derive from kinship ties. These scenes tell us that one of the more honoured and high-­status guests has been insulted in verse by one of the low-­status guests, but as this man is part of another high-­status guest’s retinue – and indeed, even acts on his behalf – the hostess, having been refused permission from Þorgils, cannot honour Þórðr’s request to expel this provocateur and so he leaves immediately in a way that again violates the normal terms of the guest-­host relationship, with no gift being offered to him at this moment of departure. The wedding celebration as a whole thus offers us a metanarrative about the interconnected networks of relations amongst the characters of the saga, and the extent to which they value, respect and exploit them.

Notes 1 I take this opportunity to thank the organisers of the 2019 ‘Old Norse Poetry in Performance’ conference for their invitation to take part in that delightful event, as well as to express my appreciation to the editors of this volume for the possibility of presenting those comments in a more formal fashion. 2 There are, of course, many pathways to Old Norse poetry in performance, and my remarks here should not be taken as in any way prescriptive or normative. As it happens, chance no doubt played a critical role in my own journey, not least what at the time seemed to be the relatively ephemeral decision as an undergraduate to pursue a double major in Anthropology and Scandinavian. Making that choice coincidentally brought me, over time, into contact with teachers whose scholarship on highly relevant subject areas – the ‘ethnography of speaking’, the study of code-­switching and socially situated communication, folklore as a behavioural and contextual discipline and the issue of performance in the Old Norse world (e.g., John Gumperz, Paul Kay, Brent Berlin, Nils Hasselmo, Orvar Löfgren, Lars Lönnroth) – was fundamental to how these questions would be addressed. 3 Also Subanon, an indigenous people of north-­western Mindanao Island, Philippines, about whom see also Frake (1964a). 4 That I have this perspective I attribute directly to the serendipitous experience of studying with John Gumperz, one of the key figures of linguistic anthropology, as I later realised. On the significance of Gumperz’s contributions to linguistic anthropology, and by extension to the emerging world of ‘performance studies’, see the excellent review in Gal (2013), who comments of Gumperz’s scholarship, ‘[His] writings are indispensable for anyone aiming to understand today’s sociolinguistics. And they are crucial sources for histories of sociolinguistics, linguistics and the anthropology of the 20th century because Gumperz was a founding figure of the continuing interdisciplinary effort to understand linguistic interaction through its modes of embeddedness in social and cultural processes and, conversely, to study social relations and culture as they are constituted by communicative practices’ (115). 5 With respect to the medieval Nordic texts, see Kellogg (1991, 96–7), and Mitchell (2011, 118). Discussions of ‘competence’ of various types have a deep history in linguistics and related fields. Although the key distinction has much older roots (e.g., Ferdinand de Saussure), ‘competence’ came to prominence when it was set in opposition to ‘performance’ by Noam Chomsky (1965). As it increasingly became part of the discussion of linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics, it was refined by Dell Hymes to include not just ‘linguistic competence’ but also, as he expanded the idea, ‘communicative competence’; other varieties soon came about, including ‘narrative competence’ (see Hymes 1992).

Framing Old Norse Performance Contexts 35 6 I do not intend the phrase ‘generative model’ in quite the mechanistic way the locution suggests, although I admit that early in my career, I was drawn to solutions along these lines (Mitchell 1979). Transformational grammar has naturally been a significant factor in developing such models. As Gumperz wrote in the mid-­1960s, ‘Transformationalists argue that the goal of any linguistic description must be the explication of the speaker’s competence, i.e., his ability to produce and understand not only sentences that he has heard before but also sentences that are new to him. Competence cannot be understood merely from an analysis of performance, i.e., by studying what is produced on particular occasions. Instead, the linguist’s first task must be to formulate certain abstract rules that underlie sentence formation’ (1965, 88–9). The intellectual tendrils of this division between the actualised (or transformed, performed and so on) and the theoretical (or institutional, conceptual and so on) lead to a variety of linguists, most immediately to de Saussure’s distinction between utterances or speech acts (parole) and language (langue). 7 Performance in this sense assumes all manner of discourse strategies, including such extra-­linguistic phenomena as saying nothing at all (e.g., Basso 1970). It is important to note that distinguishing performance in this way represents no judgement about the worth of the different approaches: that there are different concepts of performance which may overlap, I view as complementary, not competing, perspectives. 8 Typical of this problem is the fact that we possess a great many fine Scandinavian folktales, legends and ballads collected during the nineteenth century, yet it is the rare collector who did more than provide a reasonable transcription of the materials, with perhaps some notes on the age and gender of the raconteur, but only very rarely with any sort of accompanying framing of the individual or the context. There were, of course, exceptions to this approach, noteworthy for their rarity, collectors who were keen to describe flesh-­and-­blood individuals who knew and used folklore in their daily lives, such as August Bondeson in Sweden and Evald Tang Kristensen in Denmark (on whom see respectively Mitchell 1991a; Tangherlini 1994 and the literature cited there). 9 Proposed by the English antiquarian William Thoms in 1846 as a calque on German Volkskunde (folk wisdom), his suggestion of ‘Folk-­Lore’, it is sometimes said, has never quite overcome that original hyphen, separating those scholars oriented toward the social context of folklore from those interested in the transcripts of folklore. It was not for naught that Tristram Coffin once described folkloristics as ‘a bastard field that anthropology begot upon English’ (1968, v). The full history of this debate is long and complex, too much so for an in-­depth discussion here; for reviews, see, e.g., Zumwalt (1988) and Ben-­Amos (2020). I have taken up this issue previously (2014), and undertake a review of the history, with particular attention to the debate’s Nordic dimensions, in an introductory essay to a forthcoming monograph (Mitchell forthcoming). 10 Wilgus had said in his 1971 presidential address, published in 1973, that ‘if a school of “behavioral folklorists” determines that its questions are the only valid ones and that its findings cannot be applied to materials of previous researchers, then the results will not be revolutionary, but catastrophic. To be blunt, we might as well burn the archives . . .’ (Wilgus 1973, 244–5). I distinctly recall hearing those words (bränna folklivsarkiven [burn the folklore archives]) around 1972 in Lund, an expression which I had taken at the time to be in the imperative mood, as though it had been said by a mob complete with torches and pitchforks in some sort of jacked-­up revolutionary fervour, but on reflection, I suppose it might simply have been, especially given the lack of morphological signposts in Swedish, a more anodyne context of the sort, ‘Can you believe what the president of the AFS said? Vi kunde lika väl bränna folklivsarkiven. Can you imagine that?’ 11 Cp. Bauman and Briggs (1990, 60): ‘As many authors have stressed, performances are not simply artful uses of language that stand apart both from day-­to-­day life and from

36  Stephen A. Mitchell larger questions of meaning, as a Kantian aesthetics would suggest. Performance rather provides a frame that invites critical reflection on communicative processes’ (emphasis added). 12 On this point, I take comfort in Roger Brown’s sagacious observation in The Ethnography of Communication (1964, 252): ‘I am inclined to believe that sensitivity and inventiveness and a concern with finding out how things really work are better guarantees of significance than any amount of mechanical rigor.’ 13 Although the modern trend toward contextualisation, performance and so on was already well underway by the time of its publication, Lönnroth’s programmatic statement (1980) crystallises, to my mind, both the nature and the value of what is at stake (cp. Lönnroth 1976, 1978). On these approaches on the Old Norse materials, see, e.g., Buchholz (1980); Gísli Sigurðsson (2004); Gunnell (2012, 2016, 2018, 2020); Harris (1983, 2000a, 2000b, 2010); Harris and Reichl (2011); Hermann (2017); Hofmann (1982); Lönnroth (2009); Mitchell (2001 [especially the section titled ‘Performance Studies and the Possibilities for Interpretation’]; 2003, 2018a, 2018b); and the entries in Ranković et al. (2010), and Mulligan and Mundal (2019) (compare also the comments in Andersson 2012, 1–8; Mitchell 2020). These surveys and discussions are generally geared toward literary analyses, often analyses of literature in social contexts, but cross-­disciplinary trends in the field are important to note, as are the contributions of other disciplines, particularly archaeology (e.g., Price 2010, 2012, 2014) and the study of religion (e.g., Nygaard and Murphy 2017; Nygaard and Schjødt 2018; Nygaard 2018). On the related issue of the relationship between oral and written traditions – i.e., of the ‘co-­existence of non-­tangible and inscribed media’ (Glauser et al. 2018, 9) – see, e.g., Bandle (1988); Glauser (2010); and Mundal (2019). 14 On the challenges confronted by Icelanders in continuing such traditions, faced as they were with more narrow opportunities for high-­level conspicuous consumption, see especially the excellent discussion in Zori, Byock et al. (2013). The hall as the locus for these important activities has been in the spotlight over recent decades. See, e.g., Lönnroth (1971, 1976, 1978, 1979); Gunnell (2001, 2006); and Nygaard (2018). On the related nature of funerals as prestige display opportunities, see Price (2010, 2012, 2014, 2020, 225–68). 15 I should note that Frake describes the outlines of such events in a generic sense, not any specific single ceremony. 16 AM 122a fol., known as Króksfjarðarbók, the earliest manuscript of Þorgils saga ok Hafliða, dated to c. 1350–70 (ONP 398), is the basis for both the Kålund and Brown editions (see Brown 1952, lii–lxii for a full description of the manuscript situation). Úlfar Bragason (2005) notes that scholarly opinion about the saga, which recounts the conflict between these two chieftains in the years 1117–21, varies somewhat and places the writing of the saga from the late twelfth century to 1240. All citations to Þorgils saga ok Hafliða here are to Brown’s 1952 edition, with page references provided parenthetically in the text; translations are based on McGrew (1974, 39–44), with my emendations. Brown’s text, at least for the scene at the wedding celebration in 1119 (chapter 10), shows only minor variations of the Kålund 1906–11 edition, but it is especially useful for its fine introduction and extensive notes on the text. 17 E.g., Andrews (1911–12), Liestøl (1945), Brown [Dronke] (1946–53), Foote (1955– 6), Hermann Pálsson (1962), Lönnroth (1976), von See (1981), Jesch (1984), Mitchell (1987, 1991b), Gunnell (1995), Gísli Sigurðsson (2002, 2004). My comments here at times draw on, and extend, my remarks in Mitchell (2001). 18 These medieval genres of verbal duelling have been much discussed over the years, and readily invite comparison to transnational genres of ritualised abuse and exchanges of barbs and insults, such as the Scottish flyting, Anlo-­Ewe halo, and African-­American dozens. On the Nordic genres, see the comments and literature surveys in, e.g., Bax and Padmos (1993), Gunnell (2012), Rohrbach (2017) (see also Mitchell 2020). This

Framing Old Norse Performance Contexts 37 wedding scene naturally also invites comparison to such Nordic materials as the völsi-­ episode in Flateyjarbók and the post-­medieval Faroese drunnur tradition, on which see Matras (1957), Coffey (1989), Vár í Ólavsstovu (1992), Joensen (2003). 19 My comments here owe a great deal to Lönnroth’s ground-­breaking work on the ‘double-­scene’ and the oral presentation of medieval narratives (e.g., 1971, 1976, 1978), especially in this instance to his analysis of the patterned character of the drinking scene in Örvar-­Odds saga (1979), where he finds the following divisions: ‘I. Introduction: The Contest is prepared. II. The Contest: 2x2 stanzas and drinking horns per round [. . .] III. Conclusion: Revelation and Reward’ (1979, 102). 20 The attention to this most practical of issues has yielded excellent results with regard to the hall as performance space and by extension to the larger question of the performance of Old Norse poetry and prose: e.g., Lönnroth (1971, 1976, 1978, 1979), Gunnell (2001, 2006, 2012), and Nygaard (2018). Archaeology too has made some remarkable strides in improving our understanding of these key structures of Viking Age and medieval life in the North: e.g., the essays in Lucas (2009), as well as the assessments in Zori et al. (2013). 21 skipa: ‘to give order or arrangement to things; with dat., i.e. to draw up, place in order, arrange them’ (Cleasby-­Vigfusson). 22 Although the division is not used in this passage, it is worth noting that even these more prestigious benches were divided between æðri bekkr ‘upper bench’ (along the north side of the hall, looking toward the sun) and its opposite, úæðri bekkr ‘lower (inferior) bench’ (along the southern side). 23 By ‘antiphonal’, I mean only the alternating pattern and intend no reference to singing as such. 24 McGrew (1974, 40) translates Mun ok eigi annarr maðr meiri virðingarför hingat fara en þú, annarr en Þorgils Oddason as ‘Nor has any man come here with so honored a reception as you received – except Þorgils Oddason’. virðingarför, f. = Reise hvoraf man har Ære (Fritzner); an honourable journey (Cleasby-­Vigfusson). Thus, in a narrow sense, ‘no one has been on a journey from which he has received more honour than you – except Þorgils Oddason’. 25 Such commemorative toasts are mentioned in the sagas (e.g., Saga Hákonar góða, ch.14) and were long assumed to be a pre-­Christian practice, a view challenged by Düwel (1985), who argues that it is a Christian custom honouring Christ and the saints brought in with the conversion. For a recent review of the evidence on ceremonial drinking and commemorative ‘memory’ toasts, see Lönnroth (2018). 26 The phrase rekkir þá brátt drykkrinn may cause consternation. In the sense here, rekkja appears in poetry in Háttatal (cf. Finnur Jónsson and Sveinbjörn Egilsson 1931), but is rare, at best, in prose. Brown (1952, 69) offers the translation, ‘the drink quickly makes them boastful, daring’, and adds, ‘Rekkja, formed from the adj. rakkr (= (1) “stretched out”, “erect”, (2) in poetry, “bold”, cf. rekkr n., “warrior”) may here retain some of the primary sense (1): “to stretch out”, so “to make a person feel big, above himself ” ’. Not to put too fine a point on the etymology, but the sense that male-­ dominated wordplay of this sort is a kind of ‘testosterone hosing’ is difficult to avoid. 27 According to Brown (1952, 69), ‘a feast generally began with sveitardrykkja, when the horn or cup was passed from man to man a definite number of times, each man drinking the same amount; other modes of drinking might follow, two persons sharing a horn (tvímenningr), or each person having a horn to himself and draining it at one draught (eimnmningr)’. 28 stinga, vb. – ‘sting’, ‘stick’, ‘stab’, ‘jab’; hnœfilyrði ‘sarcasms, ‘taunts’, ‘gibes’ (hnœfiligr, adj. ‘taunting’); keskiyrði / kerski-­orð, -­yrði, n. pl.’ jokes’ (< kerski, f., keski,’cheerfulness’, ‘mirth’, ‘fun’), following Cleasby-­Vigfusson. 29 Following McGrew (1974, 41): ‘Whence comes this stink? / Þórð is breathing at table’.

38  Stephen A. Mitchell 30 I have previously argued that this scene underscores the association between imbibing, items expelled from the mouth (expanded to include breathing [andi] and belching [repta]), and (bad) poetry. See Mitchell (2001, 183). 31 búðunautar af bolakjötvi ‘[booth] companions’ sharing food, in this context. 32 My translation, based on McGrew (1974, 42): porringer, ‘A small bowl or basin, typically with a handle, used for soup, stews, or similar dishes. Also occasionally: the quantity of liquid, etc., that fills or would fill such a vessel’ (OED). 33 Following Brown (1952, 71), who further comments ‘kani here is equivalent to askr and means “a wooden bowl in which liquid food is served”, and is probably used here rudely, as “bowl of slops”. The insult to Þórð is not logical: he is belching because he is not eating “slops”; but the intention is to insult him on two scores at once (1) that he belches, (2) that he eats slops’. 34 When Óláfr is first introduced, he is described as hærðr vel, ok fell hárit í lokka (3) ‘with a thick head of hair which fell mostly in waves’. 35 The importance of these relationships can hardly be overstated, but they were largely ignored by scholarship before Victor Turner’s influential essay on the issue (1971). 36 A ‘thingman’ (þingmaðr) was a landowner of subordinate stature who had certain (but not absolute) obligations to a powerful and authoritative figure within the assembly district (þing), who the thingman was expected to support at such assemblies. These commitments were often intergenerational and yet were subject to realignment. 37 Parallelling events in the wedding scene, albeit in a more physical manner, this same Óláfr bedevils Hafliði’s nephew, Grímr Snorrason, a weaker opponent, while playing games, but in the end, it is Grímr who slays Óláfr.

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40  Stephen A. Mitchell Cleasby, Richard and Gudbrandur Vigfusson. 1982 (1957). An Icelandic-­English Dictionary, 2nd edn., Oxford: Clarendon Coffey, Jerome E. 1989. ‘The Drunnur. A Faroese Wedding Custom’, ARV 45, 7–16 Coffin, Tristram P. 1968. Our Living Traditions: An Introduction to American Folklore, New York: Basic Books Düwel, Klaus. 1985. Das Opferfest von Lade: quellenkritische Untersuchungen zur germanischen Religionsgeschichte, Wiener Arbeiten zur germanischen Altertumskunde und Philologie 27, Vienna: K.M. Halosar Finnur Jónsson and Sveinbjörn Egilsson, eds. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquae linguae septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-­islandske skjaldesprog, 2nd edn., Copenhagen: S. L. Mollers bogtr Foley, John Miles. 2011. ‘Oral-­Derived Text’ in The Homer Encyclopedia, ed. by Margalit Finkelberg, Chichester, West Sussex and Malden, MA: Blackwell, II, 603 Foote, Peter. 1955–6. ‘Sagnaskemtan: Reykjahólar 1119’, Saga-­Book 14, 226–39 Frake, Charles O. 1964a. ‘A Structural Description of Subanun “Religious Behavior” ’, in Explorations in Cultural Anthropology: Essays in Honor of George Peter Murdick, ed. by Ward G. Goodenough, New York: McGraw Hill, 111–29 Frake, Charles O. 1964b. ‘How to Ask for a Drink in Subanun’, in The Ethnography of Communication, ed. by John H. Gumperz and Dell H. Hymes, Special issue of American Anthropologist 66, 127–32 Fritzner, Johan. 1973 (1886). Ordbok Over Det Gamle Norske Sprog, 4th rev. edn., Oslo: Universitetsforlaget Gal, Susan. 2013. ‘John J. Gumperz’s Discourse Strategies’, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Special Issue in Honor of John J. Gumperz (1922–2013) 23:3, 115–26 Gísli Sigurðsson. 2004. The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition: A  Discourse on Method, trans. by Nicholas Jones, Publications of the Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature 2, series ed. by Gregory Nagy and Stephen A. Mitchell, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press [Icelandic original: Túlkun íslendingasagna í ljósi munnlegrar hefðar: tilgáta um aðferð, 2002] Glauser, Jürg. 2010. ‘Staging the Text: On the Development of a Consciousness of Writing in the Norwegian and Icelandic Literature of the Middle Ages’, in Along the Oral-­Written Continuum: Types of Texts, Relations, and Their Implications, ed. by Slavica Ranković, Leidulf Melve and Else Mundal, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 20, Turnhout: Brepols, 311–34 Glauser, Jürg, Pernille Hermann and Stephen A. Mitchell. 2018. ‘Pre-­Modern Nordic Memory Studies: An Introduction’, in Handbook of Pre-­Modern Nordic Memory Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches, ed. by Jürg Glauser, Pernille Hermann and Stephen A. Mitchell, Berlin: de Gruyter, I, 1–31 Gumperz, John J. 1965. ‘Language’, Biennial Review of Anthropology 4, 84–120 Gumperz, John J. and Dell H. Hymes, eds. 1964. The Ethnography of Communication, Special issue of American Anthropologist 66 Gunnell, Terry. 1995. The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer Gunnell, Terry. 2001. ‘Hof, Halls, Goð(ar) and Dwarves: An Examination of the Ritual Space in the Pagan Icelandic Hall’, Cosmos 17:1, 3–36 Gunnell, Terry. 2006. ‘Narratives, Space and Drama: Essential Spatial Aspects Involved in the Performance and Reception of Oral Narrative’, Folklore: An Electronic Journal 33, 7–26 Gunnell, Terry. 2012. ‘The Performance of the Poetic Edda’, in The Viking World, ed. by Stefan Brink in collaboration with Neil Price, London: Routledge, 299–303

Framing Old Norse Performance Contexts 41 Gunnell, Terry. 2016. ‘Eddic Performance and Eddic Audiences’, in A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, ed. by Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn and Britanny Schorn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 92–113 Gunnell, Terry. 2018. ‘Performance Studies’, in Handbook of Pre-­Modern Nordic Memory Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches, ed. by Jürg Glauser, Pernille Hermann and Stephen A. Mitchell, Berlin: de Gruyter, I, 107–19 Gunnell, Terry. 2020. ‘Performance Archaeology, Eiríksmál, Hákonarmál and the Study of Old Nordic Religions’, in John Miles Foley’s World of Oralities: Text, Tradition, and Contemporary Oral Theory, ed. by Mark C. Amodio, Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 137–53 Harris, Joseph. 1983. ‘Eddic Poetry as Oral Poetry: The Evidence of Parallel Passages in the Helgi Poems for Questions of Composition and Performance’, in Edda: A Collection of Essays, ed. by Robert J. Glendinning and Haraldur Bessason, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 210–42 Harris, Joseph. 2000a. ‘The Performance of Old Norse Eddic Poetry: A Retrospective’, in The Oral Epic: Performance and Music, ed. by Karl Reichl, Berlin: Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung, 225–32 Harris, Joseph. 2000b. ‘Performance, Textualization, and Textuality of “Elegy” in Old Norse’, in Textualization of Oral Epics, ed. by Lauri Honko, Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 128, Berlin: de Gruyter, 89–99 Harris, Joseph. 2010. ‘Old Norse Memorial Discourse between Orality and Literacy’, in Along the Oral-­Written Continuum: Types of Texts, Relations, and Their Implications, ed. by Slavica Ranković, Leidulf Melve and Else Mundal, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 20, Turnhout: Brepols, 120–33 Harris, Joseph and Karl Reichl. 2011. ‘Performance and Performers’, in Medieval Oral Literature, ed. by Karl Reichl, Berlin: de Gruyter, 141–202 Hermann, Pálsson. 1962. Sagnaskemmtun Íslendinga, Reykjavík: Mál og menning Hermann, Pernille. 2017. ‘Methodological Challenges to the Study of Old Norse Myths: The Orality and Literacy Debate Reframed’, in Old Norse Mythology – Comparative Perspectives, ed. by Pernille Hermann, Stephen A. Mitchell and Jens Peter Schjødt, Publications of the Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature 3, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 29–51 Hofmann, Dietrich. 1982. ‘Die mündliche Sagaerzählkunst aus progmatischer Sicht’, Skandinavistik 12, 12–21 Hymes, Dell H. 1962. ‘The Ethnography of Speaking’, in Anthropology and Human Behavior, ed. by T. Gladwin and W. C. Sturtevant, Washington, DC: Anthropological Society of Washington, 13–53 Hymes, Dell H. 1992. ‘The Concept of Communicative Competence Revisited’, in Thirty Years of Linguistic Evolution: Studies in Honour of René Dirven on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday, ed. by Martin Pütz, Philadelphia and Amsterdam: John Benjamins Pub. Co., 31–57 Jesch, Judith. 1984. ‘Hrómundr Gripsson Revisited’, Skandinavistik 4:2, 89–105 Joensen, Jóan Pauli. 2003. I ærlige brudefolk: Bryllup på Færøerne, Etnologiske studier 10, Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums Forlag Jones, Steven. 1979. ‘Slouching towards Ethnography: The Text/Context Controversy Reconsidered’, Western Folklore 38, 42–7 Kellogg, Robert L. 1991. ‘Literacy and Orality in the Poetic Edda’, in Vox intexta: Orality and Textuality in the Middle Ages, ed. by A. N. Doane and Carol Braun Pasternack, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 89–101 Ker, W. P. 1897. Epic and Romance: Essays on Medieval Literature, London: Macmillan

42  Stephen A. Mitchell Krohn, Kaarle. 1926. Die folkloristische Arbeitsmethode, begründet von Julius Krohn und weitergeführt von nordischen forschern, erläutert von Kaarle Krohn, Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning, Ser B: Skrifter 5, Oslo: H. Aschehoug & Co, and Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press [trans. as Folklore methodology, 1971] Liestøl, Knut. 1945. ‘Til spørsmålet om dei eldste islendske danskvæde’, ARV 1, 70–5 Lönnroth, Lars. 1971. ‘Hjálmar’s Death-­Song and the Delivery of Eddic Poetry’, Speculum 46, 1–20 Lönnroth, Lars. 1976. Njáls saga, Berkeley: University of California Press Lönnroth, Lars. 1978. Den dubbla scenen: Muntlig diktning fran Eddan till ABBA, Stockholm: Bokförlaget Prisma Lönnroth, Lars. 1979. ‘The Double Scene of Arrow-­Odd’s Drinking Contest’, in Medieval Narrative: A Symposium, ed. by Hans Bekker-­Nielsen et al, Odense: Odense University Press, 94–119 Lönnroth, Lars. 1980. ‘New Dimensions and Old Directions in Saga Research’, Scandinavica 19, 57–61 Lönnroth, Lars. 2009. ‘Old Norse Text as Performance’, Scripta Islandica 60, 49–60 Lönnroth, Lars. 2018. ‘Memorial Toasts’, in Handbook of Pre-­Modern Nordic Memory Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches, ed. by Jürg Glauser, Pernille Hermann and Stephen A. Mitchell, Berlin: de Gruyter, I, 695–8 Lord, Albert B. 1953. ‘Remarks’, in Four Symposia on Folklore. Midcentury International Folklore Conference 1950, ed. by Stith Thompson, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 316 Lord, Albert B. 1960. The Singer of Tales, Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature 24, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Lucas, Gavin, ed. 2009. Hofstaðir: Excavations of a Viking Age Feasting Hall in north-­eastern Iceland, Institute of Archaeology Monograph Series 1, Reykjavík: Fornleifastofnun Íslands Matras, Christian. 1957. ‘Drunnur’, Fróðarskaparrit 6, 20–33 McGrew, Julia H. 1986. ‘Sturlunga saga’, in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. by Joseph R. Strayer, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 11, 497–501 Mitchell, Stephen A. 1979. ‘Address and Decision-­Making in Modern Swedish’, Anthropological Linguistics 21, 61–9 Mitchell, Stephen A. 1987. ‘The Sagaman and Oral Literature: The Icelandic Traditions of Hjörleifr inn kvensami and Geirmundr heljarskinn’, in Comparative Research on Oral Traditions: A  Memorial for Milman Parry, ed. by John Miles Foley, Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers, 395–423 Mitchell, Stephen A. 1991a. ‘Gråkappan (AT 425) as Folktale and Chapbook in Sweden’, in The Ballad and Oral Literature, ed. by Joseph Harris, Harvard English Studies 17, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 269–91 Mitchell, Stephen A. 1991b. Heroic Sagas and Ballads, Ithaca: Cornell University Press Mitchell, Stephen A. 2001. ‘Performance and Norse Poetry: The Hydromel of Praise and the Effluvia of Scorn’, Oral Tradition 16:1, 168–202 Mitchell, Stephen A. 2003. ‘Reconstructing Old Norse Oral Tradition’, Oral Tradition 18:2, 203–6 Mitchell, Stephen A. 2011. Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press Mitchell, Stephen A. 2012. ‘Transvektion und die verleumdete Frau in der skandinavischen Tradition (TSB D367): Ein neuerliches Überdenken des Super-­Organischen in der Folkloristik’, in Text, Reihe, Transmisson: Unfestigkeit als Phänomen skandinavischer Erzählprosa 1500–1800, ed. by Jürg Glauser and Anna Katharina Dömling, Beiträge zur Nordischen Philologie 42, Tübingen: A. Francke Verlag, 183–204

Framing Old Norse Performance Contexts 43 Mitchell, Stephen A. 2013. ‘Memory, Mediality, and the “Performative Turn”: Recontextualizing Remembering in Medieval Scandinavia’, Scandinavian Studies 85:3, 282–305 Mitchell, Stephen A. 2014. ‘Continuity: Folklore’s Problem Child?’ in Folklore in Old Norse – Old Norse in Folklore, ed. by Daniel Sävborg and Karen Bek-­Pedersen, Nordistica Tartuensis 20, Tartu: Tartu University Press, 34–51 Mitchell, Stephen A. 2018a. ‘Folklore Studies’, in Handbook of Pre-­Modern Nordic Memory Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches, ed. by Jürg Glauser, Pernille Hermann and Stephen A. Mitchell, Berlin: de Gruyter, I, 93–106 Mitchell, Stephen A. 2018b. ‘Orality and Oral Theory’, in Handbook of Pre-­Modern Nordic Memory Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches, ed. by Jürg Glauser, Pernille Hermann and Stephen A. Mitchell, Berlin: de Gruyter, I, 120–131 Mitchell, Stephen A. 2020. ‘Old Norse Riddles and other Verbal Contests in Performance’, in John Miles Foley’s World of Oralities: Text, Tradition, and Contemporary Oral Theory, ed. by Mark C. Amodio, New York: Arc Humanities Press, 178–96 Mitchell, Stephen A. forthcoming. Old Norse Folklore: Tradition, Innovation, and Performance in Medieval Scandinavia Mitchell, Stephen A. and Gregory Nagy. 2000. ‘Introduction to the Second Edition’, in Albert B. Lord. The Singer of Tales, ed. by Stephen A. Mitchell and Gregory Nagy, Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature 24, 2nd edn., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, vii–xxix Mulligan, Amy C. and Else Mundal, eds. 2019. Moving Words in the Nordic Middle Ages: Tracing Literacies, Texts, and Verbal Communities, Acta Scandinavica: Cambridge Studies in the Scandinavian World 8, Turnhout: Brepols Mundal, Else. 2019. ‘From Oral to Written in Old Norse Culture: Questions of Genre, Contact, and Community’, in Moving Words in the Nordic Middle Ages: Tracing Literacies, Texts, and Verbal Communities, ed. by Amy C. Mulligan and Else Mundal, Acta Scandinavica: Cambridge Studies in the Scandinavian World 8, Turnhout: Brepols, 319–43 Nagy, Gregory. 1996. Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Nygaard, Simon. 2018. ‘ . . . nú knáttu Óðin sjá: The Function of Hall-­Based, Ritualised Performances of Old Norse Poetry in Pre-­Christian Nordic Religion’, in The Fortified Viking Age, ed. by Mette Bruus and Jesper Hansen, Odense: Odense City Museums and University Press of Southern Denmark, 26–34 Nygaard, Simon and Luke John Murphy. 2017. ‘Processioner i førkristen nordisk religion’, Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift 66, 40–77 Nygaard, Simon and Jens Peter Schjødt. 2018. ‘History of Religion’, in Handbook of Pre-­ Modern Nordic Memory Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches, ed. by Jürg Glauser, Pernille Hermann and Stephen A. Mitchell, Berlin: de Gruyter, I, 70–8 OED = Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edn., Oxford: Clarendon Press and Oxford University Press ONP = Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. Registre/A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose. Indices. 1989. Copenhagen: Den arnamagnæanske kommission Phillpotts, Bertha S. 1920. The Elder Edda and Ancient Scandinavian Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Price, Neil S. 2010. ‘Passing into Poetry: Viking-­Age Mortuary Drama and the Origins of Norse Mythology’, Medieval Archaeology 54: 123–56 Price, Neil S. 2012. ‘Mythic Acts: Material Narratives of the Dead in Viking Age Scandinavia’, in More than Mythology: Narratives, Ritual Practices and Regional Distribution in Pre-­Christian Scandinavian Religions, ed. by Catharina Raudvere and Jens Peter Schjødt, Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 13–46

44  Stephen A. Mitchell Price, Neil S. 2014. ‘Nine Paces from Hel: Time and Motion in Old Norse Ritual Performance’, World Archaeology 46:2, 178–91 Price, Neil S. 2020. Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings, New York: Basic Books Ranković, Slavica, Leidulf Melve and Else Mundal, eds. 2010. Along the Oral-­Written Continuum: Types of Texts, Relations, and Their Implications, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 20, Turnhout: Brepols Reynolds, Dwight. 2018. Heroic Poets, Poetic Heroes: The Ethnography of Performance in Arabic Oral Epic Tradition, Ithaca: Cornell University Press Rohrbach, Lena. 2017. ‘10. Drama and Performativity’, in The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas, ed. by Ármann Jakobsson and Sverrir Jakobsson, Abingdon: Routledge, 134–50 Sæmund Eyjólfsson. 1896. ‘Um minni í brúðkaupveizlum og helztu brúðkaupssiði á 16. og 17. öld’, Tímarit 17, 92–143 Schechner, Richard. 1977. Essays on Performance Theory, 1970–1976, New York: Drama Book Specialists See, Klaus von. 1981. ‘Das Problem der mündlichen Erzählprosa im Altnordischen. Der Prolog der Þiðreks saga und der Bericht von der Hochzeit in Reykjahólar’, Skandinavistik 11, 90–5 Storm, Gustav. 1896. ‘En gammel Gildeskraa fra Trondhjem’, in Sproglig-­Historiske Studier tilegnede Professor C.R. Unger, Kristiania: H. Aschehoug & Co.s forlag, 217–26 Strömbäck, Dag. 1979a. ‘Folklore and Philology: Some Recollections’, ARV 35, 13–23 Strömbäck, Dag. 1979b. ‘To the Readers of ARV’, ARV 35, 9–11 Tangherlini, Timothy R. 1994. Interpreting Legend: Danish Storytellers and their Repertoires, Milman Parry Studies in Oral Tradition, series ed. by Gregory Nagy and Stephen A. Mitchell, New York: Garland Thoms, William John. 1846. ‘Folk-­Lore’, Athenaeum 982, 862–3 Turner, Victor W. 1957. Schism and Continuity in an African Society. A Study of Ndembu Village Life, Manchester: Published on behalf of the Rhodes-­Livingstone Institute, Northern Rhodesia by Manchester University Press Turner, Victor W. 1971. ‘An Anthropological Approach to the Icelandic Saga’, in The Translation of Culture, ed. by T. O. Beidelman, London: Tavistock, 349–74 Turner, Victor W. 1980. ‘Social Dramas and Stories about Them’, Critical Inquiry 7:1, 141–68 Úlfar Bragason. 2005. ‘Sagas of Contemporary History (Sturlunga saga): Texts and Research’, in A Companion to Old Norse-­Icelandic Literature and Culture, ed. by Rory McTurk, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 427–46 Vár í Ólavsstovu. 1992. ‘Drunnurin – uppruni og nýtsla’, Varðin. Føroyskt Tíðarrit 59, 52–98 Wilgus, D. K. 1973. ‘The Text Is the Thing’, The Journal of American Folklore 86:341, 241–52 Zori, Davide, Jesse Byock et al. 2013. ‘Feasting in Viking Age Iceland: Sustaining a Chiefly Political Economy in a Marginal Environment’, Antiquity 87, 150–65 Zumwalt, Rosemary Lévy. 1988. American Folklore Scholarship: A  Dialogue of Dissent, Bloomington: Indiana University Press

Part II

Voice and Performance

2 Revisiting Zumthorian Vocality in Old Norse Poetry Studies Inés García López

The purpose of this chapter is to give a critical overview of the concept of vocality, introduced by Paul Zumthor, and to evaluate its potential application to the study of Old Norse poetry. To that end, it is necessary to systematise the theoretical corpus related to that term and its reception in this field of study. From my perspective – and as will be shown here – there has been a biased reception of Zumthorian vocality in Old Norse studies because it has been taken into account only from Schaefer’s actualisation of the term. The possible reason for this is twofold. On the one hand, the terms ‘voice’ and ‘vocality’ have an elusive character. On the other hand, some Old Norse scholars (Mitchell, Gunnell, Rohrbach, among others) have indeed approached orality from its performative dimension, but only Joseph Harris has introduced the term ‘vocality’ in Performance Studies (Harris 2012). In order to provide an accurate overview of the terms ‘voice’ and ‘vocality’, firstly it is necessary to pay attention to their different uses in the French academic field, where the term vocalité first appeared.1 Secondly, it is essential to describe the short history of reception of the term ‘vocality’ in the field of Scandinavian medieval poetry. Paul Zumthor, in his work La poésie et la voix dans la civilisation médiévale (1984), proposed a new methodology to study the phenomenon of vocality in medieval poetry. The main concepts introduced there were extended in his later publication La lettre et la voix. De la “littérature” médiévale (1987). Together with his Introduction à la poésie orale (1983), these texts are fundamental to analysing medieval poetry from a vocal perspective. His main contribution consists of a new understanding of orality as a history of voice; that is why he coined the term vocalité.2 This term always refers to voice, therefore it has become especially pertinent in relation to the debate concerning the place of voice in oral literature. One of the first authors to use the term ‘vocality’ in the context of Old Norse studies was Joseph Harris, in ‘Eddic Poetry and the Ballad: Voice, Vocality and Performance, with Special Reference to DgF 1’ (2012). When talking about vocality, Harris considers Zumthor as a neo-­romantic, and states that he therefore prefers the German scholar Ursula Schaefer’s revision DOI: 10.4324/9780367809324-5

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of the term (see Schaefer 1992, 2015). Actually, Harris uses the German term Vokalität in an English text because it weighs on the social, historical and performative dimension of oral poetry, to distinguish it from Zumthorian vocalité, which he considers as containing an essentialist bias. According to Schaefer and Harris, the term ‘vocality’ is presented by Zumthor as an over-­romanticised understanding of voice, but its introduction in oral studies nonetheless constitutes a paradigmatic turn. Zumthor asserts that the question of orality in any poetic genre can be raised only in terms of performance, not of origin, because the point is not whether the text has been previously written or orally composed but that it was designed to be communicated aloud to an audience (Zumthor and Engelhardt 1984, 67). The term Vokalität and its reception in Old Norse studies partly overlooks the centrality of performance when talking about vocality. This chapter is organised in four parts. The first gives an introductory overview of the concept of voice from an interdisciplinary perspective in the French academic tradition. It presents the contributions made by this tradition to the study of voice as materiality, and its influence on the appearance of the term ‘vocality’ in literary studies. In the second part, the concept of Zumthorian vocality is further explored and defined. The third part analyses Schaefer’s contribution to the concept of vocality within the context of media studies, while the final part of the chapter discusses the reception of the concept of vocality in Old Norse studies and the possibilities inherent in applying it to the study of Old Norse poetry in performance.

Voice as an Elusive Object of Study: The French Tradition Voice has been widely studied since the 1960s through the work of Jacques Lacan (Le Séminaire de Jacques Lacan, Livre X: L’angoisse, 1962–3) and Jacques Derrida (La voix et le phénomène, 1967b). A poststructuralist approach to the concept is also developed by Roland Barthes in his work La musique, la voix, la langue (1982). Following the French critical tradition, Paul Zumthor has analysed voice in medieval literature and introduced the term ‘vocality’ to this field in 1984. His previous studies and his contribution to systematising a methodological framework in order to study poetry represent a paradigm shift in medieval studies. Zumthor begins his book Introduction à la poésie orale with a chapter titled ‘Présence de la voix’ (Zumthor 1983, 9–17), thus presenting from the start the voice as an object of study. But what kind of object of study is ‘voice’? Allow me a slight digression: oral presentations are a very common activity in the academic world. As this chapter itself was first intended and produced as an oral presentation,3 I would like to put forward some questions which arise from the mere act of presenting orally, in order to introduce vocality as a problematic subject: is there a difference between reading aloud a written text before an audience and reading it for oneself afterwards, in

Revisiting Zumthorian Vocality 49

silence? If so, what is that difference and how should we best conceptualise it? Is the effectiveness of comprehension at stake? What elements come into play in an oral presentation that we cannot find in silent reading and what would be the most appropriate method to study these elements? Even if I am reading a written text aloud, I cannot foresee whether or not I will improvise or add any unexpected information not present in the written text of my paper. Our contemporary experience with orality may shed light on the experience of previous civilisations. In the academic world there is a constant dialogue between the written and the oral dimensions of texts, not only those presented at conferences but also those produced in our daily seminars. When a text is read aloud, its contents become unstable. Voicing a text in front of an audience opens a space for the unpredictable. Are there any connections between the experience of reading aloud and a poetic performance?4 Any material used in an oral presentation is open and potentially mutable, especially when it comes to voice. Methodologically, we could say that our object becomes slippery. Voice presents itself as an elusive object of study when performed. Voice has been studied and analysed across different disciplines and continues to be of interdisciplinary interest, as if something prevents us from closing the topic.5 Roland Barthes gives the following definition of the human voice and how it constantly resists closure:6 La voix humaine est en effet le lieu privilégié (eidétique) de la différence: un lieu qui échappe à toute science, car il n’est aucune science (physiologie, histoire, esthétique, psychanalyse) qui épuise la voix: classez, commentez historiquement, sociologiquement, esthétiquement, techniquement la musique, il y aura toujours un reste, un supplément, un lapsus, un non-­dit qui se désigne lui-­même: la voix. Cet objet toujours différent est mis par la psychanalyse au rang des objets du désir en tant qu’il manque, à savoir des objets (a): il n’y a aucune voix humaine au monde qui ne soit objet de désir – ou de répulsion: il n’y a pas de voix neutre – et si parfois ce neutre, ce blanc de la voix advient, c’est pour nous une grande terreur, comme si nous découvrions avec effroi un monde figé, où le désir serait mort. (Barthes 1985, 247) The human voice is, as a matter of fact, the privileged (eidetic) site of difference: a site which escapes all science, for there is no science (physiology, history, aesthetics, psychoanalysis) which exhausts the voice: no matter how much you classify and comment on music historically, sociologically, aesthetically, technically, there will always be a remainder, a supplement, a lapse, something non-­spoken which designates itself: the voice. There is no human voice in the world which is not the object of desire – or of repulsion: there is no neutral voice – and if occasionally this neutrality or blankness of the voice occurs, it constitutes a great

50  Inés García López

terror, as if we were to fearfully discover a petrified world, where desire would be dead.’ (trans. by Howard in Barthes 1985, 279) As we can see, there is a missing sentence in the English translation. It could be translated as follows: ‘This object, which is always different, is put by the psychoanalysis to the rank of objects of desire as they represent something missing, namely objects (a)’. The translator’s lapse is striking since the elided sentence explains what is inaccessible in the voice. This missing sentence connects Barthes’ proposal with Lacanian theory. As Barthes says, there is always a remainder, a supplement in the human voice that escapes from any disciplinary approach (‘physiology, history, aesthetics, psychoanalysis’). Following Lacan, Barthes states that this remainder is linked to the fact that voice is an object of desire – object (a).7 Ultimately, according to Barthes, voice rejects its reification as an isolated object of study. Just like Barthes, Zumthor conceives voice from the perspective of its resistance to being objectified and offers the following explanation: Indéfinissable autrement qu’en termes de rapport, d’écart, d’articulation entre sujet et objet, entre l’Un et l’Autre, a voix reste inobjectivable, énigmatique, non spéculaire. Elle interpelle le sujet, le constitue et y imprime le chiffre d’une altérité. Pour celui qui en produit le son, elle rompt une clôture, libère d’une limite que par là elle révèle, instauratrice d’un ordre propre. (Zumthor 1983, 16) Because voice can be defined only in terms of relationships, separations, or articulations between subject and object, between One and the Other,8 it cannot be objectified and thus remains enigmatic, nonspecular. It summons, constitutes, and imprints on the subject the mark of alterity. Voice ruptures a closure, frees its producer from a limitation it has revealed. (Zumthor 1990, 9) Both Barthes’ and Zumthor’s remarks reflect the psychoanalytic theories regarding the voice, especially the Lacanian view.9 Importantly, Lacan does not take the same approach to voice that we would in orality studies. Lacan and Barthes, as we have just read, consider voice as an object of desire, but Zumthor’s approach takes on a more historical and cultural dimension. Considering such a fundamental difference, Lacan and Zumthor have a common starting point: a function-­based approach to voice. The Lacanian vocal object – not the oral one – is conceived in psychoanalysis as a result of the application of a structuralist perspective in the mid-­twentieth century.10 Voice is not analysed in terms of its origin or place in the stages of human development. The fundamental question lies beyond the synchronic perspective: what is the function of voice in the relationship between the subject and the structure of language? (Miller

Revisiting Zumthorian Vocality 51

2007, 139). For Lacan, the materiality of voice as sound is not the main issue. Voice as an object does not belong to sound and it should not be considered from the sole perspective of vocal register. Lacanian voice has nothing to do with intonation because its position is fundamentally outside meaning (Miller 2007, 142). In this sense, voice is a function of the signifier, it is one of the dimensions of the signifying chain – either audible, visual or written. The presence of voice does not depend on the sound, timbre or music of a recitation or a text. In any enunciation what we do expect to hear is the voice of the Other, and so voice is revealed as the unspeakable, as something that cannot be said by the subject. Lacan’s theory introduces the subjective dimension into his interrogation of the voice. From this perspective, voice is seen as pertaining to an Other as something that cannot be uttered by the subject him/herself. This dimension of Otherness, inscribed in the subject, is described in Zumthor’s definition of voice in terms of social and historical relationships, separations or articulations between One and the Other that imprint on the subject the mark of alterity. Despite these similarities, there is a clear difference between these concepts: when Zumthor describes writing as the language without voice (le langage sans voix qu’est l’écriture [Zumthor 1983, 10]), he diverges from the Lacanian concept of voice as it is considered in its materiality and as a phenomenon that must be analysed diachronically: La voix est une chose: on en décrit les qualités matérielles, le ton le timbre, l’ampleur, la hauteur, le registre . . . et à chacune d’elles la coutume attache une valeur symbolique: dans le mélodrame européen. (Zumthor 1983, 11) Voice is a thing: its material qualities – tone, timbre, volume, register – can be described and custom has assigned to each a symbolic value in European melodrama. (Zumthor 1990, 5) It would be reasonable to conclude that Zumthor could have used the enigmatic dimension of Lacanian voice as it relates to the Other to give a possible explanation for the elusive character of voice and how it constantly escapes closure, while considering, at the same time, its materiality and its historical dimension as an object of study. Zumthor also quotes Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, along with Jacques Derrida in his work.11 Without the linguistic turn and the vivid discussions about voice in the field of phenomenology and structuralism, it is difficult to imagine how the Swiss medievalist could have preferred the use of the word vocalité instead of oralité, as he expresses in his 1984 book La poésie et la voix dans la civilisation médiévale: La question de l’oralité de ce que l’on nomme abusivement [.  .  .] la “littérature” médiévale m’apparaît moins comme une question de fait

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(supposant reconstitution et preuve) que d’interprétation (visant à surmonter, en la décelant, une altérité réciproque). Il s’agit en cela moins d’oralité que de vocalité. Je reprendrai à mon compte la proposition de Henri Meschonnic: le sonore n’est pas l’oral. Entendez que l’“oralité”, c’est l’historicité d’une voix, son usage. (Zumthor 1984b, 11) The question of the orality of what is wrongly called [. . .] medieval ‘literature’ appears to me less as a question of fact (supposing reconstitution and proof) than of interpretation (aiming to overcome in detecting it, a reciprocal otherness). This is less of orality than of vocality. I take up Henri Meschonnic’s proposal: the sound is not oral.12 Understand that ‘orality’ is the historicity of a voice, its use.13 Zumthor here makes the distinction between orality and vocality, placing emphasis on the fact that during the Middle Ages voice was a principal factor in the transmission and production of poetry. Therefore, voice cannot be reduced to sound – something timeless or impersonal – because all its material qualities are to be seen from its historical value within the context of production and reception.

Vocality and Poetic Performance in the Middle Ages Paul Zumthor defines vocalité as the historicity of a voice (Zumthor 1987, 21). In La lettre et la voix. De la “littérature” médiévale, he proposes to study the human voice in medieval poetry. The poetic function of voice is modified during the Middle Ages: in relation to poetry, writing starts to be seen as modern, while voice is considered ancient. In a poetic performance, when the poet recites or sings, his/her voice is sufficient to give him/her authority since it conveys the prestige of tradition (Zumthor 1987, 7). Oral transmission unfolds in the present of the realisation of the performance. Every poetic text, as it aspires to be transmitted to an audience, is materially subjected to five operations: production, communication, reception, conservation and repetition. When communication and reception coincide in time, we experience an exceptional situation. Zumthor considers performance a complex action in which a poetic message is simultaneously transmitted and received. Two social communication axes co-­exist in a performance: one of them joins the speaker or declaimer to the author, and in the other one, situation and tradition are made to converge. Therefore, oral tradition concerns production, conservation and repetition, whereas oral transmission or performance concerns transmission, communication and reception (Zumthor 1983, 32–3). The focus is not so much on whether or not the text was composed in writing, but the fact that it was received through individual reading, or by audition or spectacle, profoundly modifies its effect on the audience and – consequently – its significance (Zumthor 1983, 82).

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A medieval text, as well as a contemporary text, could be performed, but the vocality of each text would be different. We could understand Zumthorian vocality as a technology of declamation in the sense of a compendium of the different uses of voice through history. With his approach, Zumthor has raised awareness of the characteristics of performance and has overcome the oral-­written dichotomy criticised in depth by Derrida (Reichl 2012, 54). Returning to my previous digression on oral presentations in academia, according to Zumthorian vocality, it is irrelevant if the text was written previously or not. The question is if the use of the voice in reading aloud or performance has been modified through time and how these changes are connected to the text’s production and to the audience. For example, according to the audience’s horizon of expectations: how should the text be performed so that it is recognised – from its particular use of the voice – as a masterclass and not as a work of literary fiction?

Vokalität and Mediality From the 1990s onwards, the German scholar Ursula Schaefer has extensively studied vocality in Old English poetry (cf. Schaefer 1992).14 She has also written a theorical chapter in the first book on vocality in the field of Old Norse studies: Balladen – Stimmen. Vokalität als theoretisches und historisches Phänomen (Schaefer 2015). This book is one of three volumes on the transmission of Scandinavian literature during the early modern period. Schaefer’s Vokalität is a concept related to traditional medieval ballads because these compositions can be considered as Texte zwischen den Medien: texts between oral and written (or manuscript) transmission. The reception of Zumthorian vocality in Old Norse literature studies takes place, therefore, through the new paradigm of the medial approach, where Schaefer’s work is central in relation to medieval literature studies. This is the reason why, in Old Norse studies, the German word Vokalität is preferred to the English or French terms (vocality and vocalité, respectively). Significantly, in the 2009 workshop ‘Mediality in Late Medieval Iceland’, which took place in Switzerland, Kate Heslop and Jürg Glauser used Schaefer’s term Vokalität explicitly to explore new approaches to the study of Old Norse texts: [W]e take the relationship between the oral and the written as one of simultaneity and interference, rather than succession and replacement: medieval texts exist in an oral environment, the situation Ursula Schaefer calls Vokalität. This ‘multimedia’ environment opens a new perspective on how Old Norse texts reflect on media forms, both within the fictional worlds they construct – in their mentions of books, reading, writing (runic and Latin), performance, gesture, images, music, etc. – and in explicitly theoretical statements in, for example, prologues and epilogues and works such as the grammatical treatises. (NCCR Mediality 2017)

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Schaefer uses the term Vokalität as an appropriate means of resolving the orality/literacy dichotomy based only on media and the Medialität als Ordnungskriterium that has historically generated a polarised discourse between the written and the spoken word: Die Wahl des Terminus Vokalität, den ich von Paul Zumthor (1987) übernehme und begrifflich modifiziere, orientiert sich an den medialen Gegebenheiten poetischer Kommunikation im frühen Mittelalter. Wie bei Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit ist aber auch unter Vokalität mehr und anderes zu begreifen als eine reine Bezugnahme auf das Medium der Kommunikation. (Schaefer 1992, 7–8) The choice of the term Vokalität, which I adopt from Paul Zumthor (1987) and conceptually modify, is based on the medial reality of poetic communication in the early Middle Ages. But as with oral and written language, more and more is to be understood under the name Vokalität than a mere reference to the medium of communication. Schaefer updates Zumthorian vocality within the theories of communication and media studies, placing special emphasis on the historical perspective and on the conditions of transmission: Der Begriff Vokalität ist zwar insofern ‘phonisch orientiert’, als er die besonderen medialen Bedingungen des Mittelalters zum Ausdruck bringen soll. Dabei geht es per se jedoch nicht darum, eine ontische Relation zwischen Stimme und Signifikat zu unterstellen, sondern um die Frage, wie unter diesen historischen Bedingungen Sinn vermittelbar und ermittelbar ist. (Schaefer 1992, 13) The term Vokalität is phonically oriented insofar as it is meant to express the particular medial conditions of the Middle Ages. At the same time, however, it is not a matter of subordinating an ontic relationship between voice and signified, but of the question of how meaning can be mediated and determined under these historical conditions.15 Schaefer highlights two points in this definition: the historical conditions are given in the context of a ‘hybrid situation’, in which writing is transmitted by voice and received by listening.16 In relation to this context, she discusses Olson’s formula: ‘in an oral tradition [. . .] the meaning is in the context. In contrast, in literate tradition, the meaning is in the text’ (Olson 1977, 257–81). Schaefer clarifies that Sinn ‘meaning’ is not something given beforehand but is constituted within the framework of certain communicative conditions (Schaefer 1992, 14).

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Schaefer also offers a revision of the short history of the reception of vocality (Schaefer 2015, 12–14). She refers to Bernard Cerquiglini’s Éloge de la variante (1989) and its critiques of Zumthor’s studies of the human voice, in the line of what Jacques Derrida described as phonocentrism in his 1967 work De la grammatologie. Here, Derrida asserts that the original and essential bond between the classical concepts of logos and phonè has never been broken before: Or dans ce logos, le lien originaire et essentiel à la phonè n’a jamais été rompu ‘Within this logos, the original and essential link to the phonè has never been broken’ (Derrida 1967a, 21; trans. Spivak in Derrida 1997, 11). This bond is classical in the Aristotelian sense in which the spoken words are the symbols of mental experience.17 If voice, in the act of uttering the first sounds, has an indissoluble connection with the mind, then all signifiers, and thus every written signifier, are derivatives of the original phonè. The written signifier is always technical and representative, making its three main characteristics dérivé, technique et représentatif ‘derived, technical and representative’ (Derrida 1967a, 23). Logocentrism, then, degrades writing because writing is considered as a representation of the voice. This notion of signifier belongs to the logocentrism that Derrida assimilates to phonocentrism. Shortly after stating this parallelism, Derrida gives the definition of phonocentrism that Schaefer includes in her article: Elle reste donc dans la descendance de ce logocentrisme qui est aussi un phonocentrisme: proximité absolue de la voix et de l’être, de la voix et du sens de l’être, de la voix et de l’idéalité du sens, ‘This notion remains therefore within the heritage of that logocentrism which is also a phonocentrism: absolute proximity of voice and being, of voice and the meaning of being, of voice and the ideality of meaning’ (Derrida 1967a, 23; trans. by Spivak in Derrida 1997, 11–12). Derrida regards logocentrism as the determination of the meaning of being as presence. This idea can be found in Zumthor’s Oral Poetry: An Introduction, notably in the first chapter’s title, ‘The Presence of Voice’, as a result of which Schaefer and Cerquiglini regard Zumthor as phonocentric. Throughout this chapter, Zumthor offers a sacralised praise to voice which is also maintained in La poésie et la voix dans la civilisation médiévale: Toute une poésie, en vertu de sa vocalité, semble aspirer à se dégager des contraintes sémantiques de la langue naturelle, à s’évader du langage même, au-­devant d’une plénitude qui ne serait plus que presence. (Zumthor 1984b, 86) A whole poetry, by virtue of its vocality, seems to aspire to disengage itself from the semantic constraints of the natural language, to escape from the language itself, in front of a plenitude that would only be presence. But it would be unfair to reduce Zumthor’s contribution to a criticism of his concept of ‘voice as presence’. Zumthor echoes the philosophical

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debate on the Derridean critiques on the binary opposition between voice and writing and brings the discussion to his field of interest. He states that the main manifestation of vocality is the elemental word, but it is not the only one: the vital aspect of human vocality is its phonic capacity. But the preparation for vocalisation that he describes goes beyond the materiality of the voice (vocal timbre, volume, register or tone), it creates the performative conditions in which Otherness, as explained, is summoned. It is from this perspective that orality becomes vocality, where all logocentrism is banished (Zumthor 1983, 27). And yet, as we have just established, Zumthor fails to completely avoid being criticised precisely for his presumed logocentrism. Derridean critiques of the phenomenology of voice certainly question central aspects of oral studies in which voice is understood to be primary and fundamental. However, Zumthor will remain part of the post-­Derridean persistence of oral theories in contemporary medieval studies (Dane 1994, 146). What is the cause of such persistence and the possible applicability of Zumthorian theories on medieval orality, and what are its limitations?

Vocality in Old Norse Poetry: Revisiting Zumthor Thanks to the authors of the so-­called performative turn, we can now construct a performance-­based analysis of Old Norse poetry.18 The oral-­written debate in Old Norse studies has been overtaken in recent decades by Performance Studies (Mitchell 2001, 170–1). Paying attention to the occasion of performance provided by the sagas and analysing it as a possible setting for Old Norse poems has led to new ways of discussing poetical performance.19 The reception of Zumthorian theories in Old Norse studies has been carried out primarily by the American scholar Joseph Harris, especially in the field of eddic poetry and the Scandinavian ballads (Harris 2012).20 In accordance with Schaefer’s definition of the concept of Vokalität, Harris devotes a chapter to ‘Eddic Poetry and the Ballad: Voice, Vocality, and Performance’ in the book Child’s Children: Ballad Study and its Legacies, edited together with Barbara Hillers and published in 2012. Harris interprets the term ‘vocality’ as ‘a modern or postmodern conceptual antidote to romanticism where not purity, wholeness, and immediacy reign, but heterogeneity, cultural hybridity, and forms of mediation’ (Harris 2012, 156). Harris particularly situates Milman Parry’s theory and the oral-­formulaic school developed in modern times as a continuation of the romantic quest inspired by Herder (Harris 2012, 155). He also observes certain connections with this neo-­romantic school in Walter Ong and Paul Zumthor’s work. He identifies the opposition between the oral and the literate – which both writers defend – as the core of the romantic nostalgia for the ‘lost word’, and the superiority of voice over writing. Writing is then understood as a reduction of a former unity and seen as a medium of communication that lacks something, which can be restored only through the understanding of its oral dimension and through performance. The Derridean critique of

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the superiority of voice over writing is recognisable in Harris’ words and he stands in the same line of vision as Schaefer and Cerquiglini, dismissing Zumthor as phonocentric (Harris 2012, 155). Closer to the reception of literary history, Harris reads Zumthor’s search for the lost wholeness as romantic nostalgia. In fact, Zumthor, right at the beginning of La poésie et la voix, when considering the appropriate method to apply to the study of medieval poetry, expresses the need to establish a dialogue with the old texts because a totality was broken as we are no longer medieval spectators or auditors and there is a cultural and discursive gap. There is an irretrievable totality – he says – and we could even say that it is also an unimaginable one: Or, il s’agit bien évidemment pour nous de dialoguer avec des textes anciens, figurants masqués d’un théâtre dont nous ne sommes plus spectateurs, porteurs de discours que nous n’entendons plus. Une totalité a été brisée et demeure en tant que telle irrécupérable – inimaginable même. (Zumthor 1984b, 11) However, it is obvious that for us to enter into dialogue with ancient texts, masked extras of a theatre of which we are no longer spectators, carriers of speech that we do not hear any more. A totality has been broken and remains as such unrecoverable – unimaginable even. In order to overcome this broken totality and guide us to analyse the vocal realisations of medieval poetry, Zumthor proposes to study the ‘indicators of orality’ (Zumthor 1984b, 15).21 For example, when the written text of the poem is preserved, one of the indicators of its possible vocal realisation is musical notation over the manuscript lines. There are other indicators, such as using the word ‘song’ or ‘chant’ to refer to the text or finding words of exhortation intended to capture the audience’s attention. In all the indicators, the performative dimension is central. But although performance is already a key element in Zumthor’s work, Harris proposes a new approach to it that constitutes a ‘central discovery procedure in the study of oral literature’, fundamental in its application to eddic poetry (2012, 156). Harris also moves away in his method called ‘the model’ from Milman Parry’s theory and the oral-­formulaic school. ‘The model’ investigates the connections between the ballad and eddic poetry, trying to answer the question: how were eddic poems performed before their fixation in writing in the thirteenth century? In Harris’s opinion, the primary evidence of eddic poems being performed has been extensively studied, and he concludes that ‘the consensus today regards the eddic poems as a form of oral poetry that does not exactly fit the Harvard model’, referring here to the Parry-­Lord model (Harris 2012, 158). The main reasons for this divergence lie in part in the textual

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stability of eddic poems, and also in our lack of information about the occasions on which oral poetry was recited, sung or enacted. For an excellent survey on the limitations and difficulties of performance related to eddic poems we can consult Terry Gunnell’s The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia. His work sheds some light in relation, for example, to the use of poetry in verbal contests in some eddic poems as an indicator of orality: Nonetheless, the relationship between poems like Lokasenna, Hárbarðsljóð and Skírnismál and the popular, improvised senna/mannjafnaðr traditions is unquestionable. It is also logical to suggest indirect links between these competitive traditions and the contest of knowledge encountered in poems like Vafþrúðnismál, Alvíssmál, and Gátur Gestumblinda, which centre upon two main contestants and are closely linked to the popular oral form of the riddle competition. (Gunnell 1995, 349) One piece of evidence for this possible performance or the dramatic representation of such dialogic poems is the use of the marginal notation found in the original manuscripts and the use of the verse form ljóðaháttr (Gunnell 1995, 352). Gunnell’s work discusses essential questions about the sheer act of performance. In particular, he investigates the number of performers or the role of emotion in dramatisation, which is, as Harris notes, ‘the classic evidence for the performance of eddic poetry’ (Harris 2012, 159). What Harris brings forward from there is how the connection of the genre of the ballad to music can be a ‘model’ for eddic verse and demonstrate what he states in the introduction of his article about the use of a mixed hermeneutics related to the term ‘vocality’: Eddic poetry is mostly narrative though it also has long gnomic sections  – riddles wisely expounded, so to speak  – some of which approximate balladesque ‘incremental repetition.’ Its form is stanzaic, and narrative progression resembles ballad’s ‘leaping and lingering.’ It is more or less formulaic, and although refrains are absent, some repetitions seem refrain-­like. Sometimes the story is almost as implicit or audience-­dependent as in the ballads. (Harris 2012, 160) However, considering this last contribution on the centrality of music and the historical and critical contributions exposed in this chapter as a whole, it would be interesting – taking Schaefer’s definition of Vokalität as phonisch orientiert as an actualisation of Zumthorian vocality, excluding the ontic relationship between voice and meaning (Schaefer 2015, 13) – to deepen our understanding of the role of voice itself in the performance of eddic poetry, as a corporal aspect of medieval composition. To that end, it would be pertinent to consider the vocal aspects that were not registered in manuscript

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transmission but that were central in the text production and in its performance. For example, how the materiality of voice in terms of volume, vocal register and timbre could have changed through time, or how silence and pauses were used in relation to gestures and the body, or what was the role of musical instruments and their power and influence over the audience. It is, of course, impossible to reproduce the exact medieval conditions for the performance of Old Norse poetry in terms of time and place. Apart from examining the indicators of orality preserved in medieval texts, it would certainly be interesting and necessary to develop new methodological and interdisciplinary approaches based on the contemporary experience of oral performances. In this sense, the testimony and the knowledge of rhapsodists, musicians and dramaturgs, who are confronted on a daily basis with the problematic aspects of reviving music and gestures from the past, should be taken into consideration when thinking about vocality. Which are our current technologies of declamation? Does the audience expect a certain vocality when presented with a poetical performance? What are the social and historical mechanisms that contribute to a certain technology of declamation at the expense of other unsuccessful forms? Some of these questions may open new lines of research directed at a possible definition of the performative conventions of Old Norse poetry.

Notes 1 Zumthor introduces the term vocalité in 1984 in his work La poésie et la voix dans la civilisation médiévale, but the concept is developed in La lettre et la voix. De la “littérature” médiévale (1987, 20–31). 2 Zumthor’s Introduction à la poésie orale (1983) offers a review of oral studies and makes a relevant contribution focussing on the importance of the voice. This new emphasis on the voice implies a theorical shift that displaced his focus of study from literacy/ illiteracy and written sources to other aspects such as poetry transmission, reception and performance (Birge 1998, 5–6). 3 Initially presented at the ‘Old Norse Poetry in Performance’ conference in 2016 with the title ‘A Methodological Approach to the Study of Vocality in Eddic Poetry’. 4 I consider that one of the aspects that makes reading aloud a performance is precisely its vocality, as will be described in this chapter. 5 In this respect I  would like to highlight the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies which has been, since 2013, exploring and studying the concept of voice from an interdisciplinary perspective, calling upon philosophy, literary and cultural analysis, speech therapy, neurological research, and creative practice such as composition or voice training in the performance of voice in theatre, live art or music. 6 See also Zumthor 1984a. 7 Lacan develops the concept of the object (a) as an object-­cause of desire in his tenth seminar (Lacan 1962–3), where he states that this object only exists in the relation between humans and language. Object (a) cannot be represented and thus it cannot be an object of study, it is actually the leftover of that process of constituting an object (Fink 1995, 94). 8 The difference between the lower-­case ‘other’ and the upper-­case ‘Other’ (in French, Autre) was drawn by Jacques Lacan in 1955. These two concepts were developed in his second seminar in the chapter named ‘Introduction of the big Other’. The capital-­O Other can correspond to the registers of the Symbolic and the Real in

60  Inés García López Lacan’s register theory. The Symbolic big Other can refer to ideas of anonymous authoritative power or knowledge, but in its Real dimension, the Other appears as unknowable and disturbingly enigmatic (Johnston 2018). Zumthor is referring to this second dimension of the Other in his definition of voice. 9 As a matter of fact, Zumthor’s books were present in Lacan’s personal library (Roudinesco 2014, 124). 10 The oral object, isolated as a libidinal object and central in the oral psychosexual stage, was developed in Freudian psychoanalytic theory. For further information, see Sigmund Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, published in 1905 (Freud 2000). While Freud isolated three objects where the libido circulated (oral, anal and genital), Lacan added two other objects: the gaze and the voice. Just as the object gaze is different from the act of looking, in the case of the voice there is also a distinction from the oral object. The gaze of the Other constitutes one as a subject, as does the Other’s voice when it is addressed to us. It is in this sense that we can say that both the gaze and voice of the Other are inscribed in our subjectivity, since they are its condition of possibility. Cf. Lacan’s mirror stage (1949) in Lacan (2006, 75–81). 11 An overview of these discussions is given in Kimbrough (2011, 67–104). 12 In his article ‘The Text and the Voice’, he reformulates this statement: ‘I would borrow what Henri Meschonnic has proposed: sound cannot be equated with the voice’ (Zumthor and Engelhardt 1984, 69). In this sense, voice does not produce an external and impersonal sound, it is deeply rooted in the subject and in its corporeality. It constitutes a drive to communicate with others. 13 Unless otherwise indicated, translations are my own. 14 See also Schaefer (1994; 1997; 2008). 15 The author herself translates the terms Sinnvermittlung and Sinnermittlung as ‘the way of conveying and retrieving meaning’ (Schaefer 1997, 228). 16 The transition from orality to literacy in medieval Iceland is widely analysed by Judy Quinn (2000). The section on ‘Poetry’ (41–6) is particularly relevant here. 17 I am using Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s terminology in her 1997 English translation, especially pages 11–12. 18 On the performative turn, see Mitchell (2001, 168–72). 19 Lena Rohrbach refers briefly to Schaefer’s notion of Vokalität in relation to saga performance (Rohrbach 2017, 144). 20 Harris investigates the genre of the ballad to interrogate the performance of eddic poetry. He establishes a continuation between the eddic poetry and the ballads: ‘eddic poetry has its own “modern instance”. It is linguistically and culturally closer to Scandinavian ballad than to the anglophone, and that is the comparison I wish to enter upon today – though with trepidations’ (Harris 2012, 159). 21 I have translated indice d’oralité as ‘indicator of orality’. Zumthor gives a more extensive definition a few years later, in La lettre et la voix: Par ‘indice d’oralité’, j’entends tout ce qui, à l’intérieur d’un texte, nous renseigne sur l’intervention de la voix humaine dans sa publication: je veux dire dans la mutation par laquelle ce texte passa, une ou plusieurs fois, d’un état virtuel à l’actualité, et désormais exista dans l’attention et la mémoire d’un certain nombre d’individus ‘By indicator of orality, I understand anything that, within a text informs us about the intervention of the human voice in its publication, that is, the mutation through which this text passed one or more times from the virtual state to actuality, and from that moment existed in the mind and memory of a certain number of individuals’ (Zumthor 1987, 37).

Bibliography Barthes, Roland. 1982. ‘La musique, la voix, la langue’, in L’Obvie et l’obtus, Essais Critiques III, Paris: Seuil, 246–52

Revisiting Zumthorian Vocality 61 Barthes, Roland. 1985. ‘Music, Voice, Language, trans. by Richard Howard’, in The Responsibility of Forms: Critical Essays on Music, Art, and Representation, New York: Hill and Wang, 278–85 Birge Vitz, Evelyn. 1998. ‘Remembering Paul Zumthor: Zumthor and Medieval Romance’, Dalhousie French Studies 44, 3–11 Cerquiglini, Bernard. 1989. Éloge de la variante, Paris: Seuil Certeau, Michel de. 1984. ‘Quotations of Voices’, in The Practice of Everyday Life, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 154–64 Dane, Joseph A. 1994. ‘The Lure of Oral Theory in Medieval Criticism: From Edited “Text” to Critical “Work” ’, Text 7, 145–60 Derrida, Jacques. 1967a. De la grammatologie, Paris: Éditions de Minuit Derrida, Jacques. 1967b. La Voix et le Phénomène, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France Derrida, Jacques. 1997. Of Grammatology, trans. by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Baltimore: Hopkins University Press Fink, Bruce. 1995. The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press Foley, John Miles. 1988. The Theory of Oral Composition. History and Methodology, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press Freud, Sigmund. 2000. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, trans. by James Strachey, New York: Basic Books [German original: Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie, 1905] Glauser, Jürg. 2015. Balladen – Stimmen. Vokalität als theoretisches und historisches Phänomen, Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag Gunnell, Terry. 1995. The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer Gunnell, Terry. 1996. ‘ “The Rights of the Player”: Evidence of “Mimi” and “Histriones” in Early Medieval Scandinavia’, Comparative Drama 30, 1–31 Harris, Joseph. 2012. ‘Eddic poetry and the Ballad: Voice, Vocality and Performance, with Special Reference to DgF 1’, in Child’s Children: Ballad study and its Legacies, ed. by Joseph Harris, Barbara Hillers and Sigrid Rieuwerts, Trier: Wiss. Verlag, 155–70 Johnston, Adrian. 2018. ‘Jacques Lacan’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by Edward N. Zalta, Fall, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/lacan/ [Accessed 4 February 2020] Kimbrough, Andrew M. 2011. ‘The Voice in Phenomenology and Existentialism’, in Dramatic Theories of Voice in the Twentieth Century, New York: Cambria Press, 67–104 Lacan, Jacques. 1962–3. Le Séminaire de Jacques Lacan, Livre X: L’angoisse, Paris: Éditions du Seuil Lacan, Jacques. 2006. ‘The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience’, in Écrits, trans. by Bruce Fink, New York and London: Norton and Company, 75–81 Miller, Jacques-­Alain. 2007. ‘Jacques Lacan and the Voice’, in The later Lacan: An Introduction, ed. by Véronique Voruz and Wolf Bogdan, New York: State University of New York Press, 137–46 Mitchell, Stephen A. 2001. ‘Performance and Norse Poetry: The Hydromel of Praise and the Effluvia of Scorn’, Oral Tradition 16:1, 168–202 Nagy, Gregory. 1996. Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press NCCR Mediality 2017, Mediality in late medieval Iceland: A workshop of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) ‘Mediality’ 30 November – 3 December 2009, University of Zurich, www.mediality.ch/iceland/ [Accessed 4 February 2020] Olson, David, R. 1977. ‘From Utterance to Text. The Bias of Language in Speech and Writing’, Harvard Educational Review 47, 257–81

62  Inés García López Quinn, Judy. 2000. ‘From Orality to Literacy in Medieval Iceland’, in Old Icelandic Literature and Society, ed. by Margaret Clunies Ross, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 30–60 Reichl, Karl, ed. 2012. Medieval Oral Literature, Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter Rohrbach, Lena. 2017. ‘Drama and Performativity’, in The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas, ed. by Ármann Jakobsson and Sverrir Jakobsson, Abingdon: Routledge, 134–50 Roudinesco, Élisabeth. 2014. Lacan: In Spite of Everything, London and Brooklyn: Verso Books Schaefer, Ursula. 1992. Vokalität: Altenglische Dichtung zwischen Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit, Tübingen: Narr Schaefer, Ursula. 1994. ‘Das Problem der Mündlichkeit’, in Modernes Mittelalter. Neue Bilder einer populären Epoche, ed. by Joachim Heinzle, Frankfurt a.M.: Insel Verlag, 357–75 Schaefer, Ursula. 1997. ‘The Medial Approach: A Paradigm Shift in the Philologies?’ in Written Voices, Spoken Signs. Tradition, Performance, and the Epic Text, ed. by Egbert Bakker and Ahuvia Kahane, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 215–31 Schaefer, Ursula. 2008. ‘Mediengeschichte als Geschichte der europäischen Sprachen, Kulturen und Literaturen’, in Der geteilte Gegenstand: Beiträge zu Geschichte, Gegenwart und Zukunft der Philologie(n), ed. by Ursula Schaefer, Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang Verlag, 61–78 Schaefer, Ursula. 2015. ‘Vokalität. Ein Blick in die Zukunft’, in Balladen  – Stimmen. Vokalität als theoretisches und historisches Phänomen, ed. by Jürg Glauser, Tübingen und Basel: A. Franke Verlag, 5–17 Zumthor, Paul. 1972. Toward a Medieval Poetics, Oxford, MN: University of Minnesota Press Zumthor, Paul. 1983. Introduction à la poésie orale, Paris: Éditions du Seuil Zumthor, Paul. 1984a. ‘The Impossible Closure of the Oral Text’, Yale French Studies 67, 25–42 Zumthor, Paul. 1984b. La poésie et la voix dans la civilisation médiévale, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France Zumthor, Paul. 1985. ‘Spoken Language and Oral Poetry in the Middle Ages’, Style 19:2, 191–8 Zumthor, Paul. 1987. La lettre et la voix. De la “littérature” médiévale, Paris: Éditions du Seuil Zumthor, Paul. 1990. Oral Poetry: An Introduction, trans. by Kathryn Murphy-­Judy, Oxford, MN: University of Minnesota Press Zumthor, Paul and Marilyn C. Engelhardt. 1984. ‘The Text and the Voice’, New Literary History 16:1, 67–92

3 . . . með skarða skjöldu ok skotnar brynjur The Distribution and Function of Aural Sense Impressions in Old Norse Poetry Simon Nygaard Introduction The performers of Old Norse oral poetry in the Viking Age made use of various poetic devices when composing and performing their works. Traces of these may be found in the medieval manuscript versions of the poems – which may be seen as what orality scholar John Miles Foley calls ‘voices from the past’ (2002, 45)  – as various ‘performance markers’ used to ‘key performance’, as Richard Bauman (1975, 295) has stated. One of these performance markers constitutes the seemingly conscious creation of sound patterns which seeks to underpin the narrative content of the stanzas: what I elsewhere have called ‘aural sense impressions’ (Nygaard 2019a, 2019b). Such impressions were first proposed as a distinct phenomenon in Old Norse oral-­derived poetry regardless of poetic metre by Terry Gunnell (2013), and this chapter proposes that we approach them in a more nuanced way. The reproduction of sound patterns seems to be used more effectively and to a larger extent in stanzas written in the málaháttr metre than in stanzas written in ljóðaháttr. This distribution, along with the distribution of other performance markers, indicates that the general oral performance context of stanzas in these metres was different. Furthermore, given the connections between málaháttr and fornyrðislag, it is important to consider whether the suggested distribution also extends to fornyrðislag poetry. Further still, the possible function of this particular use of sound will be explored.

Oral Poetry and Performance Theory When working with oral poetry in general, the performance perspective can hardly be overlooked. Viewing the performance of oral poetry as an interpretive frame (Bateson 1972, 188) means that beyond what is conveyed literally by the words of the oral poems, their performance generates additional meaning in itself (see also O’Donoghue 2005, 10–15; Würth 2007 on the literary function of skaldic performance). The performance of oral poetry may be seen as a central element in the creation of meaning within DOI: 10.4324/9780367809324-6

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the communication process that such a performance essentially entails. As Richard Bauman states: [I]n artistic performance of this kind, there is something going on in the communicative interchange which says to the auditor, ‘interpret what I say in some special sense; do not take it to mean what the words alone, taken literally, would convey.’ This may lead to the further suggestion that performance sets up, or represents, an interpretative frame within which the messages being communicated are to be understood, and that this frame contrasts with at least one other frame, the literal. (Bauman 1975, 292) The specific form of beyond-­literal meaning – that is, the potential myriad layers of culturally specific, idiomatic meaning created in performance by intonation, facial expression, gestures, costume and so on, and that supplement the literal meaning of the uttered words1 – which will be addressed in the present chapter constitutes a trace of oral performance in Old Norse poetry. It takes the form of the seemingly deliberate creation of sound patterns that underpin the narrative content of the poetic stanzas through a culturally specific use of onomatopoetic expressions:2 what has been termed ‘aural sense impressions’ (see, for instance, Nygaard 2019a, 2019b). Old Norse poetry, as we have it preserved in medieval and later manuscripts, may be seen as a form of oral-­derived poetry. Specifically, these versions of the poems may be understood as what orality scholar John Miles Foley has termed ‘voices from the past’ or ‘oral poetic traditions that time has eclipsed and which we can now consult only in textual form’ (Foley 2002, 46). This means that, even though the poems that we are left with are both temporally removed from their performance contexts as well as textually fixed in a way that is unusual for oral poetry, they are ‘composed according to the rules of the given oral poetry. They bear a telltale compositional stamp’ (Foley 2002, 47).3 The parts of this remaining residue of oral-­poetic convention in the medieval manuscript version which are indicative of performance can be termed ‘performance markers’ (Nygaard 2019a, 54–8). This term covers similar ground to what Richard Bauman (1975, 295; following Erving Goffmann 1974) has termed the ‘keying of performance’. A central point for Bauman is the fact that each speech community will make use of a structured set of distinctive communicative means [. . .] to key the performance, such that all communication that takes place within that frame is to be understood as performance within that community. (Bauman 1975, 295) Performance markers are thus culturally specific (cf. Foley 2002; Hymes derived 1981, 1994; Tedlock 1983). Furthermore, when analysing oral-­

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poetry for performance markers it is essential to pay heed to the ‘particular kind and regularity’ (Foley 2002, 87) of the performance markers in order to distinguish them from similar expressions found, for instance, in informal, spoken language (i.e., ‘quotidian’ expressions; Ferreira 2017, 32–3) or in written poetry. Even within a specific cultural, oral-­poetic tradition like the Old Norse one, it is important to distinguish between various different performance markers since oral poetry and its performance is not a uniform and coherent phenomenon: different types of orality and of oral performance exist within each specific oral-­poetic tradition (Hermann 2017, 32–5). Thus, analysing the distribution of aural sense impressions in various Old Norse poetic metres may point towards the fact that the oral performance context differed from metre to metre.

Performance Theory in the Old Norse Context Interest in the performance aspects of Old Norse eddic poetry especially can be traced back to scholars such as Magnus Olsen (1909), Vilhelm Grønbech (1931) and, prominently, Bertha Phillpotts (1920).4 These scholars were all to a large extent influenced by the so-­called Cambridge myth-­and-­ritual-­ school (for instance, Harrison 1912, 1913; Murray 1912) and their ideas surrounding the role of seasonal vegetation-­r ituals in the origin of ancient Greek drama.5 This approach was largely discredited due to, among other things, the contention that myth and ritual do not exist independently (Segal 1998, 1). Phillpotts’ research, in particular, was in the vein of the myth-­ritualists. She searched for a seasonal death-­and-­resurrection pattern in Old Norse eddic poetry, which led her to conclude that many of these poems were ‘actual shattered remnants of ancient religious drama’ (Phillpotts 1920, 114) and, furthermore, to propose altering and augmenting poems that did not fit the pattern. As a result, the reception of her work was very critical (for instance, Heusler 1922) and research based on taking a performance perspective was largely abandoned for most of the twentieth century.6 Not until the work of Terry Gunnell (for instance, 1995, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016) was the performance perspective seriously re-­examined and re-­established as a focal point in Old Norse studies.7 Employing a performance perspective represents an important way of contextualising and re-­contextualising an oral-­poetic Old Norse tradition (Hermann 2017, 38–9). Specifically, in recent publications on the Old Norse eddic poems Völuspá, Grímnismál, and Þrymskviða, Gunnell (2013, 2016) has suggested that ‘reading these works first and foremost as oral/aural works rather than as works meant for print’ (Gunnell 2013, 67) would greatly aid our understanding of them as oral-­derived poems as well as the reconstruction of their lost ‘performance context’ (see Foley 2002, 60; Gunnell 2013, 65–7, 2016, 94–5). Gunnell focusses on the aural qualities of, for instance, Völuspá, and compares the difference between reading the medieval manuscript version of

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the poem and experiencing a tenth-­century performance of it to the difference between reading musical notes and experiencing the music in concert. Gunnell writes: I am quite certain that many sections of the poem [Völuspá] underline a strong awareness of the musical quality of the words on the part of the ‘original’ performers from whom the work was recorded, the sound of the chosen language serving as an aural background texture for the textual meaning. In other words, the words are clearly not merely chosen for meaning, but also for their (near untranslatable) sound qualities. (Gunnell 2013, 67) This corresponds very well with Bauman’s previously noted contention that the audience of an oral performance is asked by the performer to ‘interpret what I say in some special sense; do not take it to mean what the words alone, taken literally, would convey’ (Bauman 1975, 292). It seems likely that the aural sense impressions used in Old Norse poetry created exactly such beyond-­literal meaning for their audience. Furthermore, this creation of sound may be supported by an auralisation on behalf of the listener, in what Ruth Finnegan has termed their ‘inner ear’ (Finnegan 2005, 173–4). Here, the aural sense impressions may echo a reimagined inner soundscape, which may rely on Lauri Honko’s idea of mental texts built on ‘mental images and units of meaning’ (Honko 1996, 5–6), actualised in verbal expression, already present in the memory of the listeners (Ferreira 2017, 22). In his analysis of the use of sound in Völuspá, Gunnell analyses the sound of both consonants and vowels and interprets the sound quality of the words as an aural representation of the contents of the stanzas. To Gunnell, this can be substantiated precisely by the connection between the ‘aural background texture’ and the ‘textual meaning’ (Gunnell 2013, 67) and the consideration of Völuspá as an oral-­aural work. For instance, he emphasises the use of ‘sonorant vowels, nasals (m and n), and echoed s, v, and f, fricatives’ as well as the lack of ‘hard consonants’ in the opening stanzas (Gunnell 2013, 69). This analysis of the aural quality of these sounds is described as ‘long, slow peaceful sounds accompanying the [. . .] wondrous state of nothingness before the world arises’ (Gunnell 2013, 69). This process is repeated for the anthropogony in stanzas 12–13 and the rising of the new world in stanza 59 (Gunnell 2013, 70) which feature a similar use of sound. In his examination of the use of sounds in Grímnismál, Gunnell similarly focusses on the poet’s ‘deliberate use of sound to echo visual image’ (Gunnell 2016, 102), where the drumming of doors in stanza 23, the gulping of water in stanza 7, and the growling of wolves in stanza 19 are used as examples. Similarly, his analysis of the use of sounds in Þrymskviða emphasises the deliberate use of ‘alliterated consonants’ in a series of its fornyrðislag stanzas (Gunnell 2016, 109–10). We shall return to this later.

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All in all, Gunnell’s analyses point to the significance of the deliberate use of sound in oral-­derived Old Norse poetry. My own work on the same subject (Nygaard 2019a) further suggests a ‘particular kind and regularity’ (Foley 2002, 87) in the use of this performance marker, which seems to be tied to the oral-­poetic rules and specific metrical structures of Old Norse poetry. This pattern of distribution suggests that the aural sense impressions in Old Norse poetry are used to a larger extent and in a more structured manner in málaháttr than in ljóðaháttr poetry (Nygaard 2019a).

The Distribution of Aural Sense Impressions in Málaháttr and Ljóðaháttr Poetry The Old Norse ljóðaháttr and málaháttr poetry, which I  analysed for my Ph.D. dissertation, Poetry as Ritual in Pre-­Christian Nordic Religion (Nygaard 2019a), all feature aural sense impressions that underpin the narrative content of the poems. Sounds that may be linked with, for instance, creaking ships or raging battle seem to be used deliberately by the oral poets. This element of living sound added to the stanzas almost gives the Old Norse poems an element of embodied experience for participants in the performance – that is, the idea that perception and experience cannot be disconnected from the corporeity of the body (cf. Merleau-­Ponty 2012). The aural sense impressions create Bauman’s beyond-­ literal meaning through producing soundscapes to accompany the literal meaning. During my work with these poems, it became clear that not all poems used these aural sense impressions in the same way. A pattern of distribution emerged which aligned with the metre used in the specific stanzas. The poetry composed in ljóðaháttr seemed to use aural sense impressions to a lesser extent than the stanzas in málaháttr metre. When the aural sense impressions were utilised in málaháttr stanzas, they were often embedded in the oral-­poetic structure by being part of the alliterations in those stanzas. Ljóðaháttr, on the other hand, did not seem to make much use of this alliterative way of creating aural sense impressions. A series of examples from different poems will illustrate the difference. Firstly, we can turn to the eddic-­style praise poem8 Hákonarmál, supposedly composed in honour of King Hákon góði Aðalsteinsfostri Haraldsson (c. 920– 61; ruled Norway c. 934–61) by the Norwegian skald Eyvindr skáldaspillir Finnsson (c. 915–90) in the beginning of the 960s – that is, shortly after the death of King Hákon in the Battle of Fitjar (Fulk 2012c). The poem is composed in a mixture of ljóðaháttr and málaháttr, which allows us to examine the distribution of aural sense impressions within a single poem in mixed metre. In Hákonarmál stanza 5, ll.1–2, we encounter the sound of swooshing swords echoed in the s-­alliterations, and in stanza 5, ll.5–8 the clangour of battle is echoed in the alliterating gs and the br-­ consonant clusters. The sounds are also represented by the sk-­consonant clusters in the alliterations of stanza 9, ll.3–4, which echo the hacking of weapons. In these stanzas, the

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emphasis is on actions that produce sound – banging, breaking, clanging and hacking. When listeners encounter such words, the sounds that accompany them may be recreated as a mental image in their inner ear. 5. Svá beit þá sverð ór siklings hendi [. . .] Brökuðu broddar, brotnuðu skildir, glumruðu gylfringar í gotnar hausum (Fulk 2012c, 179. My emphasis.) Thus bit the sword from the sovereign’s hand [. . .] Points banged, shields broke, swords clanged on skulls of men.9 9. [. . .] með skarða skjöldu ok skotnar brynjur (Fulk 2012c, 184. My emphasis.) [. . .] with hacked shields and stabbed mail-­coats. What we encounter here is the deliberate use of aural sense impressions embedded in the poetic structure of the alliterative poetry. In stanza 20, which is composed in ljóðaháttr, we are taken away from the battlefield, with line 3 featuring the use of multiple r-­ sounds, perhaps representing growling, in the description of the Fenrisúlfr breaking loose, symbolising Ragnarök. 20. Mun óbundinn á ýta sjöt Fenrisulfr fara, áðr jafngóðr á auða tröð konungamaðr komi (Fulk 2012c, 192. My emphasis.) The Fenrisúlfr will rush unbound at the home of men before as good a royal person will come onto the desolate path. Notice that, when following this interpretation, in this, the seemingly only instance of the deliberate use of aural sense impressions in the ljóðaháttr stanzas of Hákonarmál, the technique is decidedly not used in the context of the alliterations, nor do we find a strong emphasis on sound in the stanza. Secondly, we may examine another of the eddic-­ style praise poems, Eiríksmál. This panegyric was presumably commissioned by Eiríkr’s wife Gunnhildr konungamóðir shortly after the death of King Eiríkr blóðøx Haraldsson (c. 895–c. 954; king of Norway c. 929–34, who also reigned

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recurrently in York between c. 948–54. [Fulk 2012b; Harris 1984]) – the half-­brother of King Hákon góði.10 It was composed by an anonymous poet in a mixture of ljóðaháttr and málaháttr. In stanza 3 of the nine extant stanzas of Eiríksmál, composed in ljóðaháttr, aural sense impressions also occur embedded in the alliterations, which seems to contradict the model of distribution in this chapter. Nevertheless, the sounds that are echoed here are once again connected to the battlefield: the din of battle or a marching army is represented by the thumping þ-­sounds and the banging bs when Bragi poses the following question (see also Gunnell 2020; Nygaard 2018): 3. Hvat þrymr þar, sem þúsund bifisk eða mengi til mikit? Braka öll bekkþili, sem myni Baldr koma eptir í Óðins sali (Fulk 2012b, 1008. My emphasis.) What is making tumult there, as if a thousand were advancing, or a massive mass? All the bench-­boards bang, as if Baldr were returning to Óðinn’s halls. The third of the eddic praise poems, Hrafnsmál, centres on the father of both King Eiríkr blóðøx and King Hákon góði, King Haraldr hárfagri Hálfdanarson (c. 850–c. 932, who ruled parts of southwestern Norway – probably Vestfold and Sogn – c. 860–85).11 Hrafnsmál is also in mixed metre, but in all likelihood, this is a collection of stanzas from different poems by different skalds about Haraldr, compiled as a single poem only in the mid-­1800s.12 In stanza 5, ll.5–8 of Hrafnsmál in its extant form, part of the description of the important Battle of Hafrsfjördr, the aural sound impressions possibly echo the sounds of rowing in its descriptions of Haraldr’s fleet. We find both the use of open vowels (underlined) throughout this half of the stanza as well as creaking r-­sounds and splashing tj-­sounds in the alliterations (bold). Hrafnsmál stanza 7, ll.3–8 presents a similar use of aural sense impressions that underline the sounds of naval combat with the staccato of the k-­and g-­ alliterations (bold), which are sustained throughout the stanzas. The sounds represented by these letters are the voiced (g) and unvoiced (k) variants of the plosive velar, which may account for their pairing here. The voiced variant takes on a hollower sound when portraying the gaping figureheads. They are paired with open vowels (underlined), especially salient in the portrayal of the ships’ gaping figureheads. Both stanzas contain repeated emphasis on the um-­suffix, which gives a special rhythmic quality to the use of sound. 5. [. . .] djúpum ræðr hann kjólum, roðnum röndum

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ok rauðum skjöldum, tjörgum ǫ́rum ok tjöldum drifnum (Fulk 2012a, 98. My emphasis.) [. . .] deep ships he commands, reddened shield-­r ims and red shields, tarred oars and foam-­spattered awnings. 7. Heyrði þú, i Hafrsfirði hvé hizug barðisk konungr inn kynstóri við Kjötva inn auðlagða[?] Knerrir kvǫ́mu austan kapps of lystir með gínöndum höfðum ok gröfnum tinglum (Fulk 2012a, 100. My emphasis.) Have you heard how the high-­born king fought in Hafrsfjördr with Kjötvi the wealthy? Ships came from the east, battle-­eager with gaping (figure-­)heads and graven bow-­boards. Again, we see the use of aural sense impressions in connection with the alliterations in the málaháttr stanzas, but no use of aural sense impressions in the ljóðaháttr stanzas of Hrafnsmál. Moving away from this group of mixed-­metre, eddic-­style praise poems, we will take a closer look at some eddic ljóðaháttr poetry in order to see whether this distribution of the particular kind of aural sense impression is just specific to Hákonarmál, Eiríksmál, and Hrafnsmál. As Gunnell (2016) has shown, the eddic ljóðaháttr poem Grímnismál contains some deliberate uses of sound to underpin narrative content. Grímnismál features a near-­complete mythological system in the medieval manuscript form that has been handed down to us, and a very similar version seems to have been one of the central sources for Snorri’s systematisation of Nordic mythology in his Edda. The aural sense impressions in Grímnismál include echoes of the gulping of water in the g and k-­sounds used to describe drinking gods in stanza 7; the s and z-­ sounds possibly echoing the sizzling sounds of browning the meat before letting it simmer in stanza 18; the repeated r-­sounds representing the growling of Óðinn’s wolves in stanza 19; and the potential drumming sounds found in the introduction of Valhöll in stanza 23:13 7. [. . .] þar þau Óðinn ok Sága drekka um allra daga glöð ór gullnum kerum (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 369. My emphasis) [. . .] there Óðinn and Sága drink every day gladly from golden cups.

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18. Andhrímnir lætr í Eldhrímni Sæhrímni soðinn, fleska bezt [. . .] (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 371. My emphasis.) Andhrímnir lets Sæhrímnir, the best of pork, simmer in Eldhrímnir. 19. Gera ok Freka seðr gunntamiðr, hroðigr Herjaföðr, [. . .] (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 371. My emphasis.) Geri and Freki the battle-­seasoned, glorious Army-­father satiates [. . .]. 23. Fimm hundruð dura [. . .] (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 372. My emphasis.) Five hundred doors [. . .]. Aural sense impressions in Grímnismál are primarily – but not exclusively – used outside the alliterations, which seems to be a common feature in ljóðaháttr poetry. Furthermore, the use of aural sense impressions as analysed in this chapter is not very prominent. In one of the most well-­known eddic poems, Hávamál, aural sense impressions may also be found. Hávamál is primarily a gnomic poem (Larrington 1991; Schorn 2017) and its 164 stanzas are possibly a medieval compilation of several poems.14 In Hávamál stanzas 138–64, two examples of aural sense impressions may be found. Arguably the most famous stanza of this part of the poem, stanza 138, features stabbing g-­sounds in the description of how Óðinn, the god of war, magic, poetry and more, is wounded with a spear in lines 4–5, while the drinking in stanza 140, l.4 contains gulping k and g-­sounds. These sounds are shaped by pressing the tongue against the roof of the month in a way that is similar to swallowing, potentially creating a somatic effect in the listener when creating the mental image in the inner ear. 138. Veit ek at ek hekk vindga meiði á nætr allar níu geiri undaðr ok gefinn Óðni, sjálfr sjálfum mér, á þeim meiði er manngi veit

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hvers hann af rótum renn (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 350. My emphasis.) I know that I hung on the windswept tree nine whole nights, wounded with a spear and given to Óðinn, myself to myself, on that tree of which no one knows where its roots run. 140. Fimbulljóð níu nam ek af inum frægja syni Bölþórs, Bestlu föður, ok ek drykk of gat ins dýra mjaðar ausinn Óðreri (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 350–51. My emphasis.) Nine magic spells I learned from the famous son of Bölþórr, Bestla’s father, and I had a drink of the precious mead poured from Óðrerir. Following the interpretation of the present author, in the 54 stanzas of Grímnismál just four examples of aural sense impressions could be found, while the 27 stanzas of Hávamál stanzas 138–64 contained just two. In the six málaháttr and two mixed metre stanzas15 of Hákonarmál we find two examples, while just one exists in the 12 ljóðaháttr stanzas of that poem. In the 17 stanzas of málaháttr in Hrafnsmál, two examples of aural sense impressions were established, with seemingly none present in the mixed metre stanzas. Eiríksmál is somewhat atypical here, since the single example of an aural sense impression in the poem is found in one of the five ljóðaháttr stanzas, not in the two málaháttr or two mixed metre stanzas. The frequency thus seems to be higher in the málaháttr stanzas. It is not only the frequency of the aural sense impressions that differs between the metres. As shown previously, the two metres used in the poems – ljóðaháttr and málaháttr – put very different emphasis on the use of sound. In ljóðaháttr stanzas, the aural sense impressions are not found to the same degree, and when they are found, they are often not integrated in the alliterations, rendering the creation of sound less evocative due to the lack of metrically secured emphasis. This means that we would be dealing with two different kinds of oral performance depending on two different kinds of performance markers to create the beyond-­literal meaning of performed oral poetry. Ljóðaháttr poetry relies to a larger degree on the use of self-­references through person deixis – that is, personal pronouns which in performance signal that the performers take on the character of the performed gods and heroes (Nygaard 2019a; Gunnell 2012). In a ritual setting, which is the setting many of these poems were most likely performed in, the person deictic expressions serve transformational purposes by functioning as performatives (Nygaard 2019a, 2019b, 62–3; Rappaport 1999, 114–5): that is, expressions

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that transform persons and their surroundings when uttered by specialised ritual authorities. Keeping to one of the earlier examples, the performance of Hávamál stanzas 138 and 140 is an example of this. The eks of stanza 138, l.1 and stanza 140, ll.2, 4 are precisely the type of person deixis with the capacity to function as performatives, transforming the performer into the performed god – into Óðinn, in this case (Nygaard 2019a, 127–31). Similarly, when the performer of Grímnismál utters the phrase Óðinn ek nú heiti ‘Óðinn I am called now’ in stanza 54, l.1, it too functions as a performative, transforming him into the god and creating the beyond-­literal meaning lost in the poem’s textual form (Nygaard 2019b). In writing, the expression has no consequences for the reading ‘performer’ – only in oral performance, through vocalising the stanzas, does this transformative function and beyond-­literal meaning become apparent (Zumthor 1988). By contrast, as the examples given here show, the stanzas in málaháttr feature aural sense impressions that are more often embedded in the poetic, alliterative structure of the given stanza. The significance of the aural sense impressions being part of the alliterations in málaháttr lies in the fact that the alliterations signify the stress in the line. This means that accentuating the sounds echoing and underpinning the narrative content creates an evocative soundscape and may have given a sense of embodiment for the audience of the performance, as also noted above – once again underlining the creation of beyond-­literal meaning in the performance situation: meaning that is lost when the poems are read in silence as black ink on white paper – or, indeed, on vellum.

Aural Sense Impressions in Fornyrðislag Poetry? Conventionally, the málaháttr metre is seen as a development of the more widely used fornyrðislag. The main difference is, put very simply, that málaháttr contains five metrical positions per line while fornyrðislag has four metrical positions (Fulk 2016, 262). This means that there are scholars who see málaháttr not as an independent metre but simply as a hypermetric fornyrðislag variant (for instance, Kuhn 1933, 1983, 336). However, I follow scholars like R. D. Fulk (2012c) and Kari Ellen Gade (2002) in holding that the consistency with which the four-­position line is used in, for instance, Hákonarmál, Eiríksmál and Hrafnsmál, as well as Atlamál, warrants the use of the designation málaháttr for this poetic form. Nonetheless it cannot be contested that there are many similarities between the málaháttr and fornyrðislag metres. Given these connections and similarities, does the use of aural sense expressions found in the málaháttr poetry above extend to fornyrðislag as well? Völuspá

The fornyrðislag poem Völuspá is set as a narrative monologue by a seeress who, questioned by Óðinn, reveals her extensive knowledge about the

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pre-­ Christian Nordic cosmogony, anthropogony, cosmology and eschatology, among many other things. Typical of fornyrðislag poetry, it is thus performed by a narrator, relating past events (Gunnell 2012). The poem comprises a more or less complete version of the pre-­Christian Nordic world view in its 63 stanzas.16 Aural sense impressions are found in the poem, as Gunnell (2013) has shown. In the following discussion, I will build on these analyses to examine whether the use of aural sense impressions is also embedded in the alliterative structure of the fornyrðislag stanzas. Looking at the first stanzas which Gunnell analyses, stanzas 1–3 of Völuspá, the aural sense impressions certainly are present in the alliterations (Gunnell 2013, 69–70).17 According to Gunnell, open vowels (á, a, i, u, y, æ) linked to the nothingness before the creation of the world; fricative s-­sounds were reminiscent of sounds of the ocean in the description of the lack of waters, ‘and hollow voiced g sounds’ (Gunnell 2013, 69) echoed the primeval void of Ginnungagap. It might be noted that the alliterative patterns in general are based on repetitions – or echoes – of the same sound and thus have the potential to reflect the ‘echo’ of sound in an empty or hollow reverberating space in the inner ear of the listener: 3. Ár var alda, þar er Ymir byggði, vara sandr né sær né svalar unnir, jörð fannsk æva né upphiminn, gap var ginnunga en gras hvergi (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 292. My emphasis.) In early ages, when Ymir lived, there was no sand, nor sea, nor cool waves, no earth nor sky was to be found, Ginnungagap was there but grass was nowhere. The rising of the new world from the depths of the ocean in stanza 57 is described by use of partly alliterating ‘[s]oft consonant sounds (the ð, f, v, and s fricatives) and the alliterating vowels, short lines and slow beating rhythm (almost like a heartbeat)’ (Gunnell 2013, 70). Sounds of the gushing water and the soaring bird of prey echoed in the f-­alliterations are also part of the beyond-­literal meaning created in performance. 57. Sér hon upp koma öðru sinni jörð ór ægi iðjagrœna; falla forsar,

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flýgr örn yfir, sá er á fjalli fiska veiðir (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 306. My emphasis.) Rising she sees for the second time the earth from the sea, evergreen; waterfalls cascading, an eagle soars above, hunting for fish on the mountain. Cosmogony is one main theme in Völuspá. Another is eschatology, and the descriptions of the end of the cosmos are also filled with aural sense impressions. Here, the use of hard consonants and consonant clusters creates a soundscape of destruction and battle. Especially prominent is the use of sounds in, for instance, stanzas 43 and 44 (Gunnell 2013, 72). In stanza 43, we are nearing the climax of the pre-­Christian Nordic eschatology of Ragnarök. This stanza marks the first of three repetitions in the Codex Regius version of the poem (stanzas 43, 47, and 56)18 of this refrain of the Ragnarök stanzas. Evocative are the plosive, barking gs and the rolling rs in the naming and invocation of the fate of the powers and f-­ sounds in the tearing of bonds of the running wolf. 43. Geyr Garmr mjök fyr Gnipahelli, festr mun slitna, en freki renna. Fjöld veit hon fræða, fram se ek lengra um ragna røk röm sigtiva (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 302. My emphasis.) Garmr barks loudly before the Gnipacave, the bond will break and the greedy wolf run loose. Much wisdom she knows, I can see further ahead to the Ragnarök of the strong victory gods. In the well-­known stanza 44, which describes the disintegration of society into adultery, broken kinship ties and murder, aural sense impressions are also found. The pounding of the b-­sounds in lines 1–2 describing fighting brothers, as well as the hacking of the sk-­consonant clusters in the alliterations of lines 7–8 (reminiscent of Hákonarmál stanza 9) describing the axes and swords cleaving shields together with the following turbulent fricative vs are particularly evocative. 44. Brœðr munu berjask ok at bönum verðask,

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munu systrungar sifjum spilla; hart er i heimi, hórdómr mikill, skeggöld, skálmöld, skildir ro klofnir, vindöld, vargöld, áðr veröld steypisk; mun engi maðr öðrum þyrma (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 302. My emphasis.) Brothers will battle and become each other’s bane, sister’s sons will split the lineage; the world is hard, whoredom rife, axe age, sword age, shields are cloven, wind age, wolf age before the world crashes; no man will spare the other. In the stanzas of this eddic poem, the use of sound seems often to be embedded in the alliterative structure of the fornyrðislag metre, again perhaps reflecting the sounds of the wind and the weapons in the inner ear of the listener, which was also the case with much of the poetry in málaháttr. For the sake of comparison, we will now examine another eddic poem in fornyrðislag, Þrymskviða, to see how the aural sense impressions are distributed here. Þrymskviða

While Völuspá is heavily loaded with ritual language as well as essential information of religious significance and is performed by what may be identified as a ritual specialist (Gunnel 2013), Þrymskviða betrays little preoccupation with cosmology or eschatology. This 32-­stanza fornyrðislag poem is a self-­contained mythological narrative about the god Þórr waking to find his hammer, Mjöllnir, gone – stolen by the giant Þrymr, who wants to marry Freyja in order to return Þórr’s hammer. When Freyja refuses the proposal, Þórr has to dress himself in a bridal gown to reclaim his treasured possession. Þrymskviða does contain direct speech, but this is always framed by narrative stanzas in the past tense or introduced by naming the speaker, also in the past tense (Gunnell 2016, 108). This is a narrative from the past told in the present, but it does not make past and present exist at the same time like much ljóðaháttr poetry (see Gunnell 2012; Nygaard 2019b). The two time frames are firmly separated. However, as Bernt Ø. Thorvaldsen (2008) has argued, Þrymskviða bears many signs of having been made for oral performance (see also Gunnell 2016). Indeed, the poem also contains aural sense impressions. What remains to be seen is whether the deliberate use of sound is primarily embedded in the poetic structure as was the case in the eddic-­style praise poems and in Völuspá. This does indeed seem to be the

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case, since, as Gunnell has noted in his analysis of the poem, the use of sound seems to rely ‘especially [on] alliterated consonants’ (Gunnell 2016, 109). Already in stanza 1, these alliterated consonants take prominence in the description of Þórr frantically searching for his hammer. The fricative v-­and s-­sounds echo the fury of the god, while the sk-­consonant clusters resound the god’s anger boiling over. 1. Reiðr var þá Vingþórr er hann vaknaði ok sins hamars um saknaði, skegg nam at hrista, skör nam at dýja, réð Jarðar burr um at þreifask (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 422. My emphasis.) Wing-­Þórr was fuming when he woke and missed his hammer, his beard begun to shake, his hair to swing, Jörðr’s son begun to thrash about. Þórr is not the only character whose anger resonates in the aural sense impressions of Þrymskviða. In stanza 13, the goddess of death and beauty, Freyja, is introduced with a phrase that echoes her fuming reaction at being asked to marry the giant Þrymr. This may be seen in the fricative f-­sounds of lines 1–2: Reið varð þa Freyja/ok fnasaði ‘Freyja was fuming and snorted’ (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 424. My emphasis). In stanzas 5 and 9, the rhythmic flapping of wings is echoed in the alliterated fs when Loki flies to Jötunheimar – and back again – using Freyja’s fjaðrhamr ‘feather suit’, providing the oral poetry with yet another layer of meaning – especially if the possible use of gestures is kept in mind (see Nygaard 2019a): Fló þá Loki/– fjaðrhamr dunði ‘Then Loki flew and the feather suit began to swish’ (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 421, 423. My emphasis). In stanza 21, the alliterated sk-­ and br-­ consonant clusters effectively echo the haste and thundering movement of Þórr’s wagon and rams (Gunnell 2016, 110), when the rams are harnessed and when the driving wagon breaks open and burns the earth beneath it. 21. Senn váru hafrar heim um reknir, skyndir at sköklum, skyldu vel renna; björg brotnuðu, brann jörð loga, ók Óðins sonr

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í jötunheima (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 425. My emphasis.) Soon the goats were brought home, quickly they were harnessed, they should run fast. Mountains broke open, the earth was scorched, Óðinn’s son drove in Jötunheimr. This stanza leads up to the climax of the poem which does not lack aural sense impressions embedded in the alliteration of the final stanzas. Before this climax, the veiled Þórr gorges himself on a huge amount of food and the sounds of Þórr feasting may be echoed in the alliterations. In stanza 24, ll.5–6 the át alliterations echo Þórr’s biting and his gulping ingestion of an entire ox and eight salmon: Einn át oxa,/átta laxa ‘Alone he ate an ox and eight salmon’ (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 426. My emphasis). In the two last complete stanzas (31–2), where Þórr kills all the giants assembled for the wedding, this violent onslaught is echoed through alliterated aural sense impressions as well (see also Gunnell 2016, 110). Stanza 31, ll.1–4 contains repeated h-­ alliterations reminiscent of the hammer swooshing through the air heralding the högg hamars ‘hammer’s blow’ in stanza 32, l.7. In stanza 31, ll.5–6 the use of dr-­consonant clusters echoes the pounding of Mjöllnir accompanied by the thumping þs, while sounds of the beatings due the sister of Þrymr in stanza 32, ll.5–6 are found in the sk-­consonant clusters. 31. Hló Hlórriða hugr í brjósti, er harðhugaðr hamar um þekkði; Þrym drap hann fyrstan, þursa dróttin, ok ætt jötuns alla lamði (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 427. My emphasis.) Hlórriði laughed, his heart rose in his chest, his courage hardened when he recognised his hammer: Þrymr he killed first, ruler of the þursar, and then beat all the kin of the jötnar. 32. Drap hann ina öldnu jötna systur, hin er bruðfjár of beðit hafði; han skell um hlaut fyr skillinga, en högg hamars

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fyr hringa fjölð (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 427. My emphasis.) He killed the old sister of the jötunn, the one who had asked for the dowry. He gave her a beating instead of gold and the hammer’s blow instead of many rings. Thus, the poem ends with two stanzas ripe with the use of sound invoked to create the additional layer of beyond-­literal meaning so essential for oral poetry from a performance perspective.

Conclusion In these analyses I have primarily paid attention to the aural sense impressions in the alliterations of the selected Old Norse poetry. However, as Gunnell (for instance, 2013, 2016) has argued, this is not the only use of sound present in Old Norse poetry. Assonance also seems to be used heavily, which could be seen in, for instance, Hrafnsmál stanzas 5 and 7 as well as in Gunnell’s analysis of, for instance, Völuspá (2013) and Þrymskviða (Gunnell 2016, 107–11). This falls in line with the prosodic systems of many other oral poetries, as suggested by Ruth Finnegan (1977, 90, 95). What seems striking, and what I  have aimed to show here, is the prominence of aural sense impressions embedded in the poetic, alliterative structure of the stanzas in the málaháttr and fornyrðislag poetry. To paraphrase Foley, this seems to be a particular kind of performance marker appearing with a particular regularity which is used to key oral performance – following Bauman. The function in Old Norse málaháttr and fornyrðislag poetry of this specific use of sound, besides indicating that we are dealing with an oral-­ derived form of poetry, is the creation of a beyond-­literal meaning which is integral to this type of orally performed poetry. As I have hinted above, and treated at length elsewhere (Nygaard 2019a, 2019b), Old Norse ljóðaháttr poetry depends to a much greater degree on performance markers such as the use of person and space deixis to create a beyond-­literal meaning which is transformative and performative. The use of aural sense impressions is still present but to a much lesser extent. We are essentially dealing with two different types of oral performance: in ljóðaháttr poetry, one in which the performers are transformed into gods and heroes and the performance space into the performed space of mythological locations by claiming this fact explicitly; and in málaháttr and fornyrðislag poetry, the performance of a third-­person narrative in which the use of sound creates a soundscape every bit as dramatically enthralling but without the performative transformation. We may not be able to claim that the narrator, for instance, becomes Þórr in Þrymskviða, but the performance perspective nonetheless allows us to rediscover a layer of meaning which was lost the moment the poems in questions were committed to vellum.

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Notes 1 Similar to what Foley (2002, 60) has termed the performance context. 2 Being culturally specific naturally also means that pronunciation and sound value are specific to the medieval Old Norse language, which is naturally not available to us anymore. This means that such an investigation, in the words of Terry Gunnell, ‘is bound to be subjective’ (2013, 69 fn.13), in that no one can know how Viking Age or medieval Icelanders or Scandinavians perceived these sounds and which value they ascribed to them (see also Heimir Pálsson 2001, 17). This is also the reason why, in this chapter, phonetic symbols are not used to describe the sounds; they too would be either subjective interpretations or modelled too closely on, for instance, modern Icelandic pronunciation. However, the pattern of usage remains a significant part of the poetry in question. 3 However, as Ruth Finnegan has emphasised in numerous publications, oral poetry exists along an oral-­written continuum (Finnegan 1977, 2, 1988, 175). Additionally, analytical categories such as voiced texts and written oral poetry are proposed by Foley (2002, 38–57) which aim to nuance the problematic ‘Great Divide model’ (Foley 2002, 36). 4 See Gunnell (1995, 1–10, 1999) for a treatment of Phillpotts’ work and her context. See Segal (1998) and Ackerman (1991) for treatments of and introductions to the myth-­and-­r itual school. 5 See also Mannhardt (1874–6), whose similar work would most likely have been the main inspiration of, for instance, Magnus Olsen (1909). 6 Naturally, there are exceptions. See, for instance, Haugen (1983), Holtsmark (1949, 1950, 1958), Höfler (1952), Martin (1972) and Strömbäck (1948). 7 Although the reception of Gunnell’s research was initially somewhat critical (for instance, Mitchell 1997; Walsh 1997), later scholars from especially archaeology and the study of religion have been more positive (for instance, Price 2008, 2012; Schjødt 2007). 8 See Nygaard (2019a, 152–3) for a description of this term; see also Leslie-­Jacobsen (2017, 134–5). 9 All translations from Old Norse are my own. 10 These two royal economia have a special relationship. Not only were their recipients related but Fagrskinna ch. 12 (Bjarni Einarson 1935) also relates that Hákonarmál was modelled after Eiríksmál (see further in Fulk 2012c; Marold 1972 on this discussion). This implied chronology has been disputed by, for instance, Elis Wadstein (1895) and Klaus von See (1963). 11 After the Battle of Hafrsfjördr (c. 885–90) Haraldr gained control over the whole of Viking Age Norway. 12 See Fulk (2012a, 93) for a discussion of the fragmented nature of the stanzas. 13 The sound patterns in stanzas 7, 19 and 23 are noted by Gunnell (2016, 102). 14 See McKinnell (2007, 2013) for a discussion on how to divide the various parts of Hávamál. 15 Here, the aural sense impression is used in the málaháttr part of stanza 9. 16 This is the number of stanzas in the Konungsbók manuscript version of the poem. Two other versions also exist, the Hauksbók and Snorra Edda versions (see Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinnn Ólason 2014, i, 91–4, 291–321). For the purposes of the present chapter, the stanza numbers of the Kónungsbók version are referred to unless otherwise stated. 17 Gunnell’s analysis of the use of sound in Völuspá is more detailed, uses more stanzas and argues for a pattern of use in more than the alliterations. The alliterations will, however, be in focus here and I will examine only a selection of stanzas due to limitations of space.

. . . með skarða skjöldu ok skotnar brynjur  81 18 The repetition is even more pronounced in the Hauksbók manuscript (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 308–16) which contains no fewer than five recurrences (stanzas 31, 36, 41, 46 and 50). Snorri does not include it in his Edda (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, i, 317–21).

Bibliography Primary Sources Bjarni Einarson, ed. 1935. Fagrskinna. Íslenzk fornrit 29, Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag Fulk, R. D., ed. and trans. 2012a. Haraldskvæði (Hrafnsmál), in Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages: Vol. 1: Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035, ed. by Diana Whaley, Turnhout: Brepols, 90–117 Fulk, R. D., ed. and trans. 2012b. Eiríksmál, in Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages: Vol. 1: Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035, ed. by Diana Whaley, Turnhout: Brepols, 1003–13 Fulk, R. D., ed. and trans. 2012c. Hákonarmál, in Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages: Vol. 1: Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035, ed. by Diana Whaley, Turnhout: Brepols, 171–95 Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason, eds. 2014. Eddukvæði, 2 vols., Íslenzk fornrit, Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag

Secondary Sources Ackerman, Robert. 1991. The Myth and Ritual School: J. G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists, New York and London: Garland Bateson, Gregory. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind, New York: Ballantine Bauman, Richard. 1975. ‘Verbal Art as Performance’, American Anthropologist 77, 290–311 Ferreira, Annemari. 2017. ‘The Politics of Performance in Viking Age Skaldic Poetry’, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Oxford Finnegan, Ruth. 1977. Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Significance and Social Context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Finnegan, Ruth. 1988. Literacy and Orality: Studies in Technology of Communication, Oxford: Blackwell Finnegan, Ruth. 2005. ‘The How of Literature’, Oral Tradition 20:2, 164–87 Foley, John Miles. 2002. How to Read an Oral Poem, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press Fulk, R. D. 2012a. ‘Introduction and Notes to Haraldskvæði (Hrafnsmál)’, in Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages: Vol. 1: Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035, ed. by Diana Whaley, Turnhout: Brepols, 90–117 Fulk, R. D. 2012b. ‘Introduction and Notes to Eiríksmál’, in Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages: Vol. 1: Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035, ed. by Diana Whaley, Turnhout: Brepols, 1003–13 Fulk, R. D. 2012c. ‘Introduction and Notes to Hákonarmál’, in Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages: Vol. 1: Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035, ed. by Diana Whaley, Turnhout: Brepols, 171–95

82  Simon Nygaard Fulk, R. D. 2016. ‘Eddic Metres’, in A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, ed. by Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn, and Brittany Schorn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 252–70 Gade, Kari Ellen. 2002. ‘History of Old Norse Metrics’, in The Nordic Languages, ed. by Oscar Bandle, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 856–70 Goffmann, Erving. 1974. Frame Analysis, New York: Harper Colophon Grønbech, Vilhelm. 1931. Culture of the Teutons, 2 vols., London: Humphrey Milford and Oxford University Press and Copenhagen: Jespersen og Pios forlag Gunnell, Terry. 1995. The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer Gunnell, Terry. 1999. ‘Dame Bertha Phillpotts and the Search for Ancient Scandinavian Drama’, in Anglo-­Scandinavian Cross-­Currents, ed. by Inga-­Stina Ewbank, Olav Lausund and Bjørn Tysdahl, Norwich: Norvik Press, 84–113 Gunnell, Terry. 2011. ‘The Drama of the Poetic Edda: Performance as a Means of Transformation’, in Pogranicza teatralonsci: Poezja, poetyka, praktyka, ed. by Andrzeja Dabrówki, Warsaw: Instytut Badań Literackich Pan Wydawnictwo, 13–41 Gunnell, Terry. 2012. ‘The Performance of the Poetic Edda’, in The Viking World, ed. by Stefan Brink in collaboration with Neil Price, London and New York: Routledge, 299–303 Gunnell, Terry. 2013. ‘Völuspá in Performance’, in The Nordic Apocalypse: Approaches to Völuspá and Nordic Days of Judgement, ed. by Annette Lassen and Terry Gunnell, Acta Scandinavica 2, Turnhout: Brepols, 63–77 Gunnell, Terry. 2016. ‘Eddic Performances and Eddic Audiences’, in A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, ed. by Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn and Brittany Schorn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 92–113 Gunnell, Terry. 2020. ‘Performance Archaeology: Eiríksmál, Hákonarmál and the Study of Old Nordic Religions’, in John Miles Foley’s World of Oralities. Text, Tradition, and Contemporary Oral Theory, ed. by Mark C. Amodio, Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 137–52 Harris, Joseph. 1984. ‘Eiríksmál and Hákonarmál’, in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. by Joseph R. Strayer, New York: Scribner, v, 414–15 Harrison, Jane. 1912. Themis: A Study in the Social Origins of Greek Religion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Harrison, Jane. 1913. Ancient Art and Ritual, London: Williams and Norgate Haugen, Einar. 1983. ‘The Edda as Ritual: Odin and His Masks’, in Edda: A Collection of Essays, ed. by Robert J. Glendinning and Haraldur Bessason, The University of Manitoba Icelandic Studies 4, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 3–24 Heimir Pálsson. 2001. ‘The Eddic Poems’, in booklet accompanying Sequentia, The Rhinegold Curse, on CD (Deutschlandradio and Westdeutscher Rundfunk/Aurel, MA 20016), 14–18 Hermann, Pernille. 2017. ‘Methodological Challenges in the Study of Old Norse Myth: The Orality/Literacy Debate Reframed’, in Old Norse Mythology: Comparative Perspectives, ed. by Pernille Hermann, Stephen A. Mitchell, Jens Peter Schjødt and Amber Rose, Publications of the Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature 3, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 29–51 Heusler, Andreas. 1922. ‘Anmälan: Bertha S. Phillpotts, The Elder Edda and Ancient Scandinavian Drama’, Arkiv för nordisk filologi 38, 347–53 Honko, Lauri. 1996. ‘Epics Along the Silk Roads: Mental Text, Performance, and Written Codification’, Oral Tradition 11:1, 1–17 Holtsmark, Anne. 1949. ‘Myten om Idun og Tjase i Tjodolvs Haustlong’, Arkiv för nordisk filologi 64, 1–73

. . . með skarða skjöldu ok skotnar brynjur  83 Holtsmark, Anne. 1950. ‘Leik og skjemt’, in Festskrift til Harald Grieg ved 25-­års jubileet, ed. by Ingeborg Andersen, Oslo: Gyldendal, 236–60 Holtsmark, Anne. 1958. ‘Drama’, in Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder, København: Rosekilde og Bagger, iii, 293–95 Hymes, Dell. 1981. ‘In Vain I Tried to Tell You’: Essays in Native American Ethnopoetics, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press Hymes, Dell. 1994. ‘Ethnopoetics, Oral-­Formulaic Theory, and Editing Texts’, Oral Tradition 9, 330–70 Höfler, Otto. 1952. ‘Das Opfer im Semnonenhain und die Edda’, in Edda, Skalden, Saga: Festschrift zum 70. geburtstag von Felix Genzmer, ed. by Hermann Schneider, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, Universitätsverlag, 1–67 Kuhn, Hans. 1933. ‘Zur Wortstellung und -­betonung im Altgermanischen’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutchen Sparche und Literatur 57, 1–107 Kuhn, Hans. 1983. Das Dróttkvætt, Heidelberg: Winter Larrington, Carolyne. 1991. ‘Hávamál and Sources Outside Scandinavia’, Saga-­Book 23, 141–57 Leslie-­Jacobsen, Helen F. 2017. ‘The Ecology of “Eddic” and “Skaldic” Poetry’, RMN Newsletter 12–13, 123–38 Mannhardt, Wilhelm. 1874–6. Wald und Feldkulte, 2 vols., Berlin: Gebrüder Borntraeger Marold, Edith. 1972. ‘Das Walhallbild in den Eiríksmál und den Hákonarmál’, Mediaeval Scandinavia 5, 19–33 Marold, Edith. 1993. ‘Eyvindr Finnsson skáldaspillir’, in Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, ed. by Philip Pulsiano, New York: Garland, 175–6 Martin, John Stanley. 1972. Ragnarök: An Investigation into Old Norse Concepts of the Fate of the Gods, Assen: Van Gorcum McKinnell, John. 2007. ‘The Making of Hávamál’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 3, 74–115 McKinnell, John. 2013. ‘Personae of the Performer in Hávamál’, Saga-­Book 37, 27–42 Merleau-­Ponty, Maurice. 2012. Phenomemology of Perception, trans. by Donald A. Landes, London and New York: Routledge Mitchell, Stephen A. 1997. ‘Review of Terry Gunnell: The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia’, Alvíssmál 7, 124–8 Murray, Gilbert. 1912. ‘Excursus on “Ritual Forms Preserved in Greek Tragedy” ’, in Themis: A  Study in the Social Origins of Greek Religion, ed. by Jane Harrison, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 341–63 Nygaard, Simon. 2018. ‘ . . . nú knáttu Óðin sjá: The Function of Hall-­Based, Ritualised Performances of Old Norse Poetry in Pre-­Christian Nordic Religion’, in The Fortified Viking Age: 36th Interdisciplinary Viking Symposium in Odense, May 17th, 2017, ed. by Mette Bruus and Jesper Hansen, Odense: Odense City Museums and University Press of Southern Denmark, 26–34 Nygaard, Simon. 2019a. ‘Poetry as Ritual in Pre-­Christian Nordic Religion’, unpublished doctoral thesis, Aarhus University Nygaard, Simon. 2019b. ‘Being Óðinn Bursson: The Creation of Social and Moral Obligation in Viking Age Warrior-­Bands through the Ritualized, Oral Performance of Poetry: The Case of Grímnismál’, in Social Norms in Medieval Scandinavia, ed. by Jakub Morawiec, Aleksandra Jochymek and Grzegorz Bartusik, Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 51–74 O’Donoghue, Heather. 2005. Skaldic Verse and the Poetics of Saga Narrative, Oxford: Oxford University Press Olsen, Magnus. 1909. ‘Fra gammelnorsk myte og kultus’, Maal og minne 1909, 17–36

84  Simon Nygaard Phillpotts, Bertha S. 1920. The Elder Edda and Ancient Scandinavian Drama, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Price, Neil S. 2008. ‘Bodylore and the Archaeology of Embedded Religion: Dramatic Licence in the Funerals of the Vikings’, in Belief in the Past: Theoretical Approaches to the Archaeology of Religion, ed. by D. S. Whitley and K. Hays-­Gilpin, Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press, 143–65 Price, Neil S. 2012. ‘Mythic Acts: Material Narratives of the Dead in Viking Age Scandinavia’, in More than Mythology: Narratives, Ritual Practices and Regional Distribution in Pre-­Christian Scandinavian Religions, ed. by Catharina Raudvere and Jens Peter Schjødt, Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 13–46 Rappaport, Roy A. 1999. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity, Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology 110, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Schjødt, Jens Peter. 2007. ‘Contemporary Research into Old Norse Mythology’, in Reflections on Old Norse Myths, ed. by Pernille Hermann, Jens Peter Schjødt and Rasmus Tranum Kristensen, Turnhout: Brepols, 1–16 Schorn, Brittany Erin. 2017. Speaker and Authority in Old Norse Wisdom Poetry, Trends in Medieval Philology 34, Berlin and Boston: de Gruyter See, Klaus von. 1963. ‘Zwei eddische Preislieder: Eiríksmál und Hákonarmál’, in Festgabe für Ulrich Pretzel zum 65. Geburtstag dergebracht von Freunden un Schülern, ed. by Werner Simon, Wolfgang Bachofer and Wolfgang Dittmann, Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag Segal, Robert. 1998. The Myth and Ritual School: An Anthology, Malden and Oxford: Blackwell Strömbäck, Dag. 1948. ‘Cult Remnants in Icelandic Dramatic Dances’, Arv 4, 132–45 Tedlock, Dennis. 1983. The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press Thorvaldsen, Bernt Ø. 2008. ‘Om Þrymskviða, tekstlån og tradisjon’, Maal og minne 2008:2, 142–66 Wadstein, Elis. 1895. ‘Bidrag till tolkning och belysning av skalde-­och Edda-­dikter’, Arkiv for nordisk filologi 11, 64–92 Walsh, Martin W. 1997. ‘Reviewed Work: The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia by Terry Gunnell’, Comparative Drama 31, 304–9 Würth, Stephanie. 2007. ‘Skaldic Poetry and Performance’, in Learning and Understanding in the Old Norse World: Essays in Honour of Margaret Clunies Ross, ed. by Judy Quinn, Kate Heslop and Tarrin Wills, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe 18, Turhnout: Brepols, 263–81 Zumthor, Paul. 1988. ‘The Vocalization of the Text: The Medieval “Poetic Effect” ’, Viator 19, 273–82

4 Dramatic Implications of Echoed Speech in Skírnismál1 Harriet Soper

Þá mælti Skaði: ‘Rístu nú, Skírnir, ok gakk at beiða okkarn mála mög, ok þess at fregna, hveim inn fróði sé ofreiði afi.’ Skírnir kvað: ‘Illra orða er mér ón at ykkrum syni, ef ek geng at mæla við mög, ok þess at fregna, hveim inn fróði sé ofreiði afi.’ (sts 1–2)2 Then Skaði said: ‘Rise now, Skírnir, and go and bid our son to talk, and ask this: with whom the sagacious man is so furious.’ Skírnir said: ‘Harsh words I expect from your son, if I go to talk with the boy, and ask this: with whom the sagacious man is so furious.’ Such are the opening stanzas of Skírnismál, an eddic dialogue poem of mythological scope attested in both the Codex Regius and in AM 748 I  4to (sts 1–27).3 Since Niedner (1886) and Olsen (1909), much scholarship on Skírnismál has focussed on the poem’s potential origins as a fertility myth centred on a hieros gamos between sky and earth, given that the name of Freyr’s servant, Skírnir, equates to ‘sun beam’ or ‘brightener’, and that, on behalf of Freyr (a god associated elsewhere with fruitfulness), this intermediary ultimately makes a journey to win over a female figure called Gerðr (a name which may signify ‘field, enclosure’).4 Arguments for the dramatic nature of Skírnismál initially grew out of this interpretive tradition. Phillpotts argued for the poem’s status as a ritual drama, and Dronke followed in this vein, perceiving a dramatised narrative of the ‘sacred marriage between DOI: 10.4324/9780367809324-7

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Sky and Earth’ (Dronke 1962, 253). Gunnell has since developed a fuller account of Skírnismál as a text well suited to performance by multiple speakers, demonstrating the numerous interpretive difficulties that would arise if the text was mediated through ‘solo presentation’ by a ‘non-­dramatic performer’ (1995, 247–55, 2006).5 As part of demonstrating the appropriateness of this text for performance, Dronke (1997, 387) has praised the subtleties of voice and psychologically plausible characterisation of its opening lines. She celebrates how Skaði speaks in ‘heightened’ and ‘archaic’ terms, as if Freyr’s parents ‘were deliberately maintaining the dignity of their sulking boy’.6 For Skírnir’s part, Dronke ventures that his ‘words are not [. . .] meant to be heard by the parents’; he is ‘turning away from them, muttering to himself, sarcastically echoing their stilted terms’. The present chapter is concerned with the potentially sarcastic moment that Dronke detects here, along with the poem’s abundance of other echoing replies with ambiguous implications. In its use of repetition, Skírnismál is broadly congruous with the rest of the eddic corpus, in which repetition manifests in a ‘restrained’ but recurrent way, forming refrains as well as shorter anaphoric or epistrophic motifs (Meletinsky 1998, 17; see further Schorn 2016, 281). This poem nonetheless features an unusual abundance of utterances repeated by other speakers, in whole or in part, in a manner which merits further examination. On the whole, cross-­speaker echo in eddic poetry has usually been approached as part of a discussion of the ‘mirror and surpass’ function of flyting exchanges, as discussed below. It has occasionally been noticed that repetition also links together questions and answers in riddle contests (Meletinsky 1998, 24–5).7 Nonetheless, the phenomenon of inter-­speaker echo, particularly as present in Skírnismál, may helpfully be contextualised in other ways, with reference to other spheres of language use and wider theoretical frameworks. Mikhail Bakhtin, for instance, saw the speaking of ‘another’s words’ to be central to all dialogic interaction, and argued that ‘the speech of another, once enclosed in a context, is  – no matter how accurately transmitted  – always subject to certain semantic changes’ (Bakhtin 1981, 240). Through different framing decisions, fundamental shifts in meaning can thus be brought about, such that ‘[a]ny sly and ill-­disposed polemicist knows very well what dialogizing backdrop he should bring to bear on the accurately quoted words of his opponent, in order to distort their sense’. Linguists have attended to how exactly cross-­speaker repetition works in modern contexts of speech exchange, and it is against this background in particular that I am interested in placing Skírnismál and eddic dialogues more generally. Scholars of language pragmatics have analysed the purposes and effects of inter-­speaker verbatim repetition in a variety of speech contexts and drawn conclusions across a range of languages. Most salient here are Du Bois’ theory of ‘dialogic syntax’ (2014) and studies of ‘echo answers’ and ‘echo questions’ in a variety of discursive contexts, summarised below. Comparison with these studies enables us to take a fresh look at Skírnismál’s echoed

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utterances, especially if the possibly dramatic nature of the text is kept in view. As is implicit in Dronke’s interpretation of Skírnir’s ‘muttering’ and sarcastic tone, repeated language in modern speech contexts often involves significant intonational differentiation on the part of the second speaker. Through varying auditory effects such as volume and timbre, medieval performers of Skírnismál may similarly have been able to signal differences of attitude, even (or especially) when words and phrases remained identical or very similar. As mentioned above, the most sustained studies of dialogic repetition in the Poetic Edda have previously been studies of ‘flyting’, a broad genre subdivisible into the Old Norse–Icelandic modes of senna (sequenced provocations) and mannjafnaðr (‘man-­equalling’, or sequenced boasts). Marcel Bax and Tineke Padmos have explored ‘strategies of mirroring and surpassing’ as ‘normal procedures in flyting matches’, primarily with reference to Þórr and Óðinn’s exchange in Hárbarðsljóð, but noting also the presence of such tactics in Lokasenna (Bax and Padmos 1983, 153). They draw comparisons with William Labov’s research into ‘sounding’ or ‘playing the dozens’ (‘the game of exchanging ritualised insults’) among groups of inner-­city African-­ American teenagers in the 1960s and 1970s. Indeed, in terms which might be applied to the dialogue of Hárbarðsljóð, Labov discusses how replies to a sound may adopt either the ‘substance’ or ‘the same surface form’ of the prior utterance, such that optimally successful sounds will enact ‘striking semantic shifts with minimal changes of form’ (1972, 344–9). Elsewhere, I  argue for the benefits of situating both the cross-­speaker repetition of Hárbarðsljóð and Lokasenna and the close verbal parallelism of sounding which Labov observes within a much wider linguistic landscape of replicated words and structures in dialogic exchange.8 Rather than a discrete phenomenon exclusively suited to stylised antagonistic exchange and purely competitive in purpose, inter-­speaker echo surfaces in a variety of dialogic contexts and has the capacity to communicate a range of complex attitudes, even at the same time as it fulfils antagonistic and competitive aims.9 Echoed speech in eddic dialogue, including Hárbarðsljóð and Lokasenna, may ultimately be appreciated as a more versatile set of verbal strategies than has previously been acknowledged, and comparison with the temporally and culturally remote context of sounding need not be relied upon exclusively as an analogous phenomenon (see previously, on this, Arnovick 2000). The ‘mirror and surpass’ strategies of each can be understood as part of a far wider spectrum of language use. Skírnismál differs from Hárbarðsljóð and Lokasenna in that it contains no exchanges clearly identifiable as sennur or flytings; Skírnir threatens Gerðr over the course of 12 stanzas (25–36), but she does not reply, simply registering her capitulation in stanza 37. Along these lines, Dronke has compared Skírnismál favourably with Hárbarðsljóð and Lokasenna, arguing that the humour of the latter two, ‘satiric or burlesque, is abrupt, antagonistic, depending upon the swift scoring of rival points, not on an evolving

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discourse’, while Skírnismál’s humour ‘is one of persuasion, where the brain of the persuader must be continually studying his “adversary” in order to gain his point’ (1997, 387). It is nonetheless apparent in Dronke’s formulation that adversarial and competitive currents do run through the exchanges of Skírnismál. Moreover, Hárbarðsljóð’s discourse is not exclusively antagonistic – after all, it opens with a request from Þórr that the disguised Óðinn ferry him across the fjord, accompanied by an offer of food from Þórr’s basket (st. 3). Skírnismál’s discursive mode may be more various in nature, but the speech acts of the three poems are not wholly different in kind. As such, the function of repetition in Skírnismál is not necessarily distinct from that found in the two flyting-­based texts. The diverse discursive modes of Skírnismál nonetheless highlight more obviously the diverse range of opportunities presented by repetitive speech, which go beyond proving superior verbal skill in an antagonistic exchange. The semantic ambiguity of echoes in Skírnismál seems partly to spring from the location of these echoing responses within the text. They tend to follow requests and commands, as has been seen already in the poem’s opening lines. The poem’s editors, Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason, note that [v]íða er sama orðalag endurtekið með eða án tilbrigða í svari við spurningu ‘in many places, the same wording is repeated with or without variations in response to a question’ (2014, 187). Usually, the entreated individual uses the device to offer some level of resistance, but the desired result of the first speaker is ultimately achieved, with the exception of Gerðr’s request to know Skírnir’s origins (sts 17–18). These echoes thus interact in complex ways with wider thematic interests of the poem in processes of persuasion, coercion and domination, as previously observed by a range of scholars. Lönnroth and Mitchell have focussed on the poem’s interest in inter-­group marriage as a way of managing potential social conflict, with such marriages standing in complex relation to the volition of the individual couple (Lönnroth 1977; Mitchell 1983), while Motz (1981) and Larrington (1992) have interrogated the text’s presentation of gendered conflict.10 As will be seen, echo is used by the poem’s speakers as a way of working out such ‘problems of differentiation’ (Mitchell 1983, 113). Nonetheless, as is often the case when speakers replicate elements of one another’s speech in modern speech contexts, Skírnismál’s echoing responses harbour a wealth of possible implications, from simple confirmation to outright hostility. If this poem is understood as a drama, such options for implicature would be available to any individual performer, who could then make a choice as to which to select and accentuate.11 To further develop these ideas, I  now turn to a brief survey of linguistic research which offers a fresh context for the cross-­speaker echoes of Skírnismál,12 for all that its poetic discourse and that of conversational exchange are meaningfully distinct from each other, as will be seen. I will then survey the echoing retorts of Skírnismál, observing how the insights of conversational pragmatics illuminate the poem’s echoing exchanges, and

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how the retorts themselves might open up opportunities for performers to convey different attitudinal stances in dramatic performance. As part of this discussion, I suggest that the text itself offers us images of amplification and reverberation which provide a physical correlate to what is happening verbally – this is seen especially when Freyr perceives the air and water around Gerðr to reflect the light of her arms (st. 6), and when Gerðr perceives the resounding noise of Skírnir’s arrival to shake the earth and the buildings of her realm (st. 14).13 These figures are depicted as exerting a knock-­on physical effect on their environments, and the text thereby foregrounds physical reverberation in a way which parallels the workings of its verbal strategies, through which utterances reverberate in the voices of others. The importance of replicated speech across conversational turns is thus reinforced through Skírnismál’s imagery, which emphasises the impactful physical presence of characters in the poem’s imagined space.

Dialogic Syntax and Echo Answers A new context for the cross-­speaker repetitions of Skírnismál and other eddic dialogues may be found in the theories of Du Bois (2014), who gives the name ‘dialogic syntax’ to a widespread phenomenon which shapes conversational speech exchange. This consists of ‘the linguistic, cognitive, and interactional processes involved when speakers selectively reproduce aspects of prior utterances, and when recipients recognise the resulting parallelisms and draw inferences from them’ (Du Bois 2014, 366). ‘Diagraph’ is advanced as a term for counterpart structures which are shared across utterances, as in the following example: JOANNE; it ’s kind of like ^you Ken . KEN; that ’s not at ^all like me Joanne .14 The second speaker here opts to formulate his diametrically opposed claim by selectively reproducing features of the first speaker’s utterance, including the copular predicative construction, use of pronouns, proper names, adverbial modifiers, co-­ reference, and morphologically identical units (‘like’: ‘like’, ‘’s’: ‘’s’). Different inferences are nonetheless to be drawn from Ken’s statement, and this is particularly clear in his parallel use of the vocative: Joanne’s use of Ken’s name is required to specify whom she is addressing, but Ken’s use of Joanne’s name performs no such function – it ‘takes cover as tit for tat, while actually dripping with irony’ (Du Bois 2014, 363). Repetition in poetry of course constitutes a different phenomenon to its use in everyday speech, especially given the crucial sonic, phonetic and rhythmic role played by repetition in poetic contexts.15 Refrains, as Schorn notes, are particularly common in ljóðaháttr, the metre in which most of Skírnismál is composed (2016, 281). Nonetheless, the kind of structural repetitions which make a statement forceful in conversational contexts are not

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necessarily separate from the structural and formal repetitions that can be found in dialogue poetry. Against Ken’s reply to Joanne’s utterance, seemingly ‘tit for tat’ but potentially deeply ironic, one might compare Skírnir’s reproduction of Skaði’s epithets for Freyr (‘mög’, ‘fróði’, ‘afi’), not at all necessary for identification (a simple pronoun would have served equally well) but serving a different kind of purpose by signalling a non-­complicit, subversive stance. Du Bois uses the term ‘stance’ to describe such divergences of meaning between speakers producing dialogic syntax: a second speaker’s stance may be ‘parallel, opposed, or even orthogonal’ to the first (Du Bois 2014, 360, see also 2007). As seen when Dronke infers sarcasm from Skírnir’s verbatim repetition, implications for stance can be felt by modern readers as very pronounced, even in highly formally patterned poetic contexts. The inclusion of such moments of echoed speech in the poem is arguably a key part of its dramatic mode, through which rich opportunities for different kinds of intonation and delivery are presented. Du Bois’ conventions for setting out diagraphs are designed to highlight the prosodic similarities and differences between different utterances, and thereby to capture ‘the voices heard’ (2014, 396). Syntactic and verbal parallelism are understood by Du Bois as closely connected with meaningful intonational variation, signalling different kinds of attitude. It is, of course, not possible to say with any certainty how Skírnismál’s opportunities for voicing might have been actualised in Old Norse-­speaking performance contexts. Daniel Hirst and Albert Di Cristo survey 20 languages (1998, 6) and identify intonation as a pluriparametric phenomenon, involving most centrally ‘fundamental frequency, intensity, duration, and spectral characteristics’. These map onto the auditory experiences of ‘pitch, loudness, length and timbre’, and among these, fundamental frequency (heard as pitch) is widely recognised as the primary parameter.16 Rhythm (or ‘aspects of temporal organisation’) also plays an important role (Hirst and Di Cristo 1998, 4; after Crystal 1969). It is sometimes postulated that Old Norse was a pitch (or tonal) accent language, in which case comparisons might be made with modern pitch accent languages like Norwegian or Swedish.17 In the context of Old Norse–Icelandic poetic recitation, scholars have considered the implications of this when contemplating what metrics of intonation might have ‘set off’ parenthetic clauses from the rest of a stanza of skaldic poetry (Gade 1995, 189). Hollander suggests such constructions might have been distinguished by ‘a pause before and after’, rather than a ‘different pitch’ (1965, 636). Of course, the precise details of contemporary performances of these texts are irrecoverable, and it is difficult to imagine scholarly consensus being reached on the roles of pitch and rhythm in the voicing of Old Norse-­ Icelandic texts. In what follows, I posit only that parallelled constructions across the utterances of different speakers in eddic poetry may have created opportunities for meaningful intonational choices during performance, and, indeed, that these opportunities remain latent in the texts and can be resuscitated in modern performance.

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Given the specific placement of the echoes in Skírnismál – often following a question or demand – a further field of speech pragmatics is of relevance: research into ‘echo answers’. Enfield et al. have recently surveyed answers to polar (yes–no) questions in 14 languages, and observed that echoing (‘repetition-­type’) answers may be more appropriate than ‘interjection-­type’ answers for contexts in which the answerer wishes ‘not only to confirm the proposition that has just been put on the table by the questioner, but to claim a degree of thematic agency, or independent interest over that proposition’ (2019, 292), possibly due to it falling into a ‘special realm of knowledge’ (2019, 286, 292; after Heritage and Raymond 2002, 2012). These findings align well with previous research into the parallel phenomenon of ‘echo questions’, in which a speaker formulates a question by repeating all or part of a previous speaker’s utterance. Linguists have found this strategy to have complex implications and effects. Rather than simply signalling ‘confirmation’, such questions ‘may also draw attention to the absurdity of an underlying proposition’ (Channon et al. 2018, 158; after Blakemore 1994). The potential problems caused by this implication of ‘absurdity’ or fault have been explored in contexts such as Language Analysis for the Determination of Origin (LADO) interviews with asylum seekers, where ‘echoes may also be treated as repair indicators indicating a problem with the content of prior talk’ (Channon et al. 2018, 162). Both repetitious answers and questions therefore seem to have the capacity to go beyond communicating confirmation, instead coding ‘an assertion’, in the terms of Enfield et al. (2019, 289), with potentially disruptive or challenging effects. In light of the general ambiguity and wide-­ranging implications of echo responses, as understood across these various fields of study, Skírnismál’s cross-­speaker repetitions may be understood as potentially functioning on multiple levels. They may signal confirmation, unsettle and/or provoke. Given the characters’ tendency to overtly challenge the good sense or propriety of demands made upon them, repetitions may, in particular, serve to disconcert and seed doubt. A  performer could choose how to deliver each echo-­response, inflecting their delivery through intonation, gesture and physical stance, in order to signal a certain kind of attitude.

Cross-­Speaker Repetition in Skírnismál The importance of repetition in Skírnismál has previously been appreciated. Much analysis has focussed on the recurrence of key words, specifically munr: ‘desire’, ‘longing’, ‘pleasure’. Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason observe that [s]ömu orð koma aftur og aftur og verða eins konar leiðarminni ‘the same words come up again and again and become a kind of leitmotif ’ (2014, 187), pointing to munr in stanzas 4, 5, 20, 24, 26, 35 and 40. Larrington has dwelt at length on the way that munr forms a site of contestation in the poem, used with reference to Freyr, Gerðr and Skírnir and implicating conflicting desires (1992, 7; see also Motz 1981, 128–9).

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These dynamics of conflicting desire are foregrounded particularly strongly in Skírnir’s articulation of his munr colliding with Gerðr’s in the penultimate stanza of his curse-­like diatribe across stanzas 25–36 (see Orton 1989; Harris 2002). This rant is composed in galdralag, or ‘incantation metre’, which tends to modify ljóðaháttr such that the third line of a stanza ‘is duplicated nearly exactly by an additional line’ which ‘repeats the preceding line in structure and vocabulary’ (Youngberg 1967, 29; see also Fulk 2016, 261). This metre facilitates Skírnir’s sequence of ‘horrid repetitions’ (Dronke 1997, 396), as will later be seen. Before he delivers his curse, however, Skírnir lays the groundwork for his strongly repetitious mode, habitually returning to and revising his own declarations as well as those of others. He is the poem’s most consistently repetitive speaker, even before he establishes a kind of discursive echo-­chamber of ‘horrid repetitions’, ranting at Gerðr. Nonetheless, he is not the only speaker to harness the power of echoing retorts, as will be seen. Freyr, the herdsman and Gerðr all make similar moves, all in response to a command or request from Skírnir. Research into the modern use of echo patterns in conversation, outlined above, can help us to understand what may be happening when these selective repetitions occur in response to a command or request. Skírnir initiates the pattern with his retort to Skaði (sts 1–2), replicating her ‘heightened’ and ‘archaic’ language about Freyr (Dronke 1997, 387). He can certainly be understood as staking a claim to ‘independent interest’ over Skaði’s proposition (in the terms of Enfield et al.), and simultaneously makes an implicit claim to a superior understanding of Freyr when he observes that following her instructions will lead to [i]llra orða, or ‘harsh words’ (st. 2, l.1), rather than success. Skírnir immediately illustrates his reliance on his own skills of perception, discernment and judgement (see further McMahon 2017, 124– 5). He takes up an ‘orthogonal’ stance relative to Skaði’s utterance, neither fully dismissive nor complicit, but rather negotiating his own orthogonal middle path. When he does address Freyr, he follows the spirit rather than the letter of Skaði’s advice, adopting a softer, more deferential and tentative approach (Dronke 1997, 287), and addressing Freyr as fólkvaldi goða ‘leader of the gods’ (st. 3, l.2) and minn dróttinn ‘my lord’ (st. 3, l.6). A micro-­negotiation then ensues between Freyr and Skírnir, unfolding delicately through a succession of subtly repetitious and contrastive utterances. Freyr addresses him as seggr inn ungi ‘young man’ (st. 4, l.2), but in the next stanza, Skírnir shrugs off this association with youth (and possibly lower status), asserting that in days gone by ungir saman/várum ‘we were young together’ (st. 5, ll. 4–5). He thereby declares both the historical nature of his youth and the parity between his age and Freyr’s, undermining the distinction Freyr has tried to instate.18 Skírnir and Freyr’s repetition of the word dagr ‘day’ offers another arena for muted tensions to play out – Skírnir attempts to use it as a point of connection with Freyr (perhaps appropriately, if Skírnir’s potential symbolic identity as a ray of light is salient to this exchange), asking why he sits alone um daga ‘in the day’ (st. 3, l.6), and

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calling him to remember that they were both young together í árdaga ‘in the old days’ (st. 5, l.5). In between these stanzas, Freyr protests that while the sun illuminates alla daga ‘all the days’ (st. 4, l.5), it does not fulfil his desire, which is, for now, kept hidden from Skírnir. More forcefully, when Freyr then reveals the nature of his longing for Gerðr, he says that she is more to his liking than to any man ungum í árdaga ‘young in the old days’ (st. 7, l.3). These are the quietest of echoes, involving single words and phrases some distance apart, but though they are unobtrusive, they nonetheless imply low-­level tensions stemming from Freyr and Skírnir’s relationship and the level of significance they attach to their shared experience. The significance of the shared language might conceivably be highlighted through decisions made by individual performers, exploiting the key variables of intonation (‘fundamental frequency, intensity, duration, and spectral characteristics’: see Hirst and Di Cristo 1998, 6), as well as gesture. In the immediate wake of these understated tussles over individual words and phrases, Skírnir demands to be given the magical horse and sword, and Freyr indulges in a far more elaborate echo. Copying Skírnir’s elevated language almost exactly, Freyr replies with a five-­line reiteration of the items and their properties, but replaces Skírnir’s final line, which originally described the sword fighting við jötna ætt ‘against the giant’s kind’ (st. 8, l.6): Freyr kvað: ‘Mar ek þér þann gef, er þik um myrkvan berr vísan vafrloga, ok þat sverð er sjálft mun vegask, ef sá er horskr er hefir.’ (st.9) Freyr said: ‘I will give you that horse which will bear you through the dark, directing, flickering flame, and that sword which will fight by itself, if he who wields it is wise.’ McMahon has helpfully suggested a comparison here with the call-­and-­ response structure of legally binding declarations in saga contexts, and further notes that Freyr’s conditional reframing of Skírnir’s speech (‘if he who wields it is wise’) seems to continue their ‘subtextual power dynamic – ostensibly unequal, but in fact seeking self-­advancement from the other’ (McMahon 2017, 127). A performer in Freyr’s role might take their pick as to the implied stance here. Freyr certainly checks the confidence that Skírnir has placed in the sword, locating the responsibility for success with Skírnir, not with the weapon. His utterance might be performed in a teasing manner as a gentle checking of confidence, or with an instructive air as a serious piece of advice, or with a mocking tone as a rebuke, implying Skírnir is not wise. Again, the repetitious utterance permits a wide variety

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of possible interpretations in performance. Furthermore, selective repetition again seems to accompany the implicit assertion from the second speaker of a new, independent claim over what is being discussed, based on personal knowledge or understanding. So far, both of the extended echoes in the poem have followed a request or command, and both make a claim about an anticipated future, which the echoing speaker suggests they understand more fully than the initial speaker. Skírnir challenges the wisdom of Skaði’s plan, in a manner which suggests his superior ability to predict Freyr’s response, implicitly based on his more developed understanding of Freyr. Freyr asserts a superior understanding of the sword’s abilities, and simultaneously indicates his impression of the uncertain nature of Skírnir’s wisdom. Realms start to emerge as crucial in this poem not only in the sense of physical domains of influence and physical realms (like Jötunheimr, the ‘Giant’s Realm’, referenced by Freyr in stanza 40), but as individual domains of understanding, in the sense of the ‘special realm[s] of knowledge’ which Enfield et al. see as often implied by use of selective repetition in conversation. These patterns continue when Skírnir lands in his destination and demands that a herdsman, sitting on a mound, tell him how he may at annspilli/komumk ‘come to have conversation’ (st. 11, ll.4–5) with the young woman past greyjum Gymis ‘the dogs of Gymir’ (st. 11, l.6). In response, the herdsman partially adopts Skírnir’s lexis: annspillis vanr/þú skalt æ vera ‘you will never have conversation’ (st. 12, ll.4–5) with the meyjar Gymis ‘daughter of Gymir’ (st. 12, l.6). Selective repetition is once again used to signal a claim to superior knowledge, specifically to a more accurate understanding of future events. As becomes clear in this instance, though, such claims do not always turn out to be true. Skírnir does indeed come to have words with Gerðr. When he does, cross-­speaker echo continues to play a crucial role in the negotiation of requests and commands, while rival expectations about the future reach a new pitch of intensity and discord.

Skírnismál’s Reverberative Mode As these verbal dynamics begin to unfold, the text describes physical processes which are loosely analogous to what is taking place linguistically. The audience is offered accounts of physical presence which reverberate or otherwise emanate outwards. The first example of such can be found, not without some irony, in Freyr’s description of Gerðr moving amid her father’s courts: ‘[. . .] armar lýstu en af þaðan allt lopt ok lögr.’ (st. 6, ll.4–6) ‘[. . .] her arms shone, and from there, all the sky and water.’

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Gerðr is here presented as inflecting her surroundings, providing a point of origin for their illumination, although not necessarily consciously.19 Her luminosity seems to spill over, reaching outside of the bounds of her body. Larrington has stressed that this is not an unmediated representation of Gerðr: what the audience sees here is Freyr’s image of her as an ‘object of desire’ (1992, 9). Nonetheless, it is significant that at this early stage in the poem we are provided with an account of Gerðr’s physicality which stresses how her influence extends beyond her physical form. A far more violent kind of physical resonance then accompanies Skírnir’s arrival in Gymir’s courts. Here, it is Gerðr who mediates the scene: ‘Hvat er þat hlym hlymja er ek heyri nú til ossum rönnum í? Jörð bifask, en allir fyrir skjálfa garðar Gymis.’ (st. 14) ‘What is that clash of clashes I hear now in our buildings? The earth trembles, and all Gymir’s courts shake before it.’ The process of amplification here is distinctly aural in nature. The polyptoton of hlym and hlymja reinforces the sense of escalating, self-­replicating ‘resounding noise’ (as hlymr is defined by Zoega 1910). This effect is heightened in the Codex Regius version of the text, where Gerðr further says that she hears the clash to ‘clash’ (hlymja) in the second line of this stanza, extending the polyptoton across two lines. The second half of the stanza describes a chain reaction, from shaking earth to shaking buildings, and if the allegorical sense of Gerðr’s name is at all active here, she may even be punning on garðr ‘court’ and jörð ‘earth’. If so, her identity is connected to the land around her, shaken by Skírnir’s arrival. These two passages fall loosely within the category of ‘reported circumstances’, a dramatic quality noted by Dronke (1997, 395) through which developments are described through direct speech for the benefit of a listening audience.20 These circumstances are therefore mediated through the perspective of the character who is doing the reporting, who therefore may accentuate certain aspects in describing what they see. Characters in Skírnismál seem particularly concerned with registering the spilling-­ outwards of others’ presence, whether this rippling realm of influence is visual (Gerðr’s) or aural (Skírnir’s). By these means, the audience is provided with a conceptual framework for interpersonal experiences through which physical effects issue from a single figure into their environment. This poem, of course, builds up to the threat of a subjugating beating (Tamsvendi ek þik drep ‘I hit you with a taming wand’ [st. 26, l.1]), as Skírnir says to Gerðr. Even before this point, though, the dialogue is concerned

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with the exertion of physical influence. This power works in a similar way to the poem’s cross-­speaker echoes, which likewise ripple outwards from an original speaker into subsequent utterances. Both operate according to a model of resonance  – the ‘reinforcement or prolongation of sound by reflection or by the synchronous vibration of a surrounding space or a neighbouring object’ (OED, s.v. ‘resonance’). The ‘reported circumstances’ of this poem thus dovetail with its mode of speech exchange, providing the audience with a physical index of its verbal echoes while simultaneously drawing attention to the way in which the poem’s characters are situated in physical space, and the ways in which they may physically impact their environments. This poem is notable for its proxy figures, dispatched to carry out another’s work; Freyr is most notably reliant on Skírnir as a proxy and intermediary (see McMahon 2017, 121–32), and in a less pronounced way, Gerðr relies on her serving maid, whom she instructs to invite Skírnir inside (in stanza 16). The figures of Skírnismál are embedded within clear social hierarchies, and it is within this framework that the poem’s dynamics of physical and verbal influence unfold.

Fighting Over the Future: Gerðr and Skírnir Upon his arrival, Skírnir turns the full force of his illocutionary power upon Gerðr. Over the course of their exchange, Gerðr both obliges in the game of reworking the language of her interlocutor and briefly attempts to reject it altogether, prompting Skírnir to embark on his self-­repetitious tirade. It is Skírnir who speaks in reactive echoes at first: Gerðr kvað: ‘[. . .] Hvat er þat álfa né ása sona né víssa vana; Hví þú einn um komt eikinn fúr yfir ór salkynni at sjá.’ Skírnir kvað: ‘Emkat ek álfa né ása sona né víssa vana; þó ek einn um komk eikinn fúr yfir yður salkynni at sjá. [. . .]’ (sts 17–18) Gerðr said: ‘[. . .] Who are you of the elves, or of the Æsir’s sons, or of the wise Vanir? Why have you come alone across the fierce fire to see our household?’ Skírnir said: ‘I am not of the elves, nor of the Æsir’s

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sons, nor of the wise Vanir, though I have come alone across the fierce fire to see your household.’ Skírnir communicates that he is not any of the beings that Gerðr has mentioned, but otherwise gives nothing away; he clarifies only what Gerðr already knows – that he has come to visit her household. As Dronke notes, ‘His formal repetition of Gerðr’s words with a negative implies an apotropaic refusal to identify himself ’ (Dronke 1997, 391). His utterance points to silence, to borrow a phrase from Louise Sundararajan, who explores the functioning of reflective listening in therapeutic discourse, embracing its tautological potential as a device which draws attention to ‘the unsaid, the unsayable, in other words, silence’ (1995, 262).21 In developing this interpretation, Sundararajan builds on John Sallis’s theoretical concept of hearing ‘echo’ as a phenomenon by which ‘one then experiences silence, not as the mere opposite of speech or sound but as the open space of the voice’ (1990, 5). Skírnir’s speech similarly points to what has not been said, and in doing so makes available a range of possible attitudinal stances, from hastily evasive to actively menacing; any of these could then be selected and accentuated by an individual performer.22 Skírnir’s utterance is not explicitly future-­oriented here – he does not reframe Gerðr’s utterance to make any direct claim as to how future events will unfold, in the manner of the previous echoing retorts of the poem – but through his omissions the unspoken purpose of his visit hangs in the air. Skírnir then moves directly on to his offer of epli ellifu ‘eleven apples’ (st. 19, l.1), which he says he will exchange with Gerðr for frið ‘peace’ (st. 19, l.4), if she will say Freyr is óleiðastan lifa ‘the least loathsome that lives’ (st. 19, l.6). Gerðr rejects these terms, and claims she will not accept the apples, at mannskis munum ‘at any man’s desire’ (st. 20, l.3). When forming her retort, she quickly fires back a verbatim repetition of the phrase epli ellifu (st. 20, l.1), placing this again in the first line of the stanza, before glossing and reframing Skírnir’s statement in a way which suggests the stakes are both higher and more concrete than he is admitting: she declares she and Freyr will not byggjum bæði saman ‘both live together’ (st. 20, l.6). She thus extrapolates from Skírnir’s reference to the more abstract idea of frið and his avowed effort to solicit only flattering words about Freyr. She adopts a similar strategy when Skírnir offers the ring Draupnir: Skírnir kvað: ‘Baug ek þér þá gef, þann er brenndr var með ungum Óðins syni; átta eru jafnhǫfgir er af drjúpa ina níundu hverja nótt.’ Gerðr kvað: ‘Baug ek þikkak,

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þótt brenndr sé með ungum Óðins syni; era mér gulls vant í görðum Gymis at deila fé föður.’ (sts 21–2) Skírnir said: ‘I will give you a ring, then, that was burnt with Óðinn’s young son: eight are the just-­as-­heavy ones, which drop from it every ninth night.’ Gerðr said: ‘I will not accept a ring, though it was burnt with Óðinn’s young son: I have no want of gold in Gymir’s courts, distributing my father’s wealth.’ Gerðr registers the ring’s value in the terms Skírnir has used, but again provides a different context, drawing the centre of the discussion back to issues of living arrangements and her place in the household. She uses selective echo to evaluate the gift differently, from her own perspective, making another kind of claim to heightened understanding. It is at this stage that Skírnir replaces his gifts with a threat: Skírnir kvað: ‘Sér þú þenna mæki, mær, mjóvan, málfán, er ek hefi í hendi hér? [. . .]’ (st. 23, ll.1–3) Skírnir said: ‘Do you see this sword, girl, slim, inlaid, that I have here in my hand? [. . .]’ Gerðr now breaks from the pattern that her conversation with Skírnir has so far followed. Rather than repeating parts of Skírnir’s utterance and offering a new interpretation of the rest, she skips this step and begins with the gloss – what Skírnir is doing is ánauð ‘coercion’ or ‘oppression’. Gerðr kvað: ‘Ánauð þola ek vil aldregi at mannskis munum; þó ek hins get, ef it Gymir finnisk vígs ótrauðir, at ykkr vega tíði.’ (st. 24) Gerðr said: ‘Endure coercion I never will, at any man’s desire; but I guess this, if you and Gymir meet, eager for killing, a struggle will come about.’

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Gerðr furthermore repeats one of her own previous utterances in this stanza, calling back to her own claim that she will not accept age-­healing apples at mannskis munum ‘at any man’s desire’ in stanza 20, linking the threat of the sword with the gift of apples, and perhaps signalling that both are ánauð, or else that Skírnir has now crossed a line and moved from bartering into more morally suspect territory. Gerðr ends this stanza with a threatening prediction of destruction, in another act of reframing. Skírnir now abandons the dance of cross-­speaker repetition, and indeed the pattern of conversational turn-­taking. He starts to repeat himself extravagantly. He asks again, verbatim, ‘Do you see this sword, girl, slim, inlaid, that I have here in my hand?’ (st. 25, ll.1–3). His catalogue of deprivations and ironic excesses begins. In this, the galdralag portion of the poem, Skírnir often uses self-­repetition to imply an escalation, intensification or sense of completion. Gerðr will crawl kosta laus ‘choiceless’ and, intensified, kosta vön ‘choice-­lacking’ (st. 30, ll.6–7). Skírnir pairs intention and implementation when he describes himself going to a wood, gambantein at geta,/gambantein ek gat ‘a wand of power to get, a wand of power I got’ (st. 32, ll.3–4). When he claims he will deny manna glaum mani/manna nyt mani ‘the delight of men to this girl, the profit of men to this girl’ (st. 34, ll.7–8), there is a suggestion of development across the two threats, whether nyt signals the ‘profit’ of children or a more abstract kind of profit, subsequent to her theoretical delight, which may be sexual. He asserts Gerðr will get no better drink than goat’s urine, mær, at þínum munum,/mær, at mínum munum ‘girl, to your desire girl, to my desire’ (st. 35, ll.9–10), accentuating the primacy and dominance of his munr in the second line. In his curse, Skírnir thus demonstrates how repetition can be harnessed to reinforce and, within a kind of closed circuit or echo chamber, complete or fulfil previous utterances – each slightly modified self-­repetition might even be understood as indicating a development towards a superior, more accurate or more important claim. Skírnir ultimately demonstrates how verbal power can be wielded absolutely, and fittingly closes his curse with a reference to carving runes and carving them away (st. 36), an assertion of total linguistic control. Skírnir’s explosion of self-­repetition interrupts the delicate patterns of emphatic cross-­speaker repetition which have developed thus far in the poem, and they never quite recover. In response to his diatribe, Gerðr settles into a far more muted kind of repetitive mode. She acquiesces to Skírnir’s demands through a loose form of parallelism, by imitating Skírnir’s tendency to address her as ‘girl’ mid-­sentence, as seen in the threat [. . .] ek þik temja mun,/mær, at mínum munum ‘I’ll make you tame, girl, to my desire’ (st.26, ll.2–3, and see also st.23, l.1; st.2, l.1; st.35, ll.9–10). Gerðr offers, Heill ver þú nú heldr, sveinn,/ok tak við hrímkálki ‘Be welcome now, boy, and take the crystal cup’ (st.37, ll.1–2).23 She thus echoes Skírnir’s syntax and register but does not reproduce his lexis verbatim. Her final speech is similarly repetitious only in the quietest of ways. Gerðr

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responds here to a demand from Skírnir that she announce when she plans to meet with Freyr (st.38): ‘Barri heitir, er vit bæði vitum, lundr lognfara; en ept nætr níu þar mun Njarðar syni Gerðr unna gamans.’ (st.39) ‘Barri it is called, which we both know, a tranquil grove; and after nine nights, there to Njörðr’s son, Gerðr will grant pleasure.’ Gerðr here gently echoes part of Skírnir’s utterance, as he declared, Ørindi mín/vil ek öll vita ‘I will know all my errand’ (st.38, ll.1–2). Gerðr refers to a place er vit bæði vitum ‘which we both know’ – in performance, one might imagine the primary accent (marked in Du Bois’s scheme for representing diagraphs as ^) possibly falling on bæði here, to subtly differentiate Gerðr’s statement from Skírnir’s. This parallelism is nonetheless not strongly pronounced, and Gerðr chooses not to reproduce other features of Skírnir’s utterance. In newly introducing the locale of Barri, and gently parallelling Skírnir’s use of the noun vita, a slight negotiation of the power balance may be implied in Gerðr’s utterance, but at the same time it is difficult to find any strong implication of resistance here. Her response lacks the pronounced echoes of her speech prior to Skírnir’s curse, with all their implications of a resistant, challenging or subversive attitudinal stance. In the poem’s penultimate stanza, Skírnir’s final utterance, he responds to Freyr’s demand to know what he has achieved in the giants’ realm, þíns eða míns munar ‘to your desire or mine’ (st.40, l.6). He responds simply by replicating Gerðr’s final stanza, repeating all five lines of her proposal verbatim. Here there is no explicit reframing at all (other than that brought about by Skírnir’s utterance), instead only maximal lexical replication. As a result, there is considerable ambiguity here when it comes to implicature. This piece of repetition, like others in Skírnismál, is mediated through heavy abbreviation in the Codex Regius.24 The manuscript’s omission of the abbreviation ‘b.’ for bæði or báðir may reflect some anxiety as to which grammatical form should be used, and when editors expand these lines their decision is significant. Gerðr uses a neutral bæði, but Neckel and Kuhn (1983, 77), and Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason (2014), select the masculine báðir when the word is in Skírnir’s mouth. This compromises the element of direct quotation, as the grove is now one that Skírnir and Freyr both know, as opposed to Gerðr and Skírnir (or Gerðr and Freyr, if she expects her message to be conveyed exactly). Dronke (1997, 385) preserves the neuter bæði, heightening the sense that Skírnir is deliberately copying Gerðr’s speech. In any case, and particularly if Dronke

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is correct, Skírnir’s utterance offers possibilities for extravagant mimicry; the difference of gender identity between Gerðr and Skírnir, highlighted in the bæði/báðir problem, may even introduce an option of outright imitation or parody for Skírnir. Whichever option is selected by an editor or performer, this stanza provides a final demonstration of the reorientating and potentially disconcerting potential of cross-­speaker echo. An utterance which initially seems to be an effort on Gerðr’s part to restore ‘a certain dignity and decorum’ (Dronke 1997, 414) is flourished by Skírnir as a synecdochic sign of his triumph. It is a procured object in itself. Gerðr has at times tried to exert illocutionary power against Skírnir – copying his mode of echo-­answers and glossing and reinterpreting his statements – but ultimately her language is entirely subsumed within Skírnir and Freyr’s exchange. At the same time, Skírnir himself uses verbatim verbal repetition in a manner which leaves much unsaid and ‘points to silence’ – his replication of Gerðr’s stanza allows him to avoid Freyr’s question about whose munr Skírnir has obtained.

Conclusion Echo responses carry a heavy weight of implicature in Skírnismál, in a manner which studies of modern speech practices can help elucidate. On multiple occasions, echoing responses are used by speakers in Skírnismál to subtly signal a claim to independent or superior understanding, without overt assertion of this claim, in a manner similar to the modern ‘echo answers’ observed by Enfield et al. (2019). The poem’s echoing responses also sometimes point to what is not said, in a manner analogous to what Sundararajan (1995) has noticed as a function of reflective listening in therapeutic contexts – as when Skírnir refuses to reveal his identity and simply asserts he is not any of the beings that Gerðr has named (st.18), quoting her language closely. He obliquely gestures to knowledge Gerðr lacks, and thereby points to silence. On other occasions, the nature of the echo-­speaker’s claim to heightened comprehension of the relevant issue is made rather clearer, as when Skírnir challenges the good sense of Skaði’s suggested approach in managing Freyr. He anticipates [i]llra orða ‘harsh words’ (st.2, l.1) where she fails to – and in addition to knowing Freyr well, Skírnir would indeed know all about ‘harsh words’, directing the full force of these at Gerðr. Outside of Skírnir’s curse, echoing responses can imply a great range of possible stances (to borrow a term from Du Bois 2007, 2014). When voicing the herdsman’s repetitious response to Skírnir (st.12), for instance, a performer could accentuate the implication of outright hostility, genuine warning, or amused mockery. On the page, echo-­responses may look very similar to the utterances they reproduce, but they create space for pronounced differentiations of attitudinal stance which can be accentuated in dramatic performance through nuances of intonation, as well as gesture and movement. It is here that the dramatic suggestiveness of the device lies.

102  Harriet Soper

The poet of Skírnismál takes particular delight in structuring conversational discourse around echo, in a manner concordant with the poem’s broader interest in power dynamics and the negotiation of hierarchies, previously noted by many critics. Mitchell (1983) and McMahon (2017, 121–33) have observed how the poem depicts individuals acting both on behalf of the communities they represent and on behalf of their own personal motivations. In allowing for a variety of implied stances, falling on a spectrum between acquiescence and resistance, the device of echo is ideally suited to the interplay of individual, interpersonal and group desires, so pertinent to this narrative of social and personal discord, coercion and union. These echoes are furthermore meaningfully contextualised by the poet through the reported action of Skírnismál as individuals intrude upon each other’s environments, such as Freyr’s halls, the herdsman’s mound, the giants’ realm, Gymir’s courts, Barri and, according to the prose introduction, Hliðskjálf. Attempted intrusion into, and domination of, others’ space takes place on a physical level, just as it does on a verbal level. Moments in which characters report reverberating physical influence (sts 6, 14) accentuate this impression. The imagined environment of the poem thus parallels the speech habits of its characters. Individuals exert influence over those around them, and meet with resistance, with compliance and with echoes, discovering that their utterances become alien, and potentially subtly subversive and noncomplicit, when voiced anew.

Notes 1 I am grateful to Heather O’Donoghue, Richard Dance, David Callander, Brian McMahon and Annemari Ferreira for invaluable advice on earlier forms of this chapter, as well as to those present at the 2016 ‘Old Norse Poetry in Performance’ conference for their very helpful feedback. This chapter was initially developed as part of a Master of Studies degree (2013–14) funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. 2 All quotations are from Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason’s edition (2014), with punctuation occasionally modified; all translations are my own, after consultation of Ursula Dronke’s edition and translation (1997), and translations by Carolyne Larrington (2014) and Andy Orchard (2011). In the Codex Regius, the first stanza of the poem is prefaced by a prose introduction describing how Njörðr calls on Skírnir to kveðja Frey máls ‘get Freyr to talk’, before announcing Þá mælti Skaði ‘then Skaði said’. As Skaði is not elsewhere attested as Freyr’s mother, some scholars have questioned the attribution of the first stanza to her. North, Allard and Gillies suggest that in an oral performance Njörðr might speak the first verse (2014, 536). Dronke suggests that in a performance context, either Njörðr or Skaði might speak the first lines (1997, 404). See also Gunnell (1995, 248–9). 3 The final stanza of Skírnismál (st. 42) is also quoted by Snorri Sturluson in Gylfaginning (ed. Faulkes 2005), ch. 37. 4 See further Turville-­Petre (1969), Talbot (1982), and more recently studies by Steinsland (esp. 1991, 2011, 25–6, 57–9). Motz (1981, 123–5) has challenged the idea that the sense of ‘fertile earth’ or ‘cultivated field’ is current in the Old Icelandic noun garðr and its cognates, arguing that Gerðr’s name instead designates her as ‘the one enclosed’ or ‘she, of the enclosure’. North, Allard and Gillies (2014, 535) still date the poem’s composition early, to the tenth century. Arguments have nonetheless

Dramatic Implications of Echoed Speech 103 been made for a later twelfth-­or thirteenth-­century date, particularly in light of the poem’s depiction of Freyr’s lovesickness, consonant with emerging courtly conventions across Europe; see particularly Såvborg (2006), after scholars such as Heinrich (1997). Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason describe the poem as ekki mjög fornt ‘not very ancient’ (2014, 200), but doubt it was composed as late as 1200. 5 For instance, Gunnell observes that the audience of a single presenter would likely have difficulty understanding when a new speaker has begun talking, due to the relative absence of clear markers in the strophes themselves; pertinently to the concerns of this chapter, Gunnell remarks that this confusion might partly be mitigated ‘by the new speaker semi-­repeating the words of the previous strophe’ (1995, 248). On the space invoked by Skírnismál, see further Gunnell (2006). 6 Dronke also sees Skaði as foregrounding Freyr’s sacred nature ‘as fructifier and progenitor’, but Motz has challenged the sense of fróðr (st.1, l.5; st.2, l.5) as ‘fertile, thriving’, advocating instead ‘skilful, valiant’. Larrington (2014) translates as ‘wise’. 7 H. R. Ellis Davidson has more broadly observed shared territory between riddle and insult exchanges (1983). 8 See ‘Recontextualising the Echoing Retorts of Hárbarðsljóð and Lokasenna’, from the present author, forthcoming. 9 Relatedly, Leslie K. Arnovick notes that if medieval flyting and modern sounding can be understood as part of the same history, ‘it is at best discontinuous and disjunctive’ (2000, 38). 10 For a concise overview of these and other related approaches in the scholarly reception of Skírnismál, see Larrington’s introduction to Harris (2002). 11 At the same time, of course, even if these texts were not designed for literal performance (as some scholars have recently argued), the kinds of stance-­taking opportunities available in echo-­responses may alternatively be actualised in the mind of a reader, imagining the voices of eddic poems. Margaret Clunies Ross has stressed that no contemporary evidence survives to support the hypotheses of Phillpotts and Gunnell and perceives the poems as ‘literary fictions of a human poetic voice’, such that ‘a human audience for these fictions completed the locutionary circle’ (Clunies Ross 2016, 20). See also Harris on ideas of performance in the Poetic Edda ‘[b] eyond the literal level’ (2016, 37). Judy Quinn has described how ‘the self-­effacing poet assumes the role of a hidden microphone, relaying the conversations most interesting to hear because they have occurred in places that are accessible only through a feat of imagination’ (quoted in Schorn 2016, 285). 12 For a fuller account, see Soper, ‘Recontextualising the Echoing Retorts of Hárbarðsljóð and Lokasenna’, forthcoming in Scandinavian Studies. 13 Relatedly, discussing a wide range of texts with connections to performance, see Frog’s theory of multimedial parallelism (2017). 14 Modified from Du Bois (2014, 362) by omitting the numbering. On Du Bois’s theory, and this example, discussed in the context of multimedial parallelism in ritual performance, see Frog (2017, 585). 15 See, for instance, Easthope on poetic discourse (2003, 16): ‘line organisation or metre takes place mainly – though not exclusively – on the basis of phonetic parallelism [. . .]. This repetition must promote other kinds of repetition in poetry, phonetic, syntactic and semantic’. Stressing continuity between the discourse of literature and other kinds of discourse, see Fowler (1981, 80–95). 16 Cruttenden (1997, 2, 7) identifies the three primary prosodic features as ‘pitch, length and loudness’, and defines ‘intonation’ as involving ‘the occurrence of recurring pitch patterns’. Crystal (1969, 5–6) similarly identifies prosody with the psychological attributes of ‘pitch, loudness and duration’, which have a primary relationship with ‘fundamental frequency, amplitude, and time’, then defines intonation as a ‘conflation of different prosodic systems of pitch contrasts’, and stress as ‘variations in the loudness parameter’.

104  Harriet Soper 17 Raschellà (2007, 356) has recently concluded that ‘the presence of distinctive tonal accents in medieval Icelandic appears theoretically possible and tenable but not safely demonstrable’. See also, e.g., Bruce and Hermans (1999, 605–6). For an account of focalising emphasis in Swedish, see Gårding (1998 122–3). 18 Brian McMahon has previously noticed Skírnir’s dismissal of Freyr’s effort at distinction here (2017, 127). Skírnir later transposes this adjective onto Gerðr, announcing to the herdsman that he wishes to have a conversation with the unga mans ‘young girl’ (st.11, l.5). 19 Individuals are said to affect their environments in similar ways elsewhere in the Poetic Edda, including Brot af Sigurðarkviðu (st.10) and Baldrsdraumar (st.3) (see Meletinsky 1986, 24). The phrase þaðan af ‘from there’ is used to describe the earthquakes which vibrate out from Loki’s tortured body in the prose passage at the end of Lokasenna. 20 Gunnell further notes that a great number of ‘direct actions and place-­settings’ are implied by the dialogue of Skírnismál (2006, 241). 21 I am grateful to Heather O’Donoghue for suggesting this comparison with modern therapeutic discourse. 22 Potentially lending further support to either of these possible performance options, McMahon (2017, 128–9) perceives a calculated effort on Skírnir’s part to preserve ‘plausible deniability’ on behalf of both Freyr and Skírnir, noting further that Skírnir is simultaneously depriving Gerðr of the increase in power which would come with knowing his identity. 23 Punctuation modified. Dronke finds options for substantial intonational flexibility in Gerðr’s utterance: ‘[g]ently, a little wearily, ironically perhaps – a player playing her part would have a choice of attitudes – she welcomes Skírnir’ (1997, 395). 24 See Dronke (1997, 385). This stanza is not preserved in AM 748 I 4to.

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Dramatic Implications of Echoed Speech 105 Translated in The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. by Michael Holquist, trans. by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist, Austin: University of Texas Press, 259–422 Bax, Marcel and Tineke Padmos. 1983. ‘Two Types of Verbal Dueling in Old Icelandic: The Interactional Structure of the Senna and the Mannjafnaðr in Hárbarðzljóð’, Scandinavian Studies 55, 149–74 Blakemore, Diane. 1994. ‘Echo Questions: A Pragmatic Account’, Lingua 94, 197–211 Channon, Alison, Paul Foulkes and Traci Sue Walker. 2018. ‘ “But What Is the Reason Why You Know Such Things?” Question and Response Patterns in the LADO Interview’, Journal of Pragmatics 129, 154–72 Cleasby, Richard and Gudbrand Vigfusson. 1957. An Icelandic-­English Dictionary, 2nd edn., Oxford: Clarendon Clunies Ross, Margaret. 2016. ‘The Transmission and Preservation of Eddic Poetry’, in A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, ed. by Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn and Brittany Schorn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 12–32 Cruttenden, Alan. 1997. Intonation, 2nd edn., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Crystal, David. 1969. Prosodic Systems and Intonation in English, Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Davidson, H. R. Ellis. 1983. ‘Insults and Riddles in the Edda Poems’, in Edda: A Collection of Essays, ed. by R. J. Glendinning and Haraldur Bessason, University of Manitoba Icelandic Series 4, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 25–46 Dronke, Ursula. 1962. ‘Art and Tradition in Skírnismál’, in English and Medieval Studies Presented to J.R.R. Tolkien on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. by Norman Davis and Charles L. Wrenn, London: Allen and Unwin, 250–68 Du Bois, John W. 2007. ‘The Stance Triangle’, in Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction, ed. by Robert Englebretson, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 139–82 Du Bois, John W. 2014. ‘Towards a Dialogic Syntax’, Cognitive Linguistics 25, 359–410 Easthope, Antony. 2003. Poetry as Discourse, 2nd edn., Abingdon: Routledge Enfield, N. J., Tanya Stivers, Penelope Brown and Christina Englert. 2019. ‘Polar Answers’, Journal of Linguistics 55, 277–304 Fowler, Roger. 1981. Literature as Social Discourse: The Practice of Linguistic Criticism, Bloomington: Indiana University Press Frog. 2017. ‘Multimedial Parallelism in Ritual Performance (Parallelism Dynamics II)’, Oral Tradition 31, 583–620 Fulk, R. D., 2016. ‘Eddic Metres’, in A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, ed. by Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn and Brittany Schorn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 252–70 Gade, Kari Ellen. 1995. The Structure of Old Norse Dróttkvaett Poetry, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press Gårding, Eva. 1998. ‘Intonation in Swedish’, in Intonation Systems: A Survey of Twenty Languages, ed. by Daniel Hirst and Albert Di Cristo, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 112–30 Gösta, Bruce and Ben Hermans. 1999. ‘Word Tone in Germanic Languages’, in Word Prosodic Systems in the Languages of Europe, ed. by Harry van der Hulst, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 605–58 Gunnell, Terry. 1995. The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer Gunnell, Terry. 2006 ‘ “Til holts ek gekk”: Spacial and Temporal Aspects of the Dramatic Poems of the Elder Edda’, in Old Norse Religion in Long-­Term Perspectives: Origins,

106  Harriet Soper Changes and Investigations, ed. by Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert and Catharina Raudvere, Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 238–42 Harris, Joseph. 2002. ‘Cursing with the Thistle: “Skírnismál” 31, 6–8, and OE Metrical Charm 9, 16–17’, in The Poetic Edda: Essays on Old Norse Mythology, ed. by Paul Acker and Carolyne Larrington, London: Routledge, 79–93 Harris, Joseph. 2016. ‘Traditions of Eddic Scholarship’, in A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, ed. by Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn and Brittany Schorn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 33–57 Heinrich, Anne. 1997. ‘Der liebeskranke Freyr, euhemeristisch entmythisiert’, Alvíssmál 7, 3–36 Heritage, John and Geoffrey Raymond. 2002. ‘The Terms of Agreement: Indexing Epistemic Authority and Subordination in Talk-­in-­Interaction’, Social Psychology Quarterly 68, 15–38 Heritage, John and Geoffrey Raymond. 2012. ‘Navigating Epistemic Landscapes: Acquiesence, Agency and Resistance in Responses to Polar Questions’, in Questions: Formal, Functional and Interactional Perspectives, ed. by Jan P. de Ruiter, New York: Cambridge University Press, 179–92 Hirst, Daniel and Albert Di Cristo. 1998. ‘A Survey of Intonation Systems’, in Intonation Systems: A Survey of Twenty Languages, ed. by Daniel Hirst and Albert Di Cristo, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–44 Hollander, Lee. 1965. ‘Observations on the Nature and Function of the Parenthetic Sentence in Skaldic Poetry’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 64, 635–44 Labov, William. 1972. Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press Larrington, Carolyne. 1992. ‘ “What Does Woman Want?”: Mær und munr in Skírnismál’, Alvíssmál 1, 3–16 Lönnroth, Lars. 1977. ‘Skírnismál och den fornisländska äktenskapsnormen’, in Opuscula Septentrionalia: Festskrift til Ole Widding, ed. by Bent Chr. Jacobsen, Christian Lisse et al, Copenhagen: Reitzel, 154–78 McMahon, Brian J. 2017. ‘The Role of the Storyteller in Old Norse Literature’, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Oxford Meletinsky, Eleazar M. 1986. ‘Elements of Folkloric Style in Eddic Poetry’, in Structure and Meaning in Old Norse Literature: New Approaches to Textual Analysis and Literary Criticism, ed. by John Lindow, Lars Lönnroth and Gerd Wolfgang Weber, Odense: Odense University Press, 15–31 Meletinsky, Eleazar M. 1998. The Elder Edda and Early Forms of the Epic, trans. by Kenneth H. Ober, Hesperides, Letterature e Culture Occidentali 6, Trieste: Parnaso Mitchell, Stephen. 1983. ‘För Skírnis as Mythological Model: frið at kaupa’, Arkiv för nordisk filologi 98, 108–22 Motz, Lotte. 1981. ‘Gerðr: A New Interpretation of the Lay of Skírnir’, Mål og Minne 53, 121–36 Niedner Felix. 1886. ‘Skírnis Fǫr’, Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum und deutsche Litteratur 30, 132–50 OED Online. 2019. Oxford University Press, www.oed.com/view/Entry/188941 [Accessed 17 December 2019] Olsen, Magnus. 1909. ‘Fra gammelnorsk myte og kultus’, Mål og Minne 1, 17–36 Orton, Peter. 1989. ‘The Wife’s Lament and Skírnismál: Some Parallels’, in Úr Dölum til Dala: Guðbrandur Vigfússon: Centenary Essays, ed. by Rory McTurk and Andrew Wawn, Leeds Texts and Monographs n.s. 11, Leeds: Leeds School of English, 205–37

Dramatic Implications of Echoed Speech 107 Phillpotts, Bertha. 1920. The Elder Edda and Ancient Scandinavian Drama, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Raschellà, Fabrizio. 2007. ‘Old Icelandic Grammatical Literature: The Last Two Decades of Research (1983–2005)’, in Learning and Understanding in the Old Norse World: Essays in Honour of Margaret Clunies Ross, ed. by Judy Quinn, Kate Heslop and Tarrin Wills, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe 18, Turnhout: Brepols, 341–72 Sallis, John. 1990. Echoes after Heidegger, Bloomington: Indiana University Press Såvborg, Daniel. 2006. ‘Love Among Gods and Men: Skírnismál and its Tradition’, in Old Norse Religion in Long-­Term Perspectives: Origins, Changes and Investigations, ed. by Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert and Catharina Raudvere, Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 336–40 Schorn, Brittany. 2016. ‘Eddic Style’, in A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, ed. by Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn and Brittany Schorn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 271–87 Soper, Harriet. Forthcoming. ‘Recontextualising the Echoing Retorts of Hárbarðsljóð and Lokasenna’, Scandinavian Studies Steinsland, Gro. 1991. Det hellige bryllup og norrøn kongeideologi: en analyse av hierogami-­ myten i Skírnismál, Ynglingatal, Háleygjatal og Hyndluljód, Oslo: Solum Steinsland, Gro. 2011. ‘Origin Myths and Rulership. From the Viking Age Ruler to the Ruler of Medieval Historiography: Continuity, Transformations and Innovations’, in Ideology and Power in the Viking and Middle Ages: Scandinavia, Iceland, Ireland, Orkney, and the Faeroes, ed. by Gro Steinsland, Leiden: Brill, 15–68 Sundararajan, Louise. 1995. ‘Echoes after Carl Rogers: “Reflective Listening” Revisited’, The Humanistic Psychologist 23, 259–71 Talbot, Annelise. 1982. ‘The Withdrawal of the Fertility God’, Folklore 93, 31–46 Turville-­Petre, E. O. G. 1969. ‘Fertility of Beast and Soil in Old Norse Literature’, in Old Norse Literature and Mythology: A Symposium, ed. by E. C. Polomé, Austin: University of Texas Press, 17–36 Youngberg, Karin L. 1967. ‘A Comparative Study of Stylistic Patterns in Old English Heroic Poetry and in the Old Norse Poetic Edda’, unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Iowa Zoega, Geir T. 1910. A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon

Part III

Collocation and Quotation

5 Eddic Poetry and the Uses of Anonymity1 John McKinnell

What is the essential difference between eddic and skaldic poetry? This question is not as silly as it may seem, since no two editions of the Poetic Edda include all the same poems.2 Jónas Kristjánsson (1988, 38) has suggested four criteria: 1 Eddic verse lacks internal or end rhyme, whereas skaldic verse typically uses both. 2 The diction of eddic poems is simple, while that of skaldic poetry employs a specialised system of metaphorical diction. 3 The themes of eddic poetry are pagan mythology and heroic legend, while skaldic poems deal mainly with recent or contemporary events. 4 Most skaldic poems are attributed to named poets, while eddic poems never are. But these distinctions don’t always work. Rhyme is admittedly rare in eddic poetry, but there are instances of both end rhyme and internal rhyme in the poems in the Codex Regius (Konungsbók, hereafter K).3 Kennings, fornöfn and the contrived word-­order usually associated with skaldic verse are fairly common in both mythological and heroic poems,4 and clearly existed in Old Norse verse long before the composition of any of the skaldic poems we now have, as we can see from the inscription on Tjurkö bracteate 1 (Figure 5.1), which probably dates from the sixth century: wurterunoRan walhakurne. heldaRkunimudiu orti rúnar á Vala korni Hjaldr Kunnmundi (or Guðmundi) H. composed runes for K. on the southerners’ corn [ FIRE)’ (Völuspá K st.51, l.2; H st.44, l.2; SnE st.22, l.2); in legendary verse, Atlakviða st.32 (Neckel/Kuhn st.28): Ok meirr þaðan / menvorð bituls / dólgrögni, dró / til dauðs skókr. ‘And further on from there the bit-­shaker (or ‘the bit-­ship’ > HORSE) carried the necklace-­guardian, the battle-­causer to death’. 5 Some of these have been edited in Heusler and Ranisch’s Eddica Minora, but poems such as Hugsvinnsmál, Noregskonungatal and Ásbjörn’s death song in Orms þáttr Stórólfssonar do not appear there either. 6 E.g., Eiríksmál and Liðsmannaflokkr (see SP I:2 1003–13 and 1014–28 respectively). 7 E.g., the light-­hearted view of inter-­sexual treachery in Hávamál B and the vivid portrayal of an unhappy marriage in Atlamál. 8 As, for example, the poet of the Nibelungenlied does when he replaces Guðrún’s vengeance against Atli for the killing of Gunnarr and Högni, which prioritises obligation to family, with Kriemhilt’s vengeance on Gunther and Hagen for the murder of Sîfrit, where her primary loyalty is to her sexual partner. 9 A possible example is Guðrúnarkviða III, which combines traditional phrases probably derived from Þrymskviða with names drawn from the narrative tradition of Þiðreks

Eddic Poetry and the Uses of Anonymity 125 saga, in a new episode about a trial by ordeal which is not mentioned in any other eddic poem. Further see Eddukvæði, II, ‘Formáli’ 106–10. 10 See e.g., Svend H. Grundtvig et al., eds. 1853–1967. Danmarks gamle folkeviser, 10 vols. Copenhagen: Bagge; Francis J. Child, ed. 1882–98. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 5 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 11 E.g., Dronke, II, 66–7, 117 rejects Völuspá st. 5, ll.5–10 despite the fact that these lines appear in all three surviving versions. 12 ‘The Background and Scope of Vǫluspá’ in The Nordic Apocalypse, 113–45. 13 For my reasons for disagreeing, see McKinnell 2014a. 14 Although Milton and Eliot both draw heavily on mythological and cultural tradition, they both emphasise the role of the individual poet as creator of his work: Milton claims that his ‘adventrous song’ will pursue ‘things unattempted yet in Prose or Rime’ (Paradise Lost Book I, ll.13–16, ed. by Darbishire 1958, 5–6), while Eliot’s ‘These fragments I  have shored against my ruins’ (The Waste Land l.430, see Collected Poems 1909–1935, 77) foregrounds the motivation of his narrating persona rather than relating the content of his sources. Eliot accepts that his work relies on fragments culled from the works of others, but since his death the idea of the poem as a unique object ‘owned’ by the poet has been taken a step further by the administrators of his estate, who have refused most requests to authorise quotations from his works (John Wyse Jackson, review of Robert Crawford, Young Eliot: From St. Louis to The Waste Land, in The Irish Catholic [www.irishcatholic. com/t-­s-­eliot-­the-­years-­of-­g rowth]). 15 In skaldic poetry, alliteration of vr-­ with v-­ is found only in verses with very early attributed dates (Bragi, Ragnarsdrápa st.19, ll.1–2, c. 850, Skj. I  B, 4; Þjóðólfr, Haustlöng st.11, ll.5–6, c. 900, Skj. I B 16; Egill Skallagrímsson, fragment 1,?c. 970?, SP III, 66–7; Eilífr Goðrúnarson, Þórsdrápa st.21, ll.1–2, c. 990, Skj. I B, 144); these are heavily outnumbered in poetry attributed to the same period by examples of alliteration of original vr-­with r-­. 16 See also Lokasenna st.15, ll.4–5, st.18, l.6 and st.27, l.6; Fáfnismál st.7, l.3, st.17, l.3; Sigrdrífumál st.27, l.3. 17 Valrauða (Atlakviða st.4, l.6), refers to the exotic red clothing with which Atli hopes to tempt the Burgundians to visit him; valbaugar (Atlakviða st.28, l.6 – Neckel/Kuhn st.27, l.10), describes the Burgundian treasure which will now remain hidden in the waters of the Rhine. Other val-­ compounds with the sense ‘exotic’ appear only in eddic poetry: valamálmr (Hyndluljóð st.9, l.2), valaript (Sigurðarkviða in skamma st.66, l.3), valbygg (Helgakviða Hundingsbana II st.3, l.4), Valland (Hárbarðsljóð st.24, l.1 and Helreið Brynhildar st.2, l.2), valneskr (Guðrúnarkviða II st.35, l.3). Only the adjective valskr also occurs in skaldic verse. In Eiríksmál and Hákonarmál valhöll probably does mean ‘hall of the slain’, but there are no other examples of the word having this meaning in skaldic verse, although there are some eddic ones (Völuspá st.33, l.7; Grímnismál st.8, l.3 and st.23, l.3; Hyndluljóð st.1, l.7). There are of course many other val-­compounds with the sense ‘slain’, including one in Atlakviða itself (valbráðir ‘slaughtered human meat’, Atlakviða st.36, l.6), so it seems likely that the two senses of valhöll existed alongside each other for a while. 18 Note also the alliteration with wurte (ON orti), which suggests that this sense of vala existed before the ON loss of w before rounded vowels (see Gordon 1981, 279). 19 See Eiríksmál st.1, l.3, SP I: 1006; Hákonarmál st.1, l.6 and st.9, l.6, SP I:174, 184. 20 Das Hildebrandslied (ed. Schlosser 1998, 60–3); Klaeber’s Beowulf. 21 Die Merseburger Zaubersprüche (ed. Schlosser 1998, 108); The Nine Herbs Charm (ed. Dobbie, ASPR VI, 119–21). 22 Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. and trans. by Bernard Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors; Pirminius, Scarapsus, ed. by Eckhard Hauswald. 23 Within the Old Norse tradition (which was not altogether distinct from the Old English one), Ruggerini gives details of a string of collocations starting from the

126  John McKinnell words rún, ráð and ríða and another which includes níð, niðjar, nef-­, nið, neðan and nár. I am also grateful to her for a private communication which included many helpful comments on an earlier version of this chapter. 24 See also Grípisspá st.5, ll.5–6 (Grípir suggests that it would have been more honourable if Sigurðr had faced up to the need to know his predestined fate sooner); Brot st.9, ll.1–2 (Brynhildr imagines how Sigurðr would have disgraced Gunnarr and Högni by taking what they have inherited from Gjúki); Sigurðarkviða in skamma st.17, ll.3–4 (Högni objects that killing Sigurðr for financial reward would be dishonourable). 25 In Sigurðarkviða in skamma st.50, ll.5–8, Brynhildr’s serving women see an honourable future for themselves in the hall; in Helreið Brynhildar st.1, ll.5–8, the hag says that it would be more honourable for Brynhildr to arrange her weaving than to go visiting another woman’s husband; and most relevantly, in Guðrúnarkviða II st.27, ll.5–8, Guðrún agrees that it would not be honourable for her to have children with Atli. 26 Völsunga saga ch. 27 (FSN I, 57), where Sigurðr is called Brynhildr’s frumverr; Þiðreks saga ch. 343 (ed. Unger 1853, 298, lines 14 and 21), where Grímhildr (the Guðrún figure) pointedly asks Brynhildr ‘Who took your virginity, or who is your frumverr?’ 27 Hárbarðsljóð st.8, l.7, where ‘Hárbarðr’ claims that his ferrying instructions are to transport góða eina ‘only good people’. 28 For prose examples of ráð meaning ‘sexual relations outside marriage’ see Fritzner, III, 8. 29 See e.g., Eyrbyggja saga ch. 51 (ÍF 4, 143: Þuríðr persuades her husband not to burn Þorgunna’s bed hangings); Gísla saga ch. 9 (ÍF 6, 31: Ásgerðr says she will put her arms round her husband Þorkell’s neck and tell him that the rumour of her love for Vésteinn is a lie – which it clearly isn’t); and Hávarðar saga Ísfirðings ch. 2 (ÍF 6, 296: Sigríðr enjoys putting her arms round Óláfr’s neck in the course of his seduction of her). A more innocent example is Völundarkviða st.2, ll.1–4, where the swan maiden embraces Völundr’s brother Egill, but even here there may be a sense that his emotions are being manipulated by an unexplained supernatural force. 30 Probably a traditional phrase, although the apparently synonymous Sigmundar burr in Helgakviða Hundingsbana II st.50, l.3 refers to Helgi Hundingsbani rather than to Sigurðr. 31 The only other word which alliterates with seggr more than once is the verb segja (Skírnismál st.4, ll.1–2 and st.5, l.3). This collocation must have been traditional, but both examples seem irrelevant here. 32 Old English verse preserves four cases where sele ‘hall’ alliterates with secg, two of which also include the noun sinc ‘treasure’ (e.g., Andreas 1656, ASPR II, 49). This string also included the verb secgan ‘to say’ (see previous note) and the superlative selesta ‘best’ (Ruggerini, personal communication). 33 LP lists 62 other examples of mikill in eddic verse, 54 of vita, 40 of kona, 111 of koma and 86 of ráða. The pronouns þinn, minn and því depend on context or on who is speaking, and are therefore too generalised to have any particular ideological associations. This sort of commonplace alliterating vocabulary may explain Orchard’s view that ‘Sigurðarkviða in skamma has some mundane verse’ (2011, 326). 34 E.g., þá er þörf verðr (Grágás [1883], 5); bjarga bufe sinu ef þörf er at (NGL I, 10; NGL II, 298). 35 Kormákr alliterates meina with menn and mér, Magnús with mér and Maktildr, and Heilagra manna drápa alliterates meinað with mörg and mikla. 36 The meaning ‘sin’ is probably a Christian extension of the sense ‘malice’, and LP’s only example of the meaning ‘eternal damnation’ is meinum (Arnórr jarlaskáld, Þorfinnsdrápa st.25, l.4 [SP II, 259–60]), where Arnórr prays that God will keep Þorfinnr safe from harm; this looks more like a typical plural usage with the sense ‘misfortune’. 37 See Lokasenna st.3, l.6, st.32, l.3 and st.56, l.3; Grípisspá st.22, ll.7–8; Brot st.4, ll.5–6; Grógaldr st.13, ll.4–5 and st.15, l.3.

Eddic Poetry and the Uses of Anonymity 127 38 Hávamál st.151, l.6, Grípisspá st.36, ll.1–2, Sigrdrífumál st.21, l.6, Guðrúnarkviða II st.32, ll.5–6. 39 Ruggerini, personal communication. 40 Adjectives describing warriors also include morðbráðr, morðfíkinn, morðgjarn, morðkannaðr, morðkendr, morðráðr, morðvaniðr, morðvenjandi; for kennings for ‘warrior’, see morðálfr, morðflytir, morðkennir, morðlundr, morðrennandi, morðrunnr, morðstœrir, morðörr; sword-­kennings include morðaukinn, morðáll, morðbál, morðeggjandi, morðeldr, morðfár, morðhamarr (which may have influenced or been influenced by the instance in Hymiskviða), morðlinnr, morðteinn, morðvöndr; shield kennings include morðhjól, morðröðull, morðský, morðsól, morðveggr; and a raven may be called morðhaukr or morðvalr. 41 Kormákr, lausavísa 62, Skj. I B, 84, ÍF 8, 300. 42 Vígslóði ch. 53, Grágás (1997), 245; Grágás (1852), 154. 43 Sverris saga ch. 11 (ÍF 30, 18), referring to men joining Sverrir during his march to Viken (á því méli); Ágrip ch. 26 (ÍF 29, 27), referring to the period of Knútr’s reign in England (á þessu méli); Jóns saga helga ch. 40 (Byskupa sögur I, 194, 23), referring to a period between Bishop Jón’s death and his translation. 44 The cognate OE mǣl is also fairly common in alliterating positions (see e.g., Beowulf l.1249), but has the more general sense of ‘time, occasion’ rather than referring to a legally limited period of time (Ruggerini, personal communication). 45 Grágás, Kirkjubalkr ch. 3 (Grágás [1852], 13, [1997], 10, [1980], 31). 46 Grágás, Þingskapa þáttr ch. 48 (Grágás [1852], 85, [1997], 405–6, [1980], 89–90, where the number of nights is emended to four). 47 Grágás, Vígsloði ch. 107 (Grágás [1852], 182, [1980], 167). 48 See Eddukvæði, I, 19–20 and refs., especially the evidence cited by Stefán Karlsson and Katrín Axelsdóttir. 49 Italics represent emendations of K. 50 The last three are probably adaptations of the sense ‘to follow a military leader’: in Grípisspá, Sigurðr alludes to the deception that he and Gunnarr will practise on Brynhildr as if their visit to her were a military expedition; in Oddrúnargrátr, Borgný reproaches Oddrún for supposed lack of loyalty; in Atlamál, Guðrún tells her brothers that she warned them not to come to Atli’s hall, and prepares to fight for them.

Abbreviations and Bibliography ASPR: The Anglo-­Saxon Poetic Records Bartsch, K. and H. de Boor, eds. 1979. Das Nibelungenlied, 21st edn., Wiesbaden: Brockhaus Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica. 1979. ed. and trans. by Bernard Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors, Oxford: Clarendon CV: R. Cleasby and Gudbrand Vigfusson. 1957. An Icelandic – English Dictionary, supplement by W. Craigie, 2nd edn., Oxford: Clarendon Darbishire, Helen, ed. 1958. The Poetical Works of John Milton, London: Oxford University Press Dobbie, E. van K., ed. 1942. The Anglo-­Saxon Minor Poems, ASPR VI, New York: Columbia University Press Dronke, Ursula, ed. 1969–2011. The Poetic Edda, 3 vols., Oxford: Oxford University Press Eddukvæði: Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason, eds. 2014. Eddukvæði, 2 vols., Íslenzk fornrit, Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag Eliot, Thomas S. 1936. Collected Poems 1909–1935, London: Faber and Faber Fidjestøl, Bjarne. 1999. The Dating of Eddic Poetry, ed. by O. E. Haugen, Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana 41, Copenhagen: Reitzel Fritzner, Johan. 1954. Ordbog over Det gamle norske Sprog, 3 vols., Oslo: Tryggve Juul Møller FSN: Guðni Jónsson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson, eds. 1943–4. Fornaldarsögur norðurlanda, 3 vols., Reykjavík: Bókaútgáfan forni

128  John McKinnell Gordon, E. V. 1981. An Introduction to Old Norse, 2nd edn., rev. by A. R. Taylor, Oxford: Clarendon Grágás (1852): Vilhjálmur Finsen, ed. 1852. Grágás, Copenhagen: det nordiske Literatur-­ Samfund, repr. Odense: Universitetsforlag, 1974 (MS Gl. kgl. Sml. 1157 fol.) Grágás (1883): Vilhjálmur Finsen, ed. 1883. Grágás, Copenhagen: Kommissionen for det Arnamagnæanske Legat, repr. Odense: Universitetsforlag, 1974 (MSS AM 351 fol. and others) Grágás (1980): Andrew Dennis, Peter Foote and Richard Perkins, eds and trans. 1980. Laws of Early Iceland, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press Grágás (1997): Gunnar Karlsson, Kristján Sveinsson and Mörður Árnason, eds. 1997. Grágás, Reykjavík: Mál og Menning Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1949. Eddukvæði (Sæmundar-­Edda), Reykjavík: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan Gunnell, Terry and Annette Lassen, eds. 2013. The Nordic Apocalypse: Approaches to Vǫluspá and Nordic Days of Judgement, Acta Scandinavica 2, Turnhout: Brepols Hallberg, Peter. 1954. ‘Om Þrymskviða’, ANF 69, 51–77 Heusler, Andreas and Wilhelm Ranisch, eds. 1903. Eddica Minora, Dortmund: W. Ruhfus Hødnebo, Finn. 1972. Ordbog over Det gamle norske Sprog IV: Rettelser og Tillegg, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget ÍF: Íslenzk fornrit. 1933. Reykjavík: Hið Íslenzka fornritafélag Jansson, Sven B. F. 1987. Runes in Sweden, Värnamo: Gidlunds Jónas Kristjánsson. 1988. Eddas and Sagas, Iceland’s Medieval Literature, Reykjavík: Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag Klaeber, F. 2008. Klaeber’s Beowulf, ed. by R. D. Fulk, Robert E. Bjork and John D. Niles, Toronto: University of Toronto Press Kopar, Lilla. 2012. Gods and Settlers: The Iconography of Norse Mythology in Anglo-­Scandinavian Sculpture, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 25, Turnhout: Brepols Krapp, G. P., ed. 1932. The Vercelli Book, ASPR II, New York: Columbia University Press Krause/Jankuhn: Krause, Wolfgang and Herbert Jankuhn, eds. 1966. Die Runeninschriften im älteren Futhark, Göttingen: Vanddenhoeck and Ruprecht Larrington, Carolyne, trans. 1996. The Poetic Edda, Oxford: Oxford University Press Larrington, Carolyne, Judy Quinn and Brittany Schorn, eds. 2014. A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press LP: Finnur Jónsson. 1932. Lexikon Poeticum Antiquæ Linguæ Septentrionalis, Copenhagen: Lynge, repr. Copenhagen: Atlas, 1966 McKinnell, John. 2014b. Essays on Eddic Poetry, ed. by Donata Kick and John D. Shafer, Toronto: University of Toronto Press McKinnell, John. 2014a. ‘The Evolution of Hávamál’, in Essays on Eddic Poetry, ed. by Donata Kick and John D. Shafer, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 59–95 Neckel/Kuhn: Neckel, Gustav and Hans Kuhn, eds. 1962. Edda. Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern, 3rd edn., Heidelberg: Carl Winter NGL: Munch, P. A., R. Keyser, G. Storm and E. Herzberg, eds. 1846–95. Norges gamle Love, 5 vols., Christiania: Kongelige Norske videnskabs selskab Orchard, Andy, trans. 2011. The Elder Edda: A Book of Viking Lore, London: Penguin Pirminius. 2010. Scarapsus, ed. by Eckhard Hauswald, Hanover: Hahn Ruggerini, Maria Elena. 2014. ‘Alliterative lexical collocations in eddic poetry’, in A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, ed. by Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn and Brittany Schorn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 310–30 Samplonius, Kees. 2013. ‘The Background and Scope of Vǫluspá’, in The Nordic Apocalypse: Approaches to Vǫluspá and Nordic Days of Judgement, ed. by Terry Gunnell and Annette Lassen, Acta Scandinavica 2, Turnhout: Brepols, 113–45

Eddic Poetry and the Uses of Anonymity 129 Schlosser, Horst Dieter, ed. and trans. 1998. Althochdeutsche Literatur, Berlin: Erich Schmidt See, Klaus von. 1972. ‘Disticha Catonis und Hávamál’, BGDSL (T) 94, 1–18 See, Klaus von. 1999. ‘Disticha Catonis, Hugsvinnsmál und Hávamál’, in Europa und die Norden im Mittelalter, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 373–96 Sigurður Nordal. 1923–4. ‘Völu-­Steinn’, Iðunn 8, 161–178; trans. by B. S. Benedikz. 1978–9. Saga Book 20:1–2, 114–30 Sijmons/Gering: Sijmons, Barent and Hugo Gering, eds. 1924–31. Die Lieder der Edda, 3 vols., Halle: Waisenhauses Skj.: Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1908–15. Den Oldnorske-­Islandske Skjaldedigtning I-­II A (diplomatic text) and I-­II B (edited text and Danish translation), Copenhagen: Gyldendal SP: (various editors). 2007. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages I-­III and VII-­VIII (all published to date), Turnhout: Brepols Tacitus. 1938. Germania (Cornelii Taciti De Origine et Situ Germanorum), ed. by J. G. C. Anderson, Oxford: Clarendon Unger, C. R., ed. 1853. Saga Ðiðriks Konungs af Bern, Christiania: Feilberg and Landmark Vésteinn Ólason. 2013. ‘Vǫluspá and Time’, in The Nordic Apocalypse: Approaches to Vǫluspá and Nordic Days of Judgement, ed. by Terry Gunnell and Annette Lassen, Acta Scandinavica 2, Turnhout: Brepols, 25–44 www.irishcatholic.com/t-­s-­eliot-­the-­years-­of-­g rowth

Appendix: Echoing Voices in Sigurðarkviða in skamma

A. Brynhildr (Sigurðarkviða in skamma st.61): ‘Sœmri væri Guðrún, systir ykkur Sœmr: Helgakviða Hundigsbana I Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar Helgakviða Hundigsbana II Grípisspá Brot Sœmð: Sigurðarkviða in skamma Atlamál Fjölsvinnsmál

st.45, ll.1–2: st.35, ll.5–6: st.28, ll.1–2 st.5, ll.5–6 st.8, ll.1–2

st.50, ll.5–8 st.94, ll.5–6 st.3, ll.4–5

Sama: Helreið Brynhildar st.1, ll.5–8 Sigurðarkviða in skamma Guðrúnarkviða II

st.17, ll.3–4 st.27, ll.5–8

væri ykkr, Sinfjötli, sœmra49 myclu gunni at heyja oc glaða örnu þér er sœmra sverð at rjóða Þér er, Sinfjötli, sœmra myklu gunni at heyja oc glaða örnu Þiggþú hér, Sigurðr, væri sœmra fyrr, Væria þat sœmt at hann svá réði Gjúka arfi oc Gota mengi Œrnar soltnar, munum enn lifa; verða salkonur sœmð at vinna. sœmð var at slíku, silfr var þó meira. Sœmðarorða lauss hefir þú, seggr, of lifat. betr semði þér borða at rekja heldr en vitja vers annarrar. Samir eigi okkr slíkt at vinna, samir eigi mér við son Buðla ætt at auka né una lífi.

frumvér sínum at fylgja dauðum, fylgja ‘to follow a military leader’: Atlamál st.30, ll.11–12 Orkningr þann héto er þeim enn fylgði Atlamál st.98, ll.3–4 fórom af landi, fylgðom Sigurð fylgja in contexts involving women: Sigurðarkviða in st.69, ll.5–6 ef honum fylgir skamma

ferð mín heðan;

Eddic Poetry and the Uses of Anonymity 131 Sigurðarkviða in skamma Grípisspá Oddrúnargrátr Atlamál

st.70, ll.1–2

Þvíat honum fylgja

fimm ambóttir

st.38, ll.5–6 st.15, ll.5–6 st.46, ll.7–8

Þar mun fláræði fylgja annat, enn ek fylgðak þér á fjörgynju, fylgði saðr slíku, sagði hon mun fleira:50

ef henni gæfi góðra ráð, Grípisspá

st.26, ll.1–4

Hávamál

st.9, ll.4–6

Vilkat ek reiði ríks þjóðkonungs, góð ráð, at heldr, Grípis, þiggja; þvíat ill ráð hefir maðr opt þegit annars brjóstum ór.

góðra ráða (plural, in contexts involving women): Brot st.3, ll.5–6 fyrman hon Guðrúnu góðra ráða Grípisspá st.45, ll.3–4 anntu Guðrúnu góðra ráða; eða ætti hon hug Guðrúnarhvöt

oss um líkan.’ st.3, ll.7–10

ef it móð ættið minna brœðra harðan hug Húnkonunga.

B. Gunnarr (Sigurðarkviða in skamma st.44, ll.3–12): ‘Seggi vil ek alla

í sal ganga:

For seggr/salr alliteration cf. only: Reginsmál st.14, ll.3–4 ‘Kominn er hingat konr Sigmundar seggr inn snarráði til salar várra;’ (ref. to Sigurðr) Seggr: Singular usually ref. a named hero (e.g., Sigurðr: Reginsmál st.14, ll.3–4; Sigurðarkviða in skamma st.4, ll.1–2, 11 examples); Plural: ref. humankind in general, two examples: Völuspá st.20, ll.11–12 alda börnum ørlög seggja. Brot st.5, ll.5–6 ‘Hvar er nú Sigurðr, seggja dróttinn Ref. a group who are in some way not admirable, six examples: Völundarkviða st.7, ll.5–6 Nóttum fóru seggir, negldar váru brynjur (Níðuðr’s men) Sigrdrífumál st.30, ll.1–2 Þat ræð ek þér it sétta, þótt með seggjum fari ölðrmál til öfug (quarrelsome drunkards) Sigrdrífumál st.31, ll.1–2 Söngr ok öl hefir seggjum verit mörgum at móðtrega) (drunkards) Guðrúnarkviða II st.43, ll.1–2 Þar munu seggir um sœing dœma (Atli’s men) Guðrúnarkviða III st.9, ll.5–6 ‘Sé nú, seggir, - sykn em ek orðin (Atli’s men) Atlamál st.1, ll.3–4 seggir samkundu sú var nýt fæstum (Atli’s men)

132  John McKinnell Salr: 56 examples – recurring alliterating words include: sól (five examples, e.g., Völuspá st. 5, ll.5–6; usually in mythological contexts) suðr- (seven examples, e.g., sunnanverðum, Helreið Brynhildar st.10, ll.1–2; suðrþjóðum, Atlakviða st.14, ll.5–6; connotations of foreign exotic splendour) sess(-)­ (four examples; connotations of [supposed] companionship and support): Hávamál st.152, l.3 sal um sessmögum (Óðinn’s song to protect from fire) Vafþrúðnismál st.9, l.3 Farðu í sess í sal (Vafþrúðnir invites Óðinn in, then threatens him) Grímnismál st.14, l.2–3 en þar Freyja ræðr sessa kostum í sal Atlakviða st.14, ll.5–6 sal um suðrþjóðum sleginn sessmeiðum Sigurðr (+ synonyms, three examples; contexts of peace and concord): Helgakviða st.50, ll.3–4 Sigmundar burr frá sölum Óðins Hundingsbana II Grípisspá st.43, ll.3–4 Sigurðar ok Gunnars í sölum Gjúka Reginsmál st.14, ll.2–4 konr Sigmundar, seggr inn snarráði til sala várra sitja (three examples; contexts of isolation, danger or depression): Skírnismál st.3, ll.4–5 hví þú einn sitr ennlanga sali Hymiskviða st.12, ll.1–2 Sé þú hvar sitja und salar gafli Völundarkviða st.29, ll.5–6 en hann á salgarð settisk at hvílask þína með mínum, nú er þörf mikil, þörf: ‘need’ or ‘lack’; usually + genitive of the thing needed (11 eddic examples), e.g., Hávamál st.5, ll.1–2 Vits er þörf þeim er víða ratar four other examples of absolute use: Sigurðarkviða in st.44, l.12 (see below) skamma Helgakviða st.40, ll.7–8 þótt þetta sinn þörfgi væri. Hjörvarðssonar Reginsmál st.10, l.8 margt er þat er þörf þjár. Atlamál st.6, ll.7–8 fellskat saðr sviðri, sýsti um þörf gesta. (the last three all in contexts of violent death, past [Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar] or future [Reginsmál, Atlamál]) (The senses ‘benefit’ and ‘justification’ only occur in skaldic verse). Cf. also contexts in legal prose, e.g.: Grágás [1883], 5 þá er þörf verðr; NGL I, 10 and NGL II, 298: bjarga bufe sinu ef þörf er at. vita ef meini

morðför konu,

meina (vb. ‘to hinder’): no other egs. in eddic verse; three skaldic examples: Magnús berfœttr 3, l.1 (SP II, 387, on his frustrated desire for Makthildr, daughter of Malcolm Canmore, king of Scots); Kormákr, lausavísa 18, l.1 (Skj I B, 74, on being denied the sight of Steingerðr);

Eddic Poetry and the Uses of Anonymity 133 Heilagra manna drápa st.6, l.2 (SP VII, 876–78, on the self-mortification of St. Edmund, including his resistance to physical desire for women). mein: (noun, sg., ‘harm’, ‘malice’, ‘wickedness’ [CV ‘harm’]): Lokasenna st.3, l.6 ok blend ek þeim svá meini mjöð (Loki’s malice v. the gods) Lokasenna st.32, l.3 ok meini blandin mjök (Freyja’s incest) Grípisspá st.22, ll.7–8 eða mein gørisk á mínum hag (potential harm to Sigurðr) Brot st.4, ll.5–6 áðr þeir mætti um lystir (plot to kill Sigurðr) Grógaldr st.13, ll.4–5 at því firr megi þér til meins gøra (charm against intentional harm to Svipdagr by a ‘Christian dead woman’) mein: (noun, pl., ‘misfortune’, ‘loss’ [CV ‘drawback’]): Hávamál st.151, ll.6 þann eta mein heldr en mik. Grípisspá st.36, ll.1–2 ‘Mein eru fyr höndum, má ek líta þat Sigrdrífumál st.21, l.6 öll eru mein of metin. Guðrúnarkviða II st.32, ll.5–6 ok mögum sínum meina stórra Grógaldr st.15, l.3 ok standit þér mein fyrir munum [LP gives both meanings, but does not distinguish between sg. and pl.] (the sense ‘sin’ appears only in religious skaldic verse, in sg. unless more than one sin is referred to, e.g., Gamli kanoki, Harmsól st.41, l.8 (SP VII, 108–9). morðför: Sigurðarkviða in skamma

st.40, ll.7–8

‘er hann mína spyrr

(morð:) Atlakviða Atlakviða

st.34, ll.3–4 st.44, ll.3–4

Hamðismál Hamðismál

st.8, ll.1–2 st.11, ll.5–6

jó eyrskan aptr frá morði ok frá morði þeira Gunnars komnir váru ór Myrkheimi Atla þóttisk þú stríða at Erps morði mörum húnlenskum morðs at hefna

(morðgjarn:) Hymiskviða

st.36, ll.3–4

veifði hann Mjöllni

(morðvargr:) Völuspá

st.38, ll.3–4

menn meinsvara

unz af méli

morðför görva’

morðgjörnum fram

ok morðvargar

enn mein komi,

af méli: ‘In course of time’; no parallels in verse; prose examples cited by Fritzner are all either in contexts of royal or episcopal authority (Sverris saga ch. 11, ÍF 30, 18; Ágrip ch. 26, ÍF 29, 27; Jóns saga helga ch. 40 (Byskupa sögur I, 194, st.23), or refer to legally limited periods of time (Grágás [1852], 13,8, 85,3, 182,6, 509,14; Víga-Glúms saga, ch. 19 [ÍF 9, 66]); ­ þá látum því

þarfar ráða.’

þarfar: see þörf above.

6 Accretive Quotation and the Performance of Verse in Fagrskinna Helen F. Leslie-­Jacobsen

The saga Fagrskinna contains over 270 stanzas; the sheer quantity of verse alone indicates the importance of poetry to the construction of the text. This chapter considers how poetry and prose interact to form the narrative of Fagrskinna.1 With a focus on the narrative role of verse, this chapter contends that the traditional division of stanzas performed in a prose narrative into evidence or story/situational stanzas cannot be maintained if we look carefully at sections in which a run of stanzas is performed by the narrator. To describe such prosimetric constructions, I introduce the term ‘accretive quotation’, and my chapter shows that accretive quotation is a central structure in Fagrskinna, in which evidence stanzas performed by the narrator as accretive quotations also contribute to the story. Throughout this chapter, ‘accretive quotation’ is the term I will use to describe a cumulative arrangement of stanzas in saga prose. In this particular arrangement, a run of stanzas is cited and the stanzas have prose between them. We find these arrangements in sagas when sequences of stanzas are performed in the narrative by the narrator. The prose can range in length from a couple of words to short passages. In instances of accretive quotation in Fagrskinna, skaldic stanzas proliferate in the prose saga to form prosimetric complexes in which verse is in primary focus. Accretive quotation is one method of presenting the performance of skaldic poetry within a written narrative, and is particularly relevant in kings’ sagas in which many skaldic strophes are cited as corroboration for the prose. As a case study for accretive quotation, I have selected Fagrskinna, which, in its oldest version, dates from the thirteenth century, from just before Heimskringla was written, since it appears that Snorri knew the work (Finlay 2004, 17, 19–20). Both original manuscripts of the two redactions of Fagrskinna, A and B, are lost, although in the case of the oldest redaction (B) one leaf survives in Oslo (NRA 51). Textual editions are thus based on copies. Although it survives as a written saga, we can be relatively certain that Fagrskinna was itself performed. It was read aloud to King Hákon on his deathbed in Hákonar saga, after he found books in Latin too tiring to understand in his weakened state: Í sóttinni lét hann fyrst lesa sér látínubækr. En þá þótti honum sér mikil mæða í at hugsa þar eftir hversu þat þýddi. Lét hann þá lesa fyrir DOI: 10.4324/9780367809324-10

The Performance of Verse in Fagrskinna  135

sér norrænubækr nætr ok daga, fyrst heilagra manna sögur, ok er þær þraut lét hann lesa sér konungatal frá Hálfdani svarta ok síðan frá öllum Nóregskonugum, hverjum eftir annan. (Sverrir Jakobsson et al. 2013, 261) During his illness he first had books in Latin read to him. But then it seemed very tiresome to him to think about how each of them should be translated. Then he had books in Old Norse read to him night and day, first sagas of saints, and when they were finished, he had read to him the catalogue of kings from Hálfdan the Black and following this all the kings of Norway, one after another. (My translation.) The konungatal mentioned in Hákonar saga is likely Fagrskinna, since in the medieval manuscripts of the text the saga is referred to as Nóregs konungatal and ættartal Nóregs konunga (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, lxv). Although the text draws heavily on earlier written sources, Fagrskinna distinguishes itself through its proliferation of skaldic stanzas.2 Whoever put the narrative together seems to have had a special interest in verse,3 and analysing this saga thus affords us an opportunity to explore in some depth what role the skaldic stanzas play in the prose narrative. I would suggest that the manner in which some of the stanzas are arranged may have been directly derived from oral skaldic prosimetra, in which accompanying prose is thought to have travelled with the stanzas.4 The sections in which more than one verse is cited (which are numerous) may be particularly illuminating in this respect. The narrative of Fagrskinna contains multiple instances of accretive quotation, in which stanzas are quoted consecutively or with only a small passage of prose in between in order to build up a unit of verses. This is common in heavily prosimetric narratives such as Gylfaginning and the fornaldarsögur, and a king’s saga such as Fagrskinna could be looked to as a model for the written construction of prosimetric narratives, especially since the written konungasögur predate the writing down of the Edda or the fornaldarsögur. By exploring how evidence stanzas are used in Fagrskinna, I  begin by looking more generally at accretive quotation and the difference between evidence and story/situational stanzas in saga prose, before moving on to an examination of evidence stanzas in particular. After considering simple evidence stanzas, I turn to what I term complex evidence stanzas that display accretive quotation, showing through a series of case studies the dissolution of the boundary between evidence stanzas and story stanzas, and focussing on the effects of complex evidence stanzas on the saga narrative.

Type of Stanzas (Evidence/Speech) Stanzas that appear in a prose narrative can be categorised according to what role they play in the prose. Typically, stanzas are classed as performing one of

136  Helen F. Leslie-­Jacobsen

two functions: they are either evidence-­based quotations, in which a stanza is cited in support of something narrated in the prose, or they are classed as stanzas in a situational role, such as speech stanzas (Phelpstead 2008, 23, 35 fn. 12; O’Donoghue 2005). Bjarni Einarsson has a slightly different classification, preferring to divide verses into one group of evidence-­based stanzas and a second group of story stanzas (those that are considered part of the story), and this classification has proved popular (1974, 118). In this traditional classification of evidence stanzas versus situational/story stanzas, evidence stanzas can be skipped without damaging the content of the story for either a reader or listener, whereas if story/situational stanzas are skipped, the understanding of the context as a whole in the narrative is damaged, largely because story stanzas are often a versified reply to a question (Bjarni Einarsson 1974, 118, 122). From the perspective of this traditional classification of evidence or story/ situational stanza, both story/situational and evidence stanzas are found in Fagrskinna, although stanzas are mostly used in an evidential role, as is usual for konungasögur. Speech stanzas are in the minority in Fagrskinna and conversations usually take place in prose. Dialogue in verse seems not to have featured in the traditions upon which Fagrskinna drew, or only to a very limited extent, or possibly it simply did not suit the way in which the compiler of the saga chose to work. When evidence stanzas appear, an anecdote is told in the prose, and the veracity of this prose anecdote is anchored, or ‘proved’, by a stanza introduced with something like sem hér segir ‘as it says here’. An example of this can be found in stanza 256: Svá segir menn, at Víðkunnr Jóanssonr mælti þá er Þórir var leiddr til gálga, ok hann veik af götunni, er hann var fótstirðr: ‘Meir á stjórn Þórir, meir á bakborða!’ Þetta mælti ok Víðkunnr fyrir því at Þórir hafði brennt bœ hans í Bjarkey ok skip gott, er hann átti, ok hafði Þórir mælt, þá er snekkjan logaði: ‘Halt meir á stjórn, Víðkunnr, nú meir á bakborða!’ Víðkunnr hafði þá undan flýtt ok Jóan faðir hans, sem hér segir: Breðr í Bjarkey miðri ból þars ek veit góligst. Téra þarft af Þóri – þýtr vandar böl – standa. Jóan mun eigi frýja elds né ráns, es kveldar. Svíðr bjartr logi breiðan bý; leggr reyk til skýja. (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 305) People say that Víðkunnr Jóansson said as Þórir was led to the gallows, and strayed from the path because his legs were stiff: ‘More to starboard, Þórir, more to port!’

The Performance of Verse in Fagrskinna  137

And Víðkunnr said this because Þórir had burned his farm on Bjarkey and a fine ship that he owned, and Þórir had said as the ship blazed: ‘Hold more to starboard, Víðkunnr, now more to port!’ Then Víðkunnr and his father Jóan had fled, as is said here: There burns in the middle of Bjarkey the best dwelling I know. The grief – from Þórir no good is gained – of the stick is roaring. Towards evening Jóan need not protest too little fire or plundering; bright flame sears the wide estate; smoke to the clouds rises. (Finlay 2004, 244) Most of the stanzas in Fagrskinna operate in this manner. The use of evidence verses indicates that the saga author considered the stanzas to be his primary source of authority for his prose narrative. In the case of the quotation above, the veracity of the prose anecdote is also anchored with a reference to the authority of common knowledge, since it begins with Svá segja menn ‘people say’. A reliance on stanzas to lend authority to the narrative may have its basis in several different elements. In the prologue to Heimskringla, Snorri writes that En þótt vér vitim eigi sannendi á því, þá vitum vér dœmi til, at gamlir frœðimenn hafi slíkt fyrir satt haft ‘although we do not know how true they are, we know of cases where learned men of old have taken such things to be true’ (Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson 1941, 4; trans. Faulkes and Finlay 2011, 3), and Snorri indicates that skaldic stanzas are trustworthy because skaldic stanzas are difficult to change without it corrupting the metre and thus being obvious (Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson 1941, 7). The third factor is that the audience may have been expected to be familiar with the stanzas (which would fit with the appeal to common knowledge). Had the stanzas been omitted by the compiler of the narrative, the compiler may have been viewed as leaving out what the audience knew to exist or verses they considered to be reliable sources, thus possibly presenting the compiler as giving an untrustworthy representation of the sources. It is possible that the method of quoting selected verses from all those that the author of the narrative knew, and accompanying these verses with an explanatory, accompanying prose framework (Begleitprosa) is a tactic of storytelling that may have followed the material from oral into written tradition. It is impossible to know to what extent these Begleitprosa supplemented the verses in the oral period (Beyschlag 1953), although it has been suggested, and on the whole accepted by scholars, that in the oral period too, the prosimetric saga-­like form was a context in which poetry existed and was transmitted (see e.g., Wood 1960; Lönnroth 1990, 2011; Harris 1997; Leslie 2013). For example, John Lindow links the prose that likely

138  Helen F. Leslie-­Jacobsen

accompanied eddic and skaldic verse in oral tradition with the explanations that Snorri gives of the stanzas he quotes, since if Snorri knew prose explanations of mythological and heroic allusions, then he likely made use of them in his Edda. Lindow does point out that this cannot be proved, and that Snorri must have faced some instances of unclear material which he attempted to homogenise and elucidate (1985, 36). Harris notes that ‘once explanatory prose had entered the manuscript tradition, it would have been copied and adapted, and could even have been subject to influence from written sagas or Latin sources’ (1997, 133). Oral tradition may still have had a part to play even when the prose accompaniments were written down, providing differing contexts and new influences that became part of the manuscript tradition. Accretive quotation is one way that this previously oral tradition may present itself in written saga narrative, since the technique moves the oral presentation of skaldic stanzas in a prose framework to the retelling of skaldic poetry in a written form in which prose and verse are used by the compiler to complement each other and lend authority to the narrative. The building up of narrative units by the performance of multiple verses seems to be particularly important, both to Fagrskinna and other prosimetric sagas. Often this is done in Fagrskinna by citing multiple evidence stanzas, where stanzas are quoted consecutively or with only a small amount of prose in between in order to build up a unit of verses. This accretive corroboration is achieved by three methods: 1 by quoting more than one stanza in a block of stanzas; 2 by quoting more than one stanza interupted by lines of prose; 3 by quoting an additional poem or poet to corroborate both the prose and what was said in the first place in verse. Additional stanzas can also be added to these contexts, as will be illustrated below. In these longer units of prose and verse built up by accretive quotation, the stanzas are introduced as evidence stanzas. However, the content of the prose in this prosimetric structure makes it so the stanzas also contribute to the story. The connecting prose between the stanzas links the stanzas together in different ways, such as by providing extra information pertaining to the story, by explaining the content of the stanzas, by giving extra information about the poet or the context the poem was composed in, by pointing to the historical nature of the stanzas, by introducing aesthetic effects and by indicating the knowledge of the narrator/saga author and that expected of the saga’s intended audience. Analysing such blocks of accretive quotation, the techniques associated with them and the effects they have in the narrative may give us a window into oral performance conventions by giving us a method to discern how poetry and prose interact to form narratives. Most notably, if we look carefully at this type of prosimetric

The Performance of Verse in Fagrskinna  139

structure, we can see that the division between story/situational stanzas and evidence stanzas begins to dissolve, suggesting a more nuanced approach to the authorial use of stanzas for evidential purposes than has previously been suggested.

Evidence Stanzas in Fagrskinna In what follows, I present an analysis of the evidence stanzas of Fagrskinna, and discuss how these stanzas function in the prose narrative, with the intention of showing that accretive quotation is a central structure in Fagrskinna, and that stanzas performed as evidence stanzas by the narrator in accretive quotation also contribute to the story, thereby breaking down the traditional division of evidence stanza versus story/situational stanza. The method I have used in my analysis of the prosimetrum of Fagrskinna is to divide the stanzas into groups from the perspective of how many stanzas are quoted at once, whether or what prose connects multiple stanzas and whether additional information is given in the prose (such as the name of the poet of the stanza). As mentioned above, Fagrskinna has been chosen because it is rather long and has many stanzas, and thus has the potential to display a wide range of narrative uses of verses; its author was clearly very interested in skaldic verse and how it could be used. The most frequent stanzas to occur in the saga are introduced as evidence stanzas in the prose, and I  have divided these stanzas into groups for the purpose of analysis. Firstly, I have grouped evidence stanzas into (1) simple evidence stanzas and (2) complex evidence stanzas. Simple evidence stanzas consist of a prose introduction that demarcates them as playing an evidential role in the prose, and they are either a single stanza or a group of stanzas with no interconnecting prose. Although simple evidence stanzas do not display accretive quotation to a large degree, I have chosen to present them in my analysis because they provide a basic point of comparison for more complex constructions. Complex evidence stanzas are prosimetric constructs consisting of multiple stanzas with interconnecting prose between them, and it is in these complex evidence stanzas that we can see accretive quotation at play as one method of promoting the performance of skaldic poetry within a narrative. In instances of accretive quotation in complex evidence stanzas, we see the division between evidence stanzas and story/situational stanzas challenged. It is clear that although some examples of accretive quotation do play an evidential role in the narrative, they also contribute towards the content of the narrative.

Simple Evidence Stanzas Simple evidence stanzas are stanzas that are marked as playing an evidential role by the prose that introduces them. The prosimetric construction they appear in is simple in that it consists of one stanza or several stanzas with

140  Helen F. Leslie-­Jacobsen

no interconnecting prose between them. Such simple evidence stanzas are introduced in the prose in Fagrskinna in six different ways: 1 2 3 4 5 6

as anonymous; with the name of the poet given in the prose; with the name of the poet and the subject of the poem given in the prose; with the name of the poet and the name of the poem given in the prose; with the context provided for the stanza in the prose; with verse stated as the source of the prose.

The simplest introductory phrases to occur in Fagrskinna are: sem hér segir ‘as it says here’ (see Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 88 [sts 43–5], 120 [st.84], 239 [st.195], 305 [st.256], 308 [st.258]) or svá sem hér segir ‘just as it says here’ (see Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 109 [st.69], 115 [st.79], 116 [st.80], 118 [st.81], 119 [sts 82–3]). These phrases form the introduction to simple evidence stanzas that are anonymous (quoted without the name of the poet given). Simple Evidence Stanzas with the Name of the Poet in the Prose

Simple evidence stanzas with the name of the poet also occur frequently. Here we find two rather common introductory formulae: sem segir/sagði [NAME]5 and svá sagði/segir [NAME]6 are both used to introduce one or more stanzas (these stanzas do not have prose in between them). A number of related formulations also occur a handful of times: • • •

•

svá kvað [NAME] occurs just once at st.113 (Svá kvað Hallfrøðr [Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 157]). sem [NAME] sagði/segir, such as sem Einar skálaglamm sagði (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 111 [st.70], further examples occur at 113 [st.74], 113 [sts 75–6], 231 [st.186], 234 [st.188], 264 [st.221]). svá sem segir [NAME], such as svá sem segir Glúmr Geirasonar (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 108 [sts 67–8], further examples also occur at 266 [st.225] and at 114 [sts 77–8] as part of a longer introduction with Svá er sagt, at sjau tignir men fylgðu hónum, svá sem segir Einarr). svá sem [NAME] segir occurs twice at st.114 (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 158) and sts 245–7 (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 291–3).

The introductory formulas can be used either in a blunt manner, where they and the stanzas that follow are simply stated without any concern for narrative flow, or blended neatly into the prose, as in chapter 27 in the introduction to stanza 127: Níundu orrostu átti hann við Nýjarmóðu, ok segir Sighvatr, at hann barðisk þá enn við Dani ‘The ninth battle he fought by Nýjamóða, and Sighvatr says that he was fighting against the Danes again then’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 169; trans. Finlay 2004, 135). Sighvatr is also appealed to as the source in the prose surrounding stanza 136 discussing Jarl Rögnvaldr Úlfsson: Hann var enn mesti vinr Óláfs konungs, sem sagði Sighvatr, þá er hann

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var aptr kominn ór sendiferð, er Óláfr konungr hafði sent hann austr í Garðaríki ‘He was a very great friend of King Óláfr, as Sighvatr said when he had some back from the mission on which King Óláfr had sent him east into Garðaríki’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 180; trans. Finlay 2004, 144). In both of these examples, the prose emphasises the poet and the stanza as the direct source of knowledge for the narrator. Simple Evidence Stanzas with Context Provided for the Stanza in the Prose

Sometimes, rather than simply providing a brief and formulaic introduction of a few words, the prose introductions to evidence stanzas are longer and more specific: Göngu-­ Hrólfr jarl var sonr Rögnvalds Mœrajarls, bróðir Þóris jarls þegjanda ok Torf-­Einars í Orkneyjum, ok Hrollaugr hét einn, svá sem Einarr segir, þá er hann hafði drepit Hálfdan hálegg, son Haralds ens hárfagra, er áðr hafði drepit föður hans. (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 291) Jarl Göngu-­Hrólfr was the son of Jarl Rögnvaldr of Mœrir, brother of Jarl Þórir þegjandi (the Silent) and of Torf-­Einarr of Orkney, and there was another son called Hrollaugr, as (Torf-­)Einarr said when he had killed Haraldr hárfagri’s son Hálfdan háleggr (Long-­leg), who had earlier killed his father. (Finlay 2004, 233) This introduction provides a longer and more precise motivation and context for the content of the verse. Stanza 108, on the other hand, is introduced with the phrase Þetta orð váttaði Hallfrøðr á þá lund ‘These words Hallfrøðr attested in this way’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 152; trans. Finlay 2004, 122) in the middle of a passage reporting the king’s speeches. There is no reaction to these stanzas in the prose, although reciting a stanza can have consequences in the story-­world: Hér fyrir gaf Haraldr konungr Eyvindi banasök ‘For this King Haraldr charged Eyvindr with an offence punishable by death’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 100; trans. Finlay 2004, 77). The stanzas that provoked the punishment from the king are introduced as evidence stanzas with sem sagði Eyvindr skáldaspillir (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 99), even though the reaction recorded makes it clear that they also contribute to the story. Simple Evidence Stanzas with the Name of the Poem or Subject Provided in the Prose

Another relatively straightforward type of introduction to evidence stanzas gives more information about, for example, the name of the poem or whom it was composed about. We find simple evidence stanzas (occurring both

142  Helen F. Leslie-­Jacobsen Table 6.1 Examples of the introductions to simple evidence stanzas in which the name of the poet and whom he composed the poem about are mentioned Page reference and stanza number following Bjarni Einarsson (1985)

Introduction in prose

129–30 (sts 87–9) 138 (st.95) 191–3 (sts 150–3)

Þetta segir Þórðr Kolbeinssonr í kvæði, er hann orti um Eirík jarl svá sem segir í kvæði því, er orti Eyjúlfr dáðaskáld um Eirík Í frá þessi ferð Knúts konungs segir Þórarinn loftunga í kvæði því, er hann orti um Knút konung Svá segir í kvæði því, er orti Bjarni gullbrárskáld um Kálf Árnason sem segir Valgarðr á Velli, er orti um Harald svá segir Steinn . . . Þetta orti hann um Óláf . . .

195 (st.155) 227 (st.182) 279 (st.237)

Table 6.2 Examples of the introductions to simple evidence stanzas in which the name of the poet and the name of the poem are mentioned Page reference and stanza number following Bjarni Einarsson (1985)

Introduction in prose

65–6 (sts 16–17)

Svá segir Eyvindr skáldaspillir, faðir Háreks í Þjóttu, í kvæði því er kallat er Háleygjatal Synir Eiríks drápu ok Tryggva Óláfsson ok marga aðra konunga ok jarla ok aðra ríkismenn, sem Glúmr Geirasonr segir í Gráfeldardrápu, er hann orti um Harald konung

102 (st.66)

individually and in groups) with the name of the poet and whom he composed the poem about in the prose (see Table 6.1). Following stanza 95, we find the comment Þetta er tallit et fyrsta framaverk Eiríks í hans sögu ‘That is counted as Eiríkr’s first glorious exploit in his saga’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 139; trans. Finlay 2004, 110), in which the context of the stanza points towards its record in another saga, perhaps as further evidence of its trustworthiness and acknowledgement of a source the audience might also know. There are also simple evidence stanzas with both the name of the poet and the name of the poem (see Table 6.2). These stanzas, or groups of stanzas, do not have any prose between the multiple stanzas that are quoted, although extra information may be provided in the prose forming the introduction to the stanza, for example by providing the name of the son of the poet or by stating whom the poem was composed about. Simple Evidence Stanzas with Verse Stated as the Source for the Prose

On several occasions, the narrative explicitly indicates that the verse is a source for the prose: in chapter 12, the prose is told eptir því sem Eyvindr segir ‘according to what Eyvindr says’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 88 [st.42]; trans.

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Finlay 2004, 67). Elsewhere, the stanza is used as a source to contradict the information that the narrator (and, it may be implied, the saga author by extension) has heard nothing else about the event: ok er Sigvalda lítt við orrostuna getit, en þó segir Skúli Þorsteinssonar í sínum flokki, at Sigvaldi var þar ‘and little is said of Sigvaldi in connection with the battle, and yet Skúli Þorsteinsson says in his flokkr that Sigvaldi was there’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 154 [st.109]; trans. Finlay 2004, 123). This is probably also indicative that oral tradition played an important role in furnishing content for the narrative, both for prose and poetry, and in terms of how the narrator presents the story, indicates a wish to further the trustworthiness of the account by mentioning all the sources that might be commonly known.

Complex Evidence Stanzas I term ‘complex evidence stanzas’ those evidence stanzas that clearly have a corroborative role in the narrative, but are not as simple in prosimetric construction as the straightforward quotations discussed above. Such complex quotations typically contain prose in between the stanzas and consist of more than one stanza. Although the stanzas function as evidence stanzas, they also build out the story; the prosimetric context of the stanzas variously portrays the same set of stanzas as both story stanzas and evidence stanzas. Complex evidence stanzas are most likely to reflect the prose-­verse constructions used in the oral performance of skaldic poetry. Complex Evidence Stanzas with One Poet Named in the Prose

The very first stanzas in Fagrskinna are complex evidence stanzas in chapter two in which one poet is named in the introduction to the verse. The chapter begins with a description of Haraldr hárfagri that assures the reader that his beautiful appearance befitted his courtly achievements and status as king. The description of his glory at the beginning of chapter two is authenticated by 15 verses, all drawn from Haraldskvæði (also known as Hrafnsmál), that span the whole length of the second chapter, with pieces of connecting prose in between. In this prosimetric section, we find this pattern: [prose 1] sts 1–6 [prose 2] sts 7–11 [prose 3] sts 12–13 [prose 4] sts 14–15 [prose 5]. At the very beginning of this prosimetric block we find the introductory formula svá sem segir [NAME] (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 59–63) in [prose 1]. Extra information is also given about the poet in the first piece of prose in addition to the introductory phrase: svá sem segir Hornklofi skáld, gamall vinr konunga, er jafnan hafði í hirðum verit frá barnœsku ‘as says the poet Hornklofi, an old friend of kings who had been in courts constantly since his childhood’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 59; trans. Finlay 2004, 43). The saga also comments after the first block of stanzas on what they show: Hér þat sýnt í þessi frásögu, hverr siðr var Haralds konungs þá hríð, er hann ruddi ríki fyrir sér ‘It is shown in this narrative what the custom of King Haraldr was at the time when

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he was conquering the kingdom’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 61; trans. Finlay 2004, 44). The function of the accompanying prose here is to point to the historical value of the stanzas and to add extra information about the poet; this extra information lends greater authority to the narrator. Although the poem is not named, in the prose following the first six stanzas [prose 2], the narrative voice does acknowledge that the next group of stanzas are from the same poem: Þetta er enn kveðit í sama kvæði ok spurt á þessa lund eptir mildin hans ‘The same poem goes on to ask in this fashion about his generosity’ (Bjarni Einarrson 1985, 61; trans. Finlay 2004, 44). The function of the prose here is to indicate the continuation of the source text and its value to the present narrative. Following the second block of stanzas (sts 7–11), the section of [prose 3] makes explicit what is proved by these stanzas: Þetta ber vitni mildi konungs ‘This bears witness to the king’s generosity’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 63; trans. Finlay 2004, 45). Thus, the prose both before and after the stanzas emphasises what the stanzas prove (that the king is generous). This prosimetric construction functions as a series of authenticating statements in the saga narrative. The prose after the second block of stanzas [prose 3] also functions as an introduction to sts 12–13. The introduction is quite descriptive in nature, commenting on the appearance of the king’s champions: Þetta ber vitni mildi konungs. Hann tignuðu í sinni flygð ok fyrirgöngu kappar hans, er váru svá ágjarnir ok óhræddir, at þeir vörðu öndverða fylking í orrostu; höfðu vargstakka fyrir brynjur, svá sem hér segir: ‘At berserkja reiðu vil ek spyrja, bergir hræsævar: hversu er fengit þeim es í folk vaða, vígdjörfum verum?’ ‚Ulfheðnar þeir heita, es í orrostum blóðgar randir bera, vigrar rjóða, þá es til vígs koma, þeim es þar sisst saman; áræðismönnum einum hygg ek þar under felisk skyli sá enn skilvísi, þeim es í skjöld höggva.’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 63–4) This bears witness to the king’s generosity. His champions, who were so impetuous and fearless that they fought in the forefront of the army

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in battle, glorified him by their service and their onslaughts; they wore wolfskin tunics instead of coats of mail, as is said here: ‘Of berserks’ gear I will ask you, imbiber of carrion-­sea; what is the state of those who storm into warfare, men bold in battle?’ ‘They are called wolf-­skins, warriors who carry bloody shields in battle; spears they redden when they join the fighting, drawn up side by side there; only men of action, as it seems, that ruler sharp-­witted shows reliance, shield-­hewers in battle.’ (Finlay 2004, 45–6) The prose following stanzas 12–13 [prose 4] reinforces this message and continues the forward flow of the narrative by adding that the king also had a jester (leikari, literally meaning ‘a player’, but often translated as ‘jester’): Hér er ok sagt, at Haraldr konungr hafði leikara í hírð sinni: ‘At leikurum ok trúðum hefi ek þik lítt fregit: hverr es ørgáti þeira Andaðar at húsum Haralds?’ ‘At hundi elskar Andaðr ok heimsku drýgir eyrnalausum ok jöfur hlɶgir; hinir eru ok aðrir, es of eld skulu brennanda spǫ̈n bera, logöndum húfum hafa sér und linda drepit heldræpir halir.’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 63–4) Here it is also said that King Haraldr had a jester in his retinue: ‘About jugglers and jesters

146  Helen F. Leslie-­Jacobsen

I have asked you little; how do Andaðr and his fellows amuse the company in Haraldr’s house?’ ‘A dog Andaðr fondles – its ears are lacking – with foolish pranks prompts the prince to laughter; and there are others who must go round the fire bearing burning shavings; fools’ caps flapping fast tucked under their belts, rogues ripe for kicking.’ (Finlay 2004, 45–6) The stanzas describe the entertainments available at court, which reinforces the description of the king’s standing and influence (Bjarni Einarrson 1985, 64). Following this comes the final prose [prose 5] that presents the conclusion to the chapter: Með þessu öllu verðr hann ágætr ok haldsamr á sinni föðurleifð, ok enn eykr hann ríkit á marga lund, svá sem dœmi finnsk; sumt með orrostum, sumt með fagrmæli ok vingan við þá, er áðr stjórnuðu, sumt með hamingju hlutum, sumt með djúpræðum ok langri fyrirætlan eða nökkurs etburðar. (Bjarni Einarrson 1985, 64–5) In all these ways he became outstanding and secure in his patrimony, and he further extended the kingdom in many ways, as examples show; partly through battles, partly through fair speech and friendship with those who had governed before, partly through the working of fate, partly through deep scheming and long planning or accident of some kind. (Finlay 2004, 47) This conclusion points back to the whole narrative of the chapter, both prose and verse. The introductory words Með þessu öllu ‘in all these ways’ make it clear that in the prosimetric construction of this group of complex evidence stanzas, the stanzas and prose combine to provide the information and should not be separated, even if technically the verses are corroborative in nature. This example demonstrates that the performance of complex evidence stanzas in the saga narrative reveals a lot of information to the audience of the saga. Accompanying prose in the performance of skaldic prosimetra could serve to point out the historical value of the stanzas and what they

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prove. Overall, the prose points to a concern for the interpretation of stanzas for the benefit of the listening or reading audience and the value of the stanzas for not only corroboration and authentication but also as a source of knowledge. Furthermore, even though the stanzas in this example are introduced as evidence stanzas, they clearly have the same amount of narrative value and input as story stanzas. Without these stanzas, the customs of the kingdom and the generosity of the king would not have been revealed to the same extent to the audience. This begins to break down the traditional barrier between story and evidence stanzas; the evidence stanzas cannot be skipped, because they add content to the story. From this we can identify several effects of accretive quotation in the performance of stanzas in the saga prose. Firstly, the extra information about the poet asserts the authority of the narrator and authenticates the narrative. Secondly, the content of the stanza can be explained so that its contribution to the story is clear. Thirdly, the historical value of the stanzas is asserted beyond doubt. In summary, the verse is self-­consciously used by the narrator – the prosimetrum is a deliberate construct to reveal information to the audience as well as proving true what the narrator claims. The whole of chapter 2 is a prosimetric construction, with prose and verse alternating to build up an image of the successful king; the prose making it clear what the point of the verses is, and the verses adding additional information to the narrative. Complex Evidence Stanzas in Which the Name of the Poet Is Cited Repeatedly in the Prose

A number of units of complex evidence stanzas (lengthy verse-­prose constructions) cite the same poet repeatedly as the author of all of the stanzas. An example of this is found in chapter 57 of Fagrskinna (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 271–3 [sts 230–4]). In this prosimetric unit, the five stanzas are all attributed to Þjóðólfr Arnórsson by name five times. All of the stanzas quoted from Þjóðólfr in this section are from the poem Sexstefja, composed in honour of Haraldr harðráði Sigurðarson. The poem dates from the period 1035–66, and was thus likely preserved in oral tradition before its stanzas were committed to writing in various kings’ sagas.7 The episode in which the stanzas occur takes place in Fagrskinna shortly before the battle of Niz (Nizarrorrosta) and depicts a quarrel between King Haraldr and the people of Upplönd. Although stanzas from this poet have also been used previously in chapter 57, these five stanzas are separated from them by a long prose passage and belong to a different episode in the saga. The attribution to Þjóðólfr each time is likely made for aesthetic reasons. The stanzas are all introduced with reference to Þjóðólfr: sem segir Þjóðólfr (st.230);  . . . svá segir Þjóðólfr (st.231);  . . . Frá því segir enn Þjóðólfr . . . (st.232);   .  .  . svá segir Þjóðólfr (st.233);   .  .  . sem segir Þjóðólfr (st.234).

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Repeating the name of the poet in the this way adds a sense of rhythm to the recitation of the stanzas by the narrator, even as the prose breaks up the flow of the poetic units in the receitation by the narrator. The prose between the stanzas also contributes to moving the narrative forward as well as authenticating the narrative: in the prose before st.232, it is said that, Frá því segir enn Þjóðólfr, hversu þeir vikusk undir konunginn ‘Þjóðólfr goes on to tell how they submitted to him’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 272; trans. Finlay 2004, 217). Elsewhere, the prose between the stanzas simply summarises clearly what is expressed obscurely in the stanzas. This use of prose to clarify the content of the stanzas whilst also narrating the story was also probably an important function of prose accompaniments to poetry in oral tradition. Repeating the name of the poet also enables the narrator to intertwine stanzas from the same poet but from different poems. We find an example of this in chapter 16 of Fagrskinna. There is an interesting prosimetric construction in which nine stanzas of the poem Vellekla are recited by the narrator, interrupted halfway through by stanza 73, which is drawn from another poem: Í annarri drápu segir Einarr á þessa lund ‘In another drápa Einarr speaks in this fashion’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 112; Finlay 2004, 87). Although these are corroborative stanzas, when the narrator momentarily switches Table 6.3 Examples of complex evidence stanzas in which the name of the poet is cited repeatedly in the prose Page reference and stanza number following Bjarni Einarsson (1985)

Introduction in prose

Stanza number following

111–5 (sts 70–9)

sem Einarr skálaglamm segir svá sem segir Einarr Þá var fríðr góðr með árinu, sem enn segir Einarr’ Í annarri drápu segir Einarr á þessa lund sem Einarr segir sem Einarr segir svá sem segir Einarr svá sem hér segir Þetta vitni bar Hallfrøðr Ok enn kvað hann þetta Ok enn kvað hann Ok enn sagði hann sem segir Steinn Þess minnisk ok Steinn . . . Ok enn þetta Einarr Skúlasonar getr þess ok . . . Enn segir Einarr svá  . . . svá sem váttar Einarr Skúlasonar  . . . Einar kvað þá vísu Enn kvað Einarr aðra vísu.

st.70 st.71 st.72 st.73 st.74 sts 75–6 sts 77–8 st.79 sts 116–7 st.118 st.119 st.120 st.249 st.250 st.251 st.266 st.267 st.269 st.270 st.271

160–2 (sts 116–20)

297–8 (sts 249–51) 329 (sts 266–7) 337–8 (sts 269–71)

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to another poem it makes it clear that they also contribute to the story of the saga; this is confirmed by the prose that follows stanza 73, which begins hér má heyra ‘from this it can be heard’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 113; trans. Finlay 2004, 87), which makes it clear that the content of the prose is drawn directly from the stanza as a repetition, rather than being drawn from the knowledge of the narrator. This also points out the accretive nature of the poetry, and the frequent use of ok enn in such constructions is another technique of building coherence in the prosimetric passages. Complex Evidence Stanzas in Which Multiple Poets Are Cited in the Prose

Some examples of accretive quotation in Fagrskinna contain complex evidence stanzas that cite multiple poets in the same complex of verse. This Table 6.4 Examples of complex evidence stanzas in which multiple poets are cited in the prose Page reference and stanza number following Bjarni Einarsson (1985)

Introduction in prose

Stanza number following

120–1 (sts 85–6)

sem segir Einarr skálaglamm Ok svá segir skáldaspillir Svá segir Sighvatr Þessar orrostu minntisk ok Óttarr, er hann orti um Knút Þórðr Sjárekssonr orti erfidrápu um Óláf konung ok gat enn þessar orrostu Svá sagði Þjóðólfr Svá sagði Illugi Bryndœlaskáld Svá segir Þórainn í drápu sinni Svá segir ok Þjóðólfr Valgarðr segir frá drápi varðmanna Þá orti hann [Haraldr] vísu þessa ok Þjóðólfr Þessar farar getr ok Bölverkr Þá brenndi Haraldr konungr bœ Þorkels geysu, ok váru þá dœtr hans leiddar bundnar til skipa. Þá var þetta ort: svá sagði Grani skáld’ ‘Þá ortu menn hans þetta Þessa minnisk ok Þorleikr fagri, þá er hann spurði, at Sveinn konungr var eigi kominn til móts við Harald konung ok eigi tekizk bardaginn við Elfina svá segir Stúfr skald En þetta kvað Arnórr jarlaskáld Svá segir Arnórr Í þessi dvöl, áðr en fylkingar gengi saman, orti Þjóðólfr vísu þessa

st.85 st.86 st.144 st.145

186–7 (sts 144–6)

230 (sts 184–5) 235–6 (sts 189–91) 250–2 (sts 203–6)

257 (sts 214–5)

286–7 (sts 241–2) 287–8 (sts 243–4)

st.146 st.184 st.185 st.189 st.190 st.191 st.203 st.204 st.205 st.206 st.214 st.215

st.241 st.242 st.243 st.244

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technique functions to display the knowledge and adeptness of the compiler of the verse in the saga and lends authority to a prosimetric complex composed of several, originally disparate, stanzas. In chapter three (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 67–70), we find an example of this type of construction in which two named poets are mentioned. A short piece of prose inserted between the stanzas attributed to each of them strengthens the corroborative function of the evidence stanzas and provides coherence in this section of accretive quotation in the saga. The introductory formulae are: svá sem segir Þjóðólfr skáld ór Hvini (sts 18–22); Hér minnisk Hornklofi þessar orrostu (sts 23–5). The first unit of stanzas consists of five stanzas drawn from the poem known as Haraldskvæði (sts 7–11; Fagrskinna sts 8–22), introduced with svá sem segir Þjóðólfr skáld ór Hvini ‘as the poet Þjóðólfr from Hvinir says’ (Bjarni Einarrson 1985, 67; trans. Finlay 2004, 49).8 There is no prose between these stanzas; rather, the prose is used to separate the stanzas attributed to Þjóðólfr from those attributed to Hornklofi (sts 23–5), which directly follow the introductory formula Hér minnsk Hornklofi þessar orrostu ‘Here Hornklofi remembers this battle’ (Bjarni Einarrson 1985, 69; trans. Finlay 2004, 50), which is then followed by three stanzas. Relating a battle from the perspective of two different poets in this section lends more authority to the narrative, since multiple sources can provide the same information. This narrative is also authenticated in two different ways: the first set of stanzas plays a simple evidential role in the narrative, while the second poet is said to recall the battle (indicated by using the verb minnask), appealing to memory as a source for the narrative, as well as to textual evidence for the information about the battle. This performance convention of naming multiple poets in the narrative may also have been used to appeal to the knowledge audience: they would have been aware of these multiple sources for the battle, and this technique may also have been appreciated for aesthetic reasons, since the audience could compare the approaches of the two poets to the same event. The final sentence of the episode blurs the status of the stanzas quoted. The stanzas attributed to both Þjóðólfr and Hornklofi are followed by a prose conclusion: Hér eptir siðaðisk landit ‘After this the land was brought under control’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 70; trans. Finlay 2004, 51). This makes it explicit that the stanzas provide content for the saga narrative, so the stanzas are not purely evidence stanzas. It points to the description of what happened in the battle, which is only found in the stanzas and not elaborated on in the prose, despite the verses from Þjóðólfr being introduced as purely evidential stanzas with Hér minnsk Hornklofi þessar orrostu (Bjarni Einarrson 1985, 69). The stanzas from Hornklofi are presented as a repetition of the happenings during the battle, and the prose introduction presents a memory of the battle (by using the verb minnask) and provides an appropriate context for the prose conclusion to refer back to the stanzas as content, rather than corroboration for the narrative.

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From this, we can see that the technique of repeating the name of the poet in accretive quotation has the effect of bringing rhythm to the section, aids in the coherence of the prosimetric unit and could also be used for aesthetic effect. The prose between the stanzas in accretive quotation can, furthermore, be used to drive the narrative forward, even while the verses authenticate the prose. Finally, the technique of using two different poems displays the knowledge of the narrator, which lends authority, and appeals to the knowledge of the audience, since they might have objected if only one poet’s view of the battle existed if several were known. Complex Evidence Stanzas in Which the Name of the Poem Is Cited in the Prose

In the examples of episodes containing complex evidence stanzas studied so far, the name of the poem from which the stanzas have been drawn has not been given, but in the cases where the name of the poem is provided, the narrator of Fagrskinna draws attention to two things: firstly, that the stanzas belong together and secondly, that the longer poem has a distinct form in its own right from which stanzas can be drawn, as opposed to presenting stanzas that he cites as lausavísur. In chapter 29, the prosimetric section cites a number of stanzas and explains what the poem is talking about several times. The stanzas more or less act as an explicit source for the prose. The poem is named as Nesjavísur and a total of seven stanzas are cited, each separated from the next by prose. The stanzas cited from the poem are not thought to be consecutive, and run in the order Nesjavísur stanzas 4, 1, 6, 7, 11, 13, 14 (stanzas 129–35 in Fagrskinna). The prosimetric unit opens with a line that clearly states the names of both the poet and the poem: Sighvatr segir gørst frá þessum bardaga í Nesjavísum ‘Sighvatr tells most clearly of this battle in Nesjavísur’

Table 6.5 The quotation of Nesjavísur in the prose of Fagrskinna (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 174–7, sts 129–35) Stanza number in Fagrskinna Prose introduction in Fagrskinna st.129 st.130 st.131 st.132 st.133 st.134 st.135

Sighvatr segir gørst frá þessum bardaga í Nesjavísum  . . . Sighvatr hefr svá Nesjavísur Hér get þess, at þá váru þessi tíðendi ný orðin, er kvæðit var ort, ok sá orti sjálfr, er í var bardaganum, ok í sama kvæði segir hann enn svá Ok enn kvað hann þetta Hér vísar til þess, er fyrr var sagt, ok enn kvað hann þetta Ok enn kvað hann þetta Þetta vísar til, at Þrœndir höfðu svarit hónum eiða ok heldu eigi, því at þeir börðusk í mót hónum með Sveini jarli, ok enn kvað hann þetta

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(Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 174; trans. Finlay 2004, 140). This stanza functions as a standard evidence stanza. The rest of the prosimetric unit is unusual, because it pays close attention to the context of the composition of the poem, and the saga narrative is at pains to relate the stanzas of the poem to each other. This section begins by introducing the first stanza of Nesjavísur with Sighvatr hefr svá Nesjavísur ‘Sighvatr begins Nesjavísur like this’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 174; trans. Finlay 2004, 140). The prose following the stanza refers both back to the content of the stanza just quoted and forward to the next stanza: Hér gat þess, at þá váru þessi tíðendi ný orðin, er kvæðit var ort, ok sá orti sjálfr, er í var bardaganum, ok í sama kvæði segir hann enn svá ‘Here it is mentioned that these events had only just happened when the poem was composed, and one who took part in the battle composed it himself, and in the same poem he says further’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 175; trans. Finlay 2004, 141). This passage of prose emphasises that the poet was present at the battle; this indicates that the content of the poem was completely trustworthy, also because it was composed at the time of the battle itself, stressing both its age and authenticity. After the stanza that follows there is a simple prose insert of Ok enn kvað hann þetta ‘And further he recited this’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 176; trans. Finlay 2004, 141). After the stanza that follows (st.132), we once again find a reference by the narrator back to something that has already happened in the saga Hér vísar til þess, er fyrr var sagt, ok enn kvað hann þetta ‘This refers to what was related earlier, and further he recited this’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 176; trans. Finlay 2004, 141). We find a similar format in the next two prose snippets; a simple introduction, followed by a stanza and a longer prose piece explaining what the stanza means: Þetta vísar til, at Þrændir höfðu svarit hónum eiða . . . ok enn kvað hann þetta ‘This refers to Þrándir having sworn oaths to him . . . and further he recited this’ (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, 177; trans. Finlay 2004, 142). This leads to the final stanza in this unit, which is not referred to in the prose that follows it. There are several techniques of accretive quotation at play in this unit. Firstly, the name of the poet is given and the name of the poem is repeated several times. This identifies the poem as a unit and provides an authenticating factor, enhanced by the narrative’s explanation that the poet was present at the battle he is describing. The narrator naming the poet and poem also secures his place as someone knowledgeable about the skaldic tradition that he draws on, which lends authority to his narrative. Secondly, the phrase ok enn kvað hann þetta ‘and further he recited this’ functions to link the stanzas together and reinforce the fact they are from the same poem. Thirdly, the prose refers to something else that has been said in the saga. This builds up coherence in the narrative and helps to further integrate the poetry and prose. Fourthly, the prose explains what the content of a stanza means; this makes the content clearer and demonstrates that the evidence stanzas can contribute to the content of the story rather than solely playing a corroborative role.

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Conclusion Stanzas are an important authenticating mechanism in Fagrskinna, but the great number of them and the way they are presented (or performed) in the narrative, especially through accretive quotation, means that their contents often contribute towards the content of the narrative as well as demonstrating that the narrator can be trusted. The prose surrounding the stanzas not only introduces the stanzas but also reacts to them and functions to build narrative coherence to surround the performance of the verse in the narrative. This chapter shows that when considering the relationship between the performance of stanzas in saga narrative and the role of the stanzas in the prose, scholars ought to move beyond the traditional classification of evidence or story/situational stanzas, since the performance of stanzas in saga narrative often blurs this perceived boundary.

Notes 1 The prose-­verse mixed form in Old Norse–Icelandic texts preserves much of our extant skaldic and eddic poetry from the early medieval period, and scholarly consensus is that this mixed literary form was likely long established before being committed to writing (Kuhn 1952, 262–78; O’Donoghue 2005, 2; Poole 1991, 23). It is termed ‘prosimetrum’ after its service in describing a similarly mixed classical form, most notably Menippean satire and Boethius’s Consolatio Philosophiae, although Old Norse studies uses the term ‘prosimetrum’ more loosely than does classical studies to describe any prose text in which verse occurs. 2 For a detailed introduction to the text and the manuscript, see the introductions of Bjarni Einarsson’s edition of Fagrskinna (1985) and Alison Finlay’s translation (2004). Citations and translations are also taken from these two editions. Finlay’s translation follows the Íslenzk fornrit edition and Finlay numbers her stanzas accordingly. Translations will be given only of material appearing in the body of the text. Quotations from Fagrskinna that appear in the endnotes will not be translated – refer to Finlay’s translation. 3 The author of Fagrskinna is unknown, although is it assumed to be the work of a single compiler. Generally thought to have had its origin in Norway, the work has been associated with the King Hákon (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, cxxxi; Finlay 2004, 1), but it has not been proved whether an Icelander or Norwegian was responsible for it. For discussion, see Bjarni Einarsson 1985, cxxx–cxxxi; Finlay 2004, 15–16. 4 The concept of Begleitprosa to describe prose that accompanies a verse has been important in the discussion of Norse prosimetra; see Beyschlag (1953, 109–39, esp.113). For an alternate view see Shami Ghosh (2011, 71). 5 Such stanzas also occur at 91–2 (sts 48–51), 94 (sts 52–4), 101 (sts 64–5), 139 (sts 96–8), 141–4 (sts 99–104), 148 (st.105), 152 (st.152) (an uncertain categorisation), 155–6 (sts 110–2), 164 (st.122), 167–8 (st.124), 168 (st.125), 169 (st.126), 173 (st.128), 180 (st.136), 194 (st.54), 201 (st.161) 207–8 (st.164), 222–3 (st.175), 225 (st.179), 227–8 (st.183), 240–1 (sts 196–8), 253 (st.207). 6 Such stanzas also occur at 163 (st.121), 166 (st.123), 181 (st.137), 198 (st.158), 199 (st.159), 208 (st.165), 216 (st.172), 219 (st.173), 222 (st.174), 223 (st.176), 224 (sts 177–8), 225 (st.181), 238 (st.194), 256 (st.213), 258 (st.216), 260–1 (st.218), 265–6 (st.224), 267 (st.226), 267 (st.227), 268 (st.228), 268 (st.229), 303 (st.254), 317 (st.261), 319 (st.262), 325 (st.263), 325 (st.264), 326–7 (st.265), 330 (st.268). 7 The textual history and transmission of the poem is outside the scope of this chapter: see Whaley (2009). 8 This may be a confused attribution in Fagrskinna; Heimskringla attributes the stanzas to Þorbjörn hornklofi. See Finlay (2004, 43 fn. 6, 49 fn. 21, 50 fn. 29).

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Bibliography Primary Sources Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, ed. 1941. Heimskringla 1, Íslenzk fornrit 26, Reykjavík: Hið Íslenzka fornritafélag Bjarni Einarsson, ed. 1985. Ágrip af Nóregskonunga sögum; Fagrskinna – Nóregs konunga tal, Íslenzk fornrit 29, Reykjavík: Hið Íslenzka fornritafélag Faulkes, Anthony and Alison Finlay, trans. 2011. Heimskringla: The Beginnings to Óláfr Tryggvason, Vol. 1, London: Viking Society for Northern Research Finlay, Alison, trans. 2004. Fagrskinna, A Catalogue of the Kings of Norway: A Translation with Introduction and Notes, The Northern World 7, Leiden: Brill Sverrir Jakobsson, Þorleifur Hauksson and Tor Ulset, eds. 2013. Hákonar saga. Hákonar saga II, Íslenzk fornrit 32, Reykjavík: Hið Íslenzka fornritafélag

Secondary Sources Beyschlag, Siegfried. 1953. ‘Möglichkeiten mündlicher Überlieferung in der Königssaga’, Arkiv för nordisk filologi 68, 109–39 Bjarni Einarsson. 1974. ‘On the Rôle of Verse in Saga-­Literature’, Mediaeval Scandinavia 7, 118–25 Ghosh, Shami. 2011. Kings’ Sagas and Norwegian History: Problems and Perspectives, The Northern World 54, Leiden: Brill Harris, Joseph. 1997. ‘The Prosimetrum of Icelandic Saga and Some Relatives’, in Prosimetrum: Crosscultural Perspectives on Narrative in Prose and Verse, ed. by Joseph Harris and Karl Reichl, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 131–63 Kuhn, Hans. 1952. ‘Heldensage vor und außerhalb der Dichtung’, in Edda, Skalden, Saga: Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Felix Genzmer, ed. by Hermann Schneider, Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 262–78 Leslie, Helen F. 2013. ‘The Prose Contexts of Eddic Poetry, Primarily in the Fornaldarsögur’, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Bergen Lindow, John. 1985. ‘Myth and Mythography’, in Old Norse-­Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide, ed. by Carol J. Clover and John Lindow, Islandica 45, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 21–67 Lönnroth, Lars. 1990. ‘The Old Norse Analogue: Eddic Poetry and Fornaldarsaga’, in Religion, Myth, and Folklore in the World’s Epics: The Kalevala and its Predecessors, ed. by Lauri Honko, Religion and Society 30, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 73–92 Lönnroth, Lars. 2011. ‘Hjálmar’s Death-­Song and the Delivery of Eddic Poetry’, in The Academy of Odin: Selected Papers on Old Norse Literature, The Viking Collection 19, Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 191–218 [Originally published: 1971. Speculum 46, 1–20] O’Donoghue, Heather. 2005. Skaldic Verse and the Poetics of Saga Narrative, Oxford: Oxford University Press Phelpstead, Carl. 2008. ‘ “With Chunks of Poetry in Between”: The Lord of the Rings and Saga Poetics’, Tolkien Studies 5, 23–8 Poole, Russell G. 1991. Viking Poems on War and Peace: A  Study in Skaldic Narrative, Toronto: University of Toronto Press

The Performance of Verse in Fagrskinna  155 Whaley, Diana. 2009. ‘(Introduction to) Þjóðólfr Arnórsson, Sexstefja’, in Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300, ed. by Kari Ellen Gade, Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2, Turhout: Brepols, 108–47 Wood, Cecil. 1960. ‘A Skaldic Note’, Neophilologus 44, 338–43

Part IV

Material Culture

7 Performing Old Norse Poetry in Visual Art A Comparative Perspective with the Islamic World and a Scandinavian Box in Spain Rebeca Franco Valle You are burdened, Oh my heart, with a wearying passion With which you struggle as if with a lion. I am in love with a Viking woman Who will not let the sun of beauty set. Who lives at the limit of God’s world, where he Who goes towards her, finds no path. Oh Nūd, Oh young and fair one, From whose buttons a star rises, Oh you, by my father, than whom I see None sweeter or pleasanter to my heart, If I should say one day that my eye has seen Any one like you, I would surely be lying. (Allen 1960, 24) Somewhere in northern Europe, sometime in the tenth century, the Andalusi diplomat al-­Ghazāl was dedicating these love verses to Nūd, queen of the pagans in the north. He had arrived there some weeks after the emir of al-Andalus, ‘Abd al-­Rahmān II, sent him on a diplomatic mission to northern lands. His goal was to make peace with the pagans to prevent further Viking attacks along the coasts of the Emirate of Córdoba. Once there, his generous gifts and diplomatic abilities granted him a friendly reception by the king of the pagans himself, and particularly by his wife. According to the story, the queen was so fascinated with al-­Ghazāl’s stories and manner that she began to ask for his company every day. During these encounters, the diplomat shared with her poems and stories from his homeland, in exchange for generous gifts. The reader is occasionally informed about what kind of luxurious gifts were exchanged: Then, al-­Ghazal gave [the king] the letter of sultan Abd al-­Rahman. The letter was read to him and interpreted. He found it good, took it in his hand, lifted it and put it in his bosom. After that, he ordered the gifts to be brought and had the coffers opened, examined all the garments and the vessels that they contained and was delighted with them. (Hermes 2014, 64) DOI: 10.4324/9780367809324-12

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The story of al-­Ghazāl’s journey has reached modern readers mainly through a later thirteenth-­century anthology of poetry compiled by the Andalusi Ibn Dihya, while the Viking attacks on the coasts north and south of the Iberian Peninsula in 844 that allegedly motivated al-­Ghazāl’s journey were recorded in contemporary Christian charters and Muslim written sources (Christys 2015, 17). It has been speculated that the place where al-­Ghazāl arrived might have been the court of Horik in Zealand, or that of the Norwegian warlord of Ireland, Þorgils (Hermes 2014, 57). Whatever the precise historical identity of the Viking royalty in question, it is possible with a close reading of al-­Ghazāl’s story to identify literary tropos proper to early medieval Muslim adventure literature and encounters with the other. A troubled journey, and the accessibility of female others (being either Christian or pagan women) are some examples. It is characteristic of such narratives about the journeys to foreign lands which concentrate on the main character’s diplomatic abilities – in this case, the poet al-­Ghazāl – that this character stands alone in his skill and wit. As Christys points out, instead of reading the text as an accurate historical account, we should rather read this story as an imaginary travel narrative in which contacts with the other are part of a series of narratives of the eleventh century exploring the construction of Andalusi identity (Christys 2015, 26). The story of al-­Ghazāl’s adventure provides the first foundation for my comparative exploration of Viking Age Scandinavia and the Islamic world: poetry, caskets and artefacts having been treated and traded as luxurious gifts between these two cultural centres. The text also provides us with our first glimpse of how gift exchange in a diplomatic setting may involve not only caskets and luxurious objects but also poetic compositions performed for and by the receivers. Further, in this chapter, this story will help us to bring closer together two worlds separated by long distances: the world of early medieval Scandinavia and the al-­Andalus caliphate, using visual artistic exchange and poetry performance as mediums of communication. Additional texts referring to the visual interplay in poetry composition will be further explored in the analysis which follows. The second focus of this comparative analysis will be provided by artefacts: surviving decorated caskets and imagery contained in visual art from both cultural contexts. In this case, the Scandinavian casket preserved in the medieval royal church treasury of San Isidoro de León, North-­west of the Iberian Peninsula (Museo de la Real Colegiata de San Isidoro de León, Inv. No. IIC-­3-­089-­002-­0009), will be the material nexus, as al-­Ghazāl’s story is the textual nexus. In the treasury of the church where this box has been preserved, artefacts of Islamic and Christian origin from the South of the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, Sicily, other parts of the European continent and beyond constitute a collection of treasures with few parallels in western Europe (see further Martin 2019; Franco Mata 1991). Islamic artefacts are not a rarity in the church collections of Spain. What is significant, however, in the case of San Isidoro de León is that one of these Islamic artefacts is a

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casket of Scandinavian origin, the only Viking Age artefact currently known on the Iberian Peninsula. The exact circumstances of its creation and arrival in Spain are still being discussed (Wicker 2019; Martin 2019, 6; Franco Valle 2016, 31–8; Roesdahl 1998, 2010, 2011); however, stylistic analysis allows us to trace its origins to Scandinavia sometime around the end of the tenth or beginning of the eleventh century (Graham-­Campbell 2013, 114–5; Franco Valle 2016, 13–22). A third focus is implicit in the following discussion, though not explicitly alluded to hereafter. By comparing Viking Age and medieval Islamic Iberian caskets, my intention is to bypass the narratives built in Western Christian settings, where religious contrast frequently frames the discussions about imagery. In the case of Islamic artefacts, triumphalist explanations of Christianity over Islam (Harris 1995, 215; Shalem 1995, 25) have recently given way to cultural exchange analysis, which considers commercial and diplomatic interaction (Hoffman 2001, 41–2; Martin 2019, 115). Iconographic interpretation and holistic integration of the artefacts within their culture of origin have also been part of such integral contextual analyses (Anderson 2016, 2018; Prado-­Vilar 1997, 2005). The inherent biases that Western art history perspectives project onto Islamic art have, moreover, been exposed by, for example, Eva R. Hoffman (2001, 17–21) and Jale Nejdet Erzen (2007). This latter scholar criticises analyses based on narrative content or history and influence analysis through descriptive style and technique schematisation, arguing instead for the need to enter into analytical or conceptual discussions surrounding the cultural meaning of a given art form (Erzen 2007, 69–70). In this sense, while Western art history has traditionally explained arabesques, traceries or profuse decoration simply as ‘oriental’ decoration, Erzen suggests that such features express fundamental principles of the Islamic world-­view, in which some teachings are better expressed in symbols, riddles and art (2007, 69). Just like the Scandinavian box in San Isidoro, other artefacts decorated in the Scandinavian ornamental styles of Mammen and Ringerike have been preserved in church treasures throughout Europe. Two of the most well-­ known examples may be the casket preserved in Cammin, Poland, and the one in Bamberg, Germany (Roesdahl 2010, 356, 2011). Possible explanations for the successful integration of these pieces within the sacred context of the church include the suggestion that their distinctive iconography is simply decorative, not explicitly pagan or religiously significant (Fuglesang 2001, 165), or that the iconography connotes aristocratic motifs (Roesdahl 2010, 356). Similarly to the case of Islamic art in Western contexts discussed above, broader discussions about pagan/Christian iconographic dichotomies, together with the constant threat of image over-­interpretation, have restricted analysis of the meaningful potential of these artefacts. Without the intention of establishing absolute parallels between Muslim and Viking Age cultural expression, I  will examine how artefactual and poetic imagery was meaningful, and how certain forms of cultural

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expression might have been mutually intelligible. Visual poetry will be explored from the perspective of artefactual imagery, while textual references will be approached in search of contexts where poetry performance refers to artefactual imagery. This will help us to re-­create some of the creative interplays between the visual and verbal languages that shape both poetry and artefacts. In this sense, I intend to illustrate with examples from both cultural contexts how artefacts might visually perform verbal poetic motifs. Conversely, I will also show how artefacts can be considered active agents in poetry performance. For the purposes of this discussion, I  will briefly focus on the visual aspects of Iberian Islamic artefacts dated between the tenth and eleventh centuries and, most concretely, on the ivory caskets created in the Umayyad Iberian workshop. These will be considered for their shared cultural, chronological, stylistic and geographic origins in relation to some of the caskets now in San Isidoro de León and other church treasuries of the Iberian Peninsula. They share artefactual and material parallels with the Scandinavian casket, in that they are profusely decorated caskets made of bone material, integrated into Western Christian church treasuries. As we will see, it is in the Umayyad pieces that material, visual and poetic interplay is most explicitly expressed, requiring active mental and physical engagement with the art pieces. After reviewing these Umayyad pieces, I will offer an analysis of Scandinavian imagery contexts in order to explore the San Isidoro box’s meaningful interplay with Old Norse poetry. Attention will be drawn to Scandinavian artefacts and to imagery in the artefacts which situates them in the same cultural and chronological framework as our Islamic box – that is, late tenth-­ century and early eleventh-­century Scandinavia – where motifs contained in poetry may be reflected in the visual material. My purpose is not simply to propose an iconographic identification of the motifs in visual art, but to analyse the parallel expressive mechanisms of visual and poetic languages that may have played an active role in poetic composition and performance (see more in Neiß 2009, 139–40). For this I will draw on court poetry that makes explicit reference to visual material, namely those which scholars have described as pictorial poems or examples of ekphrasis (Clunies Ross 2005, 54; Fuglesang 2007, 193). The Scandinavian casket in San Isidoro will be analysed in relation to such courtly settings – as a high-­quality commission, perhaps a gift travelling in courtly environments and pointing to intercultural exchanges – as I explore the possible visual or artefactual performance of skaldic and eddic passages.

The Ivory Poetry of the Caliphate of Córdoba During the Caliphate of Córdoba (929–1031 CE), the Umayyad dynasty established several royal workshops in the south of the Iberian Peninsula. Among the works produced in these workshops, the ivory carvings are some

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of the most spectacularly decorated examples. About 30 of these ivory artefacts, created between 950 and 1050 in the al-­Andalus workshops, have survived. As the inscriptions in some of them indicate, these outstanding creations were mainly containers for presents destined for members of the court (i.e., officials, princes, the consorts or daughters of the caliphs). The artisans in the workshops were working in close contact with musicians and poets, also under the patronage of members of the court. Thus, it is through the highly elaborated decorative compositions in the ivory artefacts that we can glimpse the visual courtly language, parallelled by the verbal language of the poets of their time. The iconographic repertoire includes vegetal motifs, courtly scenes  – enthroned figures, music players – and scenes of princely pastimes such as hunting and animal fights (Ali 2012, 20). Among these motifs it is possible to distinguish visual topoi of older traditions represented side by side with new iconographies. This process of integrating known and novel motifs produced a dialogue between images, where the particular meaning of the iconographies could be grasped only by analysing the decoration as a whole (Prado-­Vilar 1997, 22). Many of the pieces also present epigraphic decoration comprising formulas that wish the recipient good fortune, the name of the person to whom the ivory was dedicated and the date. One of the most discussed examples of Umayyad craftsmanship is the ivory pyxis made c. 967–8 in the al-­Andalus Umayyad workshops, now in the Louvre Museum (OA4068). In the words of Francisco Prado-­Vilar, ‘[F]or its formal virtuosity and its conceptual sophistication, this work is one of the most magnificent pieces of ivory carving ever produced’ (2005, 139). The profusely carved outer walls of the cylinder are decorated with eight-­lobed medallions bearing princely iconography, surrounded by vegetal decoration. The specific combination of the images that appear on this pyxis was made such that the integral meaning was articulated by employing visual metaphors that parallel verbal narratives and courtly poetic motifs – expressed as allusions rather than as codified messages (Prado-­Vilar 1997, 21). The inscription in the lid, which marks the starting point and the reading direction from right to left, informs us that the pyxis was made for al-­Mughīra, one of the three sons of the caliph al-­Hakkam II. Modern scholars have interpreted the decoration of this pyxis in varying ways: as a warning message sent by the court official al-­Mansur to the younger son of the Caliph ’Abd al-­Rahmān III in order to prevent him from committing treason (Prado-­Vilar 1997, 30; Puerta Vílchez 2013, 54), as a visual token for the affirmation of power (Ali 2012, 23) or as an astrological representation commemorating a relevant event in al-­Mughīra’s life, such as his coming of age or his wedding (Anderson 2016, 112). One of the medallions that decorates the ivory surface represents a courtly scene of two noble characters sitting in a throne carried by lions. The two sitting figures are flanking a musician who stands playing an ’ūd, located below the beginning of the text (Prado-­Vilar 2005, 140). Glaire Anderson connects such

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Figure 7.1 A lion fighting a bull is one of the scenes represented in the pyxis of al-Mughira, OA 4068. Source: Photograph © Musée du Louvre, Dist. RMN–Grand Palais/Hughes Dubois.

representation to the constellation of Venus, often represented in medieval Islamic art as a woman playing the ’ūd. The constellation of Gemini, represented as twins sitting cross-legged, also relates to the figures in the ivory (Anderson 2016, 122). In connection with this scene, the next medallion

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represents two mirroring lions, each of them fighting a bull, a scene with a long history of representing royal power (Figure 7.1). This image is interpreted by Anderson from an astrological perspective, as a double reference to the constellation of Leo, the solar symbol of power, and Taurus. This might have referred to the position of the celestial bodies at a specific time of relevance for al-Mughīra in combination with the former scene. On the other hand, Prado-Vilar finds parallels between this imagery and the moralising fables of Kalīla wa-Dimna, ­ a popular book for princely education in medieval Islamic culture (Figure 7.2). In this fable, the lion, misguided by rumours, unjustly kills his comrade the bull. Thus, the bull and the lion fighting in the pyxis might be also interpreted as reference to this story, which cautions against paying attention to misguided counsel and deception. An adjacent image of affronted goats recalls another of the fables (Prado-Vilar 2005, 145). Animal-themed decoration like the two scenes we have just examined has a long tradition in murals, manuscripts, textiles and other artistic representations of medieval Arabic culture, transmitted through centuries with only

Figure 7.2 The legend of the bull and the lion in the fables of Kalīla wa-Dimna. c. 1279–80. MS. Persan 376, fol. 74v. Source: Photograph © Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, France.

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minor alterations. As such, these scenes might at first glance be taken simply as stock or stylised decoration. However, when performed within different reception contexts (of which more later), such stock images may have served as catalysts for the instant recall of stories or other iconographic settings in which they appear. Just as certain religious scenes serve as mnemonics to trigger the instant recall of particular religious teachings, these icons might have served as visual reminders of specific stories, using animal fables to communicate moral lessons (Prado-­Vilar 2005, 143; Puerta 2013, 54). Of course, the possibility of multiple interpretations and associations – such as proverbs contained in well-­known fables, astrological personifications, similes or other figures of speech – would have only increased the intellectual challenge for viewers wanting to decipher these pieces. In addition to the iconography, the type of artefact and the distribution of the decoration highlight another aspect of what is necessary to fully engage with its meaning. One cannot grasp the whole message if the artefact is not manipulated, handled and turned around. It is through physical interaction with the artefact that the full performance of its message takes place. Moreover, the layers of meaning read into single scenes and their combination could also engage with another element integral to the artefact: the shape and material that it is made of. This can be exemplified by another caliphal ivory pyxis, now at the Hispanic Society of America, dated c. 966. The Kuffic inscription in the lid reads, ‘The sight I offer is of the fairest, the firm breast of a delicate maiden. Beauty has invested me with splendid raiment that makes a display of jewels. I am a receptacle for musk, camphor, and ambergris’ (Prado-­Vilar 1997, 21). While the poem speaks to the beholder, it refers specifically to the breast of a woman, which the texture and shape of the ivory also evokes. Ivory as the texture of maiden’s skin is a recurrent metaphor in Arabic love poetry, with parallels in Hebrew, classical antiquity and Christian contexts (Shalem 2004, 83). The vegetal decoration of the pyxis evokes architectural decoration that, in religious environments like in the Umayyad Great Mosque of Damascus, can be interpreted as an allusion to everlasting fertility in the proximity of Allah (Prado-­Vilar 1997, 21). The gardens of paradise that the profuse vegetal motifs recall are also evoked by the fragrant contents that the box once held: perfume. We may now see the new dimension that stock motifs of vegetal and animal decoration acquire by an unspoken reference to the maiden’s potential fertility through the ivory texture and convex shape. Thus material, imagery, verbal metaphors and the contents of the box combine to deliver a message that requires a holistic sensory involvement to fully process. To some extent, decorated artefacts, and especially ivories of the type discussed here, are complex dialectic interfaces between visual rhetoric and courtly poetic discourse (Prado-­Vilar 2005, 199). It is not surprising that in such a sophisticated environment as the Umayyad court, the poets in the service of the caliphs also routinely explored the language of power. Written sources of the time provide us with some examples where verbal metaphors use similar imagery to that employed in the visual

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arts. Animal metaphors, for example, can also be found in the verbal motifs employed by contemporary poets of the Umayyad court in referring to the strength of the ruler. In this manner, the caliph is sometimes compared to a lion that cannot be ‘awakened by hyenas’ and ‘buries its claws into the jugular veins’ of its enemies, a mental scene that recalls closely the decoration we see in al-­Mughīra’s pyxis (Prado-­Vilar 2005, 142–3). As we will see, such an interplay has also been discussed, though to a lesser extent, in relation to the Nordic material. In both contexts – medieval Islam and medieval Scandinavia – it is perhaps in literary sources containing poetic ekphrases that we can better pinpoint the occasions where this interplay involved active performance. At the Umayyad court, panegyric poetry emphasising the religious qualities and political legitimisation of the rulers was composed and recited for major official events, while more seclusive musical performances would have taken place in the semi-­private environments of palaces called majlis. Glaire Anderson highlights that the musical performances depicted on the ivories and other décor in material culture potentially mirror these semi-­private events with music and sung poetry (2018, 245). The circulation of rich materials, luxurious objects and substances such as fragrances would have also played a role in establishing the atmosphere during the recitals in which the participants themselves were taking part. An anecdote related by al-­Maqqari surrounding the al-­Mansur’s majlis (c. 932–1002) illustrates how decorated objects could be actively involved in the process of poetic composition. In this episode, Said al-­Baghdadi, a famous poet of the court of al-­Mansur, had been accused of lacking originality. To test his skills, al-­Mansur challenges him to recite a composition following the decoration of a tray that had been made for him. When the poet fails to notice one of the motifs of the tray representing ‘[a] ship, in which was a maiden rowing herself with oars of gold’ (trans. by Prado-­Vilar 2005, 156), al-­Mansur calls this to his attention. It is not until the poet has completed a stanza referring to this image that he is generously rewarded. This episode further illustrates how the commissioners of both visual and poetic art enjoyed playing with the limits of language and valued originality in these compositions. The allusive iconography and complex imagery point to minds that enjoyed playing with the meaning of images (Prado-­ Vilar 2005, 156). It is reasonable to assume that even though this passage might not narrate a real event, it could reflect the existence of an ekphrastic tradition in the Umayyad court in Cordoba. It is in a similar way that such an enjoyment of artefacts and decoration through active poetic engagement can be pointed to in relation to Viking Age material.

Viking Age Scandinavia: Imagery and Poetry Archaeological approaches to Viking Age imagery have traditionally been uninclined to interpret iconography (Neiß 2009, 136) and the reasons for this are often well founded. Besides the uncertainty of interpretation of images in archaeological contexts, it is notable that many readings rely

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heavily on younger literature. This has ensured that most scholars working with Viking Age images tend to adopt cautious positions towards iconography. Monumental stone carvings, and those artefacts where a human figure is the protagonist and narrative action is presumably represented (for example, the Gotlandic picture stones) have been more commonly subject to iconographic interpretations, while ornamented metalwork, jewellery and other artefacts decorated with animal or vegetal features seem not to present the same iconographic possibilities. Scholars have argued that, because of their reproducibility and extensive geographical distribution, mass cast bronze artefacts were most likely made for sale (Fuglesang 2001, 165). Therefore, their specific iconography would not have played a relevant role at the moment of their creation. Thus, stylistic classification has been the cornerstone and safe haven for analysis of Viking Age artistic productions since the late twentieth century. Semiotic approaches to interpreting the material have, however, been gaining traction more recently (Neiß 2009, 2013; Kristoffersen 2000, 2010). These approaches re-­examine the question of ornament interpretation by exploring the cognitive structures behind visual and verbal languages in migration-­period and early Viking Age imagery. It has been suggested that some of the motifs reproduced in the ornamentation of these periods and in the stylistic devices characteristic of Old Norse poetry share expressive analogies that ‘may be related within the same context without the presupposition of absolute contemporaneity’ (Kristoffersen 2010, 262). According to this view, hybrid and transformative designs present in the decoration of Viking Age jewellery are related to the transformative aspects of the periphrastic style in Old Norse poetry. In that context, the practice of integrating known motifs into new and innovative texts increased the value of high-­status commissions (Neiß 2009, 128). In Viking Age ornamentation, a limited range of face masks, humanoids, birds, quadrupeds, beasts and snakes were combined, redesigned and reorganised in different settings and design variations. However, new elements were also incorporated following cultural currents in society. A  good example is that of Christian motifs that were incorporated in the pictorial vocabulary of ninth-­century oval brooches such as those from Birka grave Bj 655. This demonstrates that, at least in some instances, the motif selection in the designs was deliberate and intentional (Sindbæk 2014, 174–8). Christian motifs were progressively incorporated in the pictorial vocabulary towards the end of the Viking Age, while new visual languages also emerged, a tendency that is also detected in poetry adapting Christian motifs to a pre-­ existing repertoire of kennings (Clunies Ross 2005, 112).

Hybrid Motifs and Stock Motifs The hypothesis of the existence of stock motifs circulating in the Viking Age has also been proposed by Signe Horn Fuglesang (2007, 195). For example, in different parts of Scandinavia, stone monuments and jewellery are

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found which feature similar imagery, representing riders (Tjängvide picture stone SHM 4171), masks (Aarhus runestone MJy 77; pendants from Sogn of Fjordane, Norway, B5525), warriors, the ubiquitous snakes, and women carrying vessels (bronze pendant from Öland, Sweden, SHM 6485–266707; Klinta, Köping, Öland, Sweden, SHM 128; Tjängvide picture stone SHM 4171) (Figures 7.3 and 7.4). In Gotlandic picture stones it is, moreover, possible to identify some degree of representational formulism. Here, besides the repetition of stock motifs, the division of scenes follows, on occasion, a pattern: a ship is often placed in the lower registers (i.e., Stora Hammars, SHM 29971:1; Stenkyrka Smiss I, GF 3428. See Fuglesang 2007, 195–6); a rider occupies the upper part, on occasion received by a female figure (Lillbjärs SHM 13742:3; Tjängvide SHM 4171); warriors appear in groups or battle scenes (Stora Hammars SHM 29971:1) as well as other, less frequent scenes more difficult to interpret. The female figure usually carries a vessel – a scene that we can also see in the silver pendants mentioned earlier. This

Figure 7.3 Silver pendant in the shape of a woman carrying a drinking horn (SHM 128). Source: Photograph by Gabriel Hildebrand, The Swedish History Museum/SHM (CC BY).

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Figure 7.4 Tjängvide picture stone (SHM 4171). In the top register, a woman receives a rider, perhaps holding a drinking horn. Source: Photograph by Ola Myrin, The Swedish History Museum/SHM (CC BY).

might be tentatively related to a formalised representation of female virtues in poetic metaphors, such as Skáldskaparmál st.111: Ek hefi órðar lokri Ölstafna Bil Skafna Væn mörk skála, verki Vandr stefknarrar branda (Faulkes 1998, I, 63; v.203, in Clunies Ross 2005, 38)

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I have smoothed the prow of the refrain-­ship with the plane of poetry, painstaking in [my] work, for the Bil of the ale-­ship [DRINKING HORN > WOMAN], for the beautiful forest of the bowl [WOMAN]. (trans. after Clunies Ross 2005, 38) However, as noted by Fuglesang, the distribution and different formats of these motifs cannot solely be explained by the copying system employed for mass production of metalworks. Instead, the fact that they survive in different iconographic settings should prevent us from inferring the same meaning for each case (Fuglesang 2007, 215). An interesting hypothesis regarding the value enhancement of high-­ quality artefacts through the use of meaningful and original imagery has recently been proposed by Michael Neiß (2009). According to his analysis of two brooches from Jämjö, the transformative and ambiguous motifs that cover the surfaces of such artefacts can be related to similar creative mechanisms employed in the periphrastic style of skaldic poetry. Because of the costly materials employed, high-­quality items were most likely produced under the sponsorship of a patron. It seems reasonable to suggest that the economic investment might have been accompanied by an intellectual one in the design of the brooch (Neiß 2009, 128). A specific, elaborated iconographic design could contribute to the value of luxurious pieces (Neiß 2009, 138; Kristoffersen 2010, 269), much as the elaborate and intricate intercalary phrases and kennings in skaldic poetry could enhance the value of compositions through intellectual means. In this manner it can be shown that hybrid motifs represented in metalwork ornamentation during the Late Iron Age may act as a sort of visual kenning. Neiß, moreover, identifies five iconographic analogies to skaldic poetry referring to Óðinn’s shape-­shifting skills in Jämjö B (SHM 13534, one of the brooches mentioned above): Síðskeggr ‘hang-­beard’, one of Óðinn’s names in Grímnismál st.48 (Neiß 2009, 142), is reflected in the image of a mask with a moustache – a mask which becomes a bird when the brooch is turned over, thus linking it with Óðinn as arnhöfði ‘eagle head’ or the description of him as hrafn-­áss ‘raven god’ in skaldic poetry (Haustlöng by Þjóðólfr ór Hvinir, st.4). I would also note that the reptile-­ like face in the Jämjö B brooch that Neiß links to the snake transformation of Óðinn and his names sváfnir ‘shutter’ and Ofnir ‘Opener’ (Neiß 2009, 136), could tentatively be related to the snake figures shaping and adorning keys (shutters and openers) of the Viking period (i.e., SHM: 22917.183.1). Just as skalds might compose a poem with reference to an existing stock of verbal motifs and kennings which they could draw on and recombine to shape intricate allusions and metaphors, it is suggested that silver ‘skalds’ would exploit the possibilities of a pre-­existing stock of visual motifs (often based on the same mythologies as verbal motifs) in new combinations within the frame of Viking Age artefact production (Kristoffersen 2010, 268; Neiß 2013, 78). What is particularly relevant

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regarding the transformation of images in the brooches is that, as with the ivory pyxis discussed above, the ability to observe these various stock motifs  – intertwined and interdependent  – depends intrinsically on the handling and active rotation of the object so that the meaning, as with poetic delivery and reception, is performed.

Some Material Metaphors in Poetry Supporting art-­historical readings that locate themes of shapeshifting and amalgamation in Viking Age artefacts is skaldic poetry itself which provides a rich source of metaphorical expressions of hybridity in relation to weapons and jewellery. For example, there are kennings referring to swords, and occasionally spears, as ‘wound snakes’ or as giving quick fatal ‘bites’ in battle. The ‘serpents as swords’ kenning is one of the most frequently used metaphors, demonstrating a link between these at a cognitive level in the Viking Age mind. Snakes are also popular kennings for ships, while gold is the ‘snake land’ and ‘snake lair’, stemming from the mythology surrounding dragons lying on treasures (Brunning 2015, 67–8). An interesting analogy also parallels craftsmen’s techniques with some formal characteristics of skaldic poetry. This vocabulary, which seems to be derived from wood-­and metalworking, is used to name skaldic stylistic features such as stál ‘inlay’, referring to the analogous metalwork that intercalates clauses between the main parts of a stanza as allegories. The verses where this feature is regularised are called stælt or hjástæltr, which are often intercalary clauses between the main regular ones. According to Snorri Sturluson, these may be named hjástælt, and follow old traditions (Faulkes 1999, 10). The analogous technique in metalwork, often employed in the crafting of weapons such as swords, spearheads and axes, involves inserting a decorative wire such as silver into the surface of another metal. This conceptual analogy must not be understood as a literal correlation of poetic and metalworking skills. However, as Margaret Clunies Ross suggests, the creative work of the poet and that of the smith might have been considered comparable, at least on an intellectual level (2005, 84). Another analogy drawn from verbal expression can be found in the Old Norse word skapa, which can mean ‘to create’ or ‘to give shape to’. This is, among other things, the skill the gods used to influence human fate, but also the term employed by poets for composing verses (Kristoffersen 2010, 269). The analogy between the work of the poet and that of the smith, or crafter, might be better reflected in the notorious verse of the semi-­mythical figure Bragi Boddason Skáld kalla mik ‘I am called a skald’ recorded in Snorri’s Edda. Here, the poet describes himself as a skilled songsmith, skapsmið Víðurs ‘thought-­smith of Viður  =  Óðinn’ and hagsmið bragar ‘skilful smith of verse’ (Clunies Ross 2005, 2). Such analogies between poets and smiths are frequently found in Old Norse literature, suggesting perceived similarities between poetic composition and craftmanship.1

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Visual Art in Performance Picture poems, belonging to a subgenre of courtly praise poetry, are perhaps the most explicit surviving testimony to the interaction between visual art and poetry. Also referred to as examples of ekphrasis (Fuglesang 2007; Clunies Ross 2005, 54–8), the picture poems are characterised by their engagement with scenes represented in visual art. The best known are Ragnarsdrápa by Bragi Boddason, Húsdrápa by Úlfr Uggason and Haustlöng by Þjóðólfr ór Hvinir, compiled fragmentarily by Snorri Sturluson. They are dated to the late ninth and tenth centuries, and it is characteristic that they describe scenes of several apparently unconnected myths to praise a patron (Clunies Ross 2005, 54). For example, Ragnarsdrápa describes the scenes depicted on a shield belonging to a warrior named Ragnar. The scenes described are the never-­ending battle between Heðinn and Högni, the death of the heroes Hamðir and Sörli at the hands of the Gothic tyrant Jörmunrekkr, Þórr’s fishing trip and Gefjun ploughing Zealand. The value of the ekphratic passages resides as much in the information they provide about the settings and motifs for their performance as in the potential for visual art to serve as inspiration for poetic composition. Picture poems served as an indirect way of praising a patron by referring to the decoration of their home or some other artefact in their possession. In Húsdrápa, or the ‘House Poem’, at least 12 scenes represented in the walls of the newly inaugurated hall are performed. Between the scenes described it is possible to identify continuity with some of the myths in eddic narratives, transported to courtly settings (Clunies Ross 2005, 55–7). Unfortunately, comparative material from visual culture has not survived in significant quantity. When it comes to archaeological material from house interiors or shield decoration, the record is painfully thin. According to Fuglesang (2007, 202), only eight of the scenes contained in these poems find a parallel in surviving imagery from the same period. Perhaps among the scenes appearing in these poems, the one that can be most confidently identified in surviving visual imagery is Þórr’s fishing trip described in Ragnarsdrápa stanzas 13–19 and carved on the edge of the monumental stone U1161 in Altuna. Key elements of the narrative action can be observed in this scene: Þórr is holding up his hammer and about to strike the serpent Jörmungandr, who curls beneath the boat; one foot of the god breaks through the bottom of the boat due to the struggle with the serpent; we may even distinguish the bait, a bull’s head, according to the myth, close to the serpent’s jaw.2 Eddic poetry manifests myths into synthetised references that would have been intellectually exciting to interpret for a reader or audience familiar with the themes (Clunies Ross 2005, 112). It is reasonable to assume that a similar reaction might be expected from the interpretation of visual motifs. If the subject matter of eddic poetry (myths, supernatural beings including gods, giants, dwarves, as well as the heroes of earlier times) was widely known by the communities of medieval Scandinavia, it should not

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be surprising that a single scene in visual art might represent an entire narrative synthesised via mythological motifs in eddic poetry. In addition to Þórr’s fishing expedition, scholars have noted the representation of Völundr the smith in the lower register of the Gotlandic picture stone Ardre VIII (SHM 11118:8; Fuglesang 2007, 198–204) (Figure 7.5), as well as Sigurðr

Figure 7.5 Ardre VIII picture stone (SHM 11118:8). Some scenes from the legend of Völundr the smith can be identified in the lower register. Source: Photograph: Bengt A. Lundberg, The Swedish History Museum/SHM (CC BY).

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slaying the dragon in later instances (Oerhl 2006, 202–7). Another popular scene that appears in repeated instances, occurring in various contexts and across a wide timespan, is the figure surrounded by snakes that is usually identified as Gunnarr in the snake pit. Klinte Hunninge I, the lower left part of Andre VIII, Stenkyrka Smiss I, and the wagon found in the Oseberg ship burial all appear to depict this scene. Even if one agrees with Fuglesang (2007, 204), who casts doubt on interpretations that infer explicit references to the myth surrounding Gunnarr – given that there is little accreditation for iconographic passages representing Sigurðr before the eleventh century and that Gunnarr is not the only literary character to have died in a snake pit – it remains significant that such oft-repeated iconography may have represented mythological narratives to the medieval audiences which interacted with them.3

Mammen and Ringerike Artistic Styles: New Ways of Meaning Bearing all this in mind, we can now return to the Scandinavian box in San Isidoro (Figure 7.6). This four-centimetre-high red deer antler open work finds its closest stylistic relatives in the Cammin casket (disappeared in the 1940s) in modern-day Poland, the Bamberg casket in Germany and the Saint Stephen Sword in Prague. The three caskets (including the San Isidoro box

Figure 7.6 Scandinavian casket at San Isidoro, León (IIC-3-089-002-0009). Museo de la Real Colegiata de San Isidoro de León. Source: Photograph: Rebeca Franco Valle.

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at León) are made from bone material and have engraved, gilded metal-­ plate fittings with similar Mammen-­style features. Perhaps the box at León is slightly later in style, since some Ringerike-­style developments of design composition and motifs are present on the box (Franco Valle 2016, 19–21). Further stylistic connections with Mammen material from Denmark and the southern parts of Norway and Sweden contextualise the presumed workshops for these artefacts in newly Christianised Scandinavian areas (Roesdahl 2010, 358). The box in San Isidoro suffered several modifications before developing the shape it has, and it is, of course, hard to tell precisely how these modifications changed the artefact. The metal lids are made in a different style to the bone cylinder, closer to Ringerike examples. It is likely that the artefact was reused as a reliquary after the addition of the metal lids that perhaps originally were not there at all (Franco Valle 2016, 23). In any case, it is most likely that the modifications preceded the arrival of the box on the Iberian Peninsula. Else Roesdahl (2010, 358) has noted that the preservation of these caskets in church treasuries suggests that they were circulated outside the normal Viking Age spheres of trade and settlement (except maybe for the casket in Cammin), since the treasuries in question are connected to relevant European monarchs during the tenth and eleventh centuries. This observation reinforces the hypothesis about the San Isidoro casket’s arrival in the Iberian Peninsula through the diplomatic channels outlined above. Both Mammen (c. 965–1000) and Ringerike (c. 1000–35) styles were developed during the early decades of Christianity in Scandinavia, which notably coincided with the reigns of expansionist kings – Haraldr Gormsson (Harald Bluetooth), and Knútr inn ríki – when the constant artistic impulses from the continent left a deeper mark than in previous decades (Fuglesang 2001, 159–72). It is therefore not surprising that artworks sponsored by Scandinavian monarchs found expression for a new Christian spirituality in vernacular shapes, prompted by the incessant production of commissioned artwork in continental regions. At the same time that Ringerike style developed and expanded through the North Sea empire (see, for example, the Ringerike-­style stone slab from Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London), skalds during Knútr’s reign (1016–35) incorporated Christian and Old Norse mythological elements into their poetic kennings (Clunies Ross 2005, 33, 38). Knútr is also known to have sponsored church constructions, furnishings and presents beyond the borders of his domains, such as in Cologne, Aquitaine and Chartres (Lawson 2004, 142–5). It is arguably on stone monuments from this period that the iconographies of Mammen and Ringerike styles are most eloquent. The famous Jelling Stone II (DR 42) has also been considered one of the precursors of Mammen style (Fuglesang 2001, 176). A crucified figure and an antlered beast accompanied by a snake decorate two of the three sides of the stone, while the runic inscription extending around the three sides informs us about the commissioner (Haraldr Gormsson), including a dedication to his parents as well as a list of his most notable deeds (the stone claims that he conquered Denmark

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and Norway and made the Danes Christian) (Fuglesang 2001, 160). We may interpret the antlered quadruped entangled with the snake that decorates one of the sides of Jelling Stone II as a stag (Roesdahl 2013, 870; Neiß and Franco Valle 2021). Texts widely distributed during the early Middle Ages throughout Europe, such as the Physiologus and Saint Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies, talk about the symbolic significance of the fight between these two animals, a theme that can also be found in older texts such as Pliny the Elder’s Historia Naturalis (Suárez López 2007, 11). The wide distribution of the stag symbolism during Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages is further illustrated by Saint Jerome’s Homilies and Cassiodorus’s Exposition of the Psalms 41:2 (ed. Walsh 1990, 416). According to the medieval texts, when the stag reaches 50 years of age, he searches for the snake’s lair, and after eating the serpent found therein he searches for water to satiate his thirst so that he can prolong his life by another 50 years.4 The details of the story can vary from one version to another, but it is widely interpreted as an allegory for baptism and the thirst for Christian faith. In the context of the Jelling ensemble, it would acquire regenerative connotations of baptism and lineage regeneration through the use of the noble fighting animal as a symbol. These connotations fuse well with the notion that this rune stone, as Birgit Sawyer has argued, serves an important purpose in the establishment of inheritance rights (2003). In this manner, with the help of the inscription, the decoration of the stones that follows continental iconographic models acquires symbolic associations with religious conversion and lineal continuity (Roesdahl 2010, 872). The antagonism of these two animals might not have been completely new in Scandinavian iconography. As early as the second century BCE, the Gundestrup Cauldron (Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen, Denmark C6562– 76) depicts an antlered human sitting with his legs crossed, while holding a snake in his right hand and a torc in his left. At a short distance from his left hand, a stag looks towards the antlered human. It is difficult to know what the meaning of this scene is, and the time lapse between its production and the start of the Viking Age is long enough to be unbridgeable. However, we may still see an opposition of the two animals, the stag and the snake, both potentially linked by their regenerative properties (the snake shedding its skin and the stag shedding its antlers) (Suárez López 2007, 10). Closer in time to our San Isidoro box are the coins from tenth-­century Hedeby featuring a representation of a stag and a snake, posed mouth to mouth (Varenius 1994, 191). Classic Ringerike-­style examples, such as the bronze weathervanes, seem to reflect a renewed interest in representing stags both with snakes (Källunge, now in Gotlands Museums Föremålssamling GFC4413) and without snakes (Heggen, now in the Kulturhistorisk Museum in Oslo C23602). Rune stones in Sweden (Rune stone Vg181 from Frugården, Olsbro), and perhaps the abovementioned stone slab in Saint Paul’s Cathedral, represent antlered quadrupeds side by side with snake-­like beasts. The interpretation of the iconography of the Cammin, Bamberg and San Isidoro caskets has traditionally held that it represents ‘neutral’ vegetal and

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animal motifs. Even though some scholars have not discarded the possible associations with pagan or secular motifs, the concept of iconographic neutrality has generally been brought forward as an argument for the successful adaptation of these artefacts as reliquaries within the church context (Fuglesang 2001, 165). The lid of the Bamberg casket seems to represent parallel iconography to that of the tetramorph arrangement (the animal symbols for the four evangelists) in manuscript examples such as the Book of Kells (TCD MS. 58, fol. 290v) (Staecker 2007, 301). From the perspective of the Islamic artefacts at León,5 traditional views have also held that meaningful secular and religious artefacts seem to be integrated into the church independent of their iconography. However, given the interpretative significance of novel readings of the iconographies outlined above that suggest far greater symbolic potential for stylised Mammen and Ringerike imagery, it is imperative that we explore alternative interpretative possibilities for the San Isidoro box.

The Transformations of the San Isidoro Box: A Visual Performance? The cylindrical shape of the box at San Isidoro makes it difficult to analyse the design at first sight. It is not until we turn it around that the design can be appreciated completely (Figure 7.7). The motifs represented on the box can be described as follows: a leading animal extends its head in a protrusion

Figure 7.7 Unrolled design of the casket. A bird-like head is carved in the protrusion. The wings emerge from the double shell-spirals, right below the beak of the main beast. Under the arches created by the wings, the legs of the bird are texturised with scale-shaped feathers and have elongated claws. Five small roundels mark the eyes of seven other snake-like beasts. Two of them spring from the head of the main beast in the protrusion, and the other five are in the cylinder surface. Source: Image: Rebeca Franco Valle.

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on the rim of the cylinder. Its wings and legs embrace the cylinder around. Seven other beasts are indented between the jumble of tendrils that covers the whole surface. Heads, crests and bodies form tight knots making it difficult to distinguish these, which can only be done with reference to their round eyes. The bird whose head is carved in the protrusion and whose wings extend around the cylinder is the only clear motif (see Figure 7.6). Birds were ubiquitous motifs in visual culture during the Viking Age, appearing in metal examples, stone, bone and wood carvings. This one finds its closest parallels in Þórr’s hammer pendants (Sigtuna, Uppland, Sweden, SHM 29750:48; Scania, Sweden, SHM 29750:15). As for the stock images mentioned above, their semantic meaning can vary from one context to another. The perception of these motifs demands from the contemplator active intellectual engagement to discern what is represented, as well as physical interaction through the rotation of the object. One might see this necessary, physical engagement with the material artefact and its decoration as a performance. In order to get a more concrete impression of what readings this performance might evoke, we have to consider the rest of the motifs represented here: seven other beasts made detectable by their eyes. Their entangled and elongated bodies may prompt us to identify them as snakes. Another animal, however, is present in the box, though it is not explicitly portrayed in the imagery. Instead, it lies hidden within the material itself: red deer antler. We may now rewind to the time when the crafter was presented with the task of embellishing the box. How would he have performed this lavishly carved little piece of art? What were the thoughts crossing the horn-­smith’s mind when standing in front of his prima mater? Would he have been acquainted with Saint Isidore of Seville’s or Cassiodorus’s explanations of stag symbology? Was he also familiar with Old Norse poetry, probably circulating orally by the end of the tenth century? I shall take this last inquiry as a positive assumption and illustrate what may have been the process of imagination and execution of the box in which both the articulation of decorative elements and the choice of material contribute to its meaning. To understand the origins of the box’s iconography, it is worth noting that the stag, discussed above in Christian contexts, is also represented in eddic poetry, for example, in stanza 26 of Grímnismál: Eikþyrnir heitir hjörtr er stendr á höllu Herjaföðrs ok bítr af Læraðs limum; en af hans hornum drýpr í Hvergelmi, þaðan eigu vötn öll vega. (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, I, 373) Eikthyrnir, the hart On the hall that stands,

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Eateth off Læráth’s limbs; Drops from his horns In Hvergelmir fall, Thence wend all the waters their way. (Hollander 1986, 58) We are told that this stag’s name is Eikþyrnir, and from its antlers drips the water of the spring Hvergelmir, where one of the roots of Yggdrasil grows. The following stanzas name the rivers that flow from Hvergelmir, as well as Yggdrasil’s roots. In stanza 32, Ratatoskr, a squirrel, carries messages along Yggdrasil for the serpent-­dragon Níðhöggr, who lives in Hvergelmir. Four other stags are mentioned in stanza 33, before stanza 34 introduces seven serpents dwelling under Yggdrassil. Just one stanza later, the opposition between Níðhöggr and the stag is emphasised: Askr Yggdrasils, drýgir erfiði, meira en menn viti, hjörtur bítur ofan, en á hliðu fúnar; skerðir Níðhöggr neðan. (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, I, 375) The Ash Yggdrasil, doth ill abide, more than to men is known: the hart browsing above, its bole rotting, and Níthogg gnawing beneath (Hollander 1986, 60)6 It is difficult to see a snake or a dragon in the primary animal represented on the San Isidoro box, which more closely resembles a bird of prey. We can, however, count seven other creatures (serpents?) among the jumbled tendrils. Why is there, then, a bird of prey? Perhaps chapter 16 of Gylfaginning clarifies this: the squirrel carries malicious messages between the falcon Veðrfölnir at the top of the tree and Níðhöggr beneath (Faulkes 1982, 18). The figure is, however, ambiguous and, when turned upside down and viewed from the front (so that the figure is now at the base of the cylinder), the supposed bird of prey figure transforms into a coiled serpent, sailing into the ‘roots’ of the vessel. Could the box be referring, ambiguously, to both opposites: Níðhöggr and the falcon at the top of the tree, who exchange slanderous messages at the extremes of the cosmic axis? The connection and opposition of these two animals is emphasised in other poems, such as in stanza 27 of Skírnismál: Ara þúfu á skaltu ár sitja,

Performing Old Norse Poetry in Visual Art 181

horfa heimi ór, snugga heljar til. matr sé þér meir leiðr en manna hveim inn fráni ormr með firum. (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason 2014, I, 385) On the eagle-­hill shalt ever sit, aloof from the world lolling toward Hel. To thee men shall be More loathsome far Than to mankind the slimy snake. (Hollander 1986, 70) At this point, one might think back to the discussion at the beginning of this chapter about the significance that the material can play in the interpretation of artefacts, forming on some occasions a unity with the iconography. The meaningful integration of inscription, decoration, material and content that we saw in the Umayyad pyxis at the Hispanic Society of America, requires active physical and sensory engagement with the box to fully grasp its meaning. In the case of the cylinder of San Isidoro, there is no inscription, nor any way to determine with certainty the contents it once held.7 However, the material composition is itself telling. The box is carved from an antler; this medium, when handled, potentially connotes a deer, which in the context of Scandinavian iconography may well be read as a material reference to Eikþyrnir. That such an association between material and iconography is possible is exemplified by an antler find in a different Viking Age context. A red deer antler found in the excavations of Fishamble Street in Dublin (National Museum of Ireland E172:9630), may be seen in connection with the significance of antler as iconographic material. The antler carries an inscription (IR 12) in the younger futhark which is dated to ca. 1000 and reads as follows: hurn: hiartaR * la: a ys aR ‘The hart’s antler lay at the river mouth’ (Barnes et al. 1997, 41; Looijenga 2003, 285; in Birkett 2011, 19, n. 5). As the iconography analysed in the previous Scandinavian material suggests, this inscription might reflect the symbolic attributes related to the stag and the water sources, where the animal restored its life after devouring snakes.

Performing the Material: Searching for How Instead of What Terry Gunnell has argued that Völuspá and other eddic poems were not literary pieces created originally to be quietly read in private, but were rather intended to be heard, seen and experienced. In these compositions the sound of the language would be an important and integral part of the aesthetic experience

182  Rebeca Franco Valle

(Gunnell 2013, 64). The dramatic experience of the poetry was enhanced by the atmosphere created during the delivery of an oral poem by means of sound, structure, as well as now-­lost gestures and physical movement (Gunnell 2013, 66). In a similar way, we might now attempt to interpret Viking Age artefacts, classified traditionally according to their stylistic and typological schemes in archaeological catalogues and museum exhibitions, from the perspective of performance. These artefacts were not made to be set and interpreted as static or isolated displays, but to be alive and used; to represent and communicate intrinsic and extrinsic ideas held by their society within various historical contexts. al-­Ghazāl’s story, with which I began this chapter, whether fictional or not, widens the scope for the analysis of artefacts such as boxes that, because of their role as containers or vehicles, might have been the perfect media to be enhanced with messages accompanying the precious materials they contained. In these artefacts the interplay of verbal and visual metaphors is a common trait, showing how expressions in poetry and visual art of both Viking Age Scandinavia and the Umayyad al-­Andalus provide tangible testimonies to cultural communication. Iconography in artefacts may hint at the active role that decoration played in their intended contexts. This is still more apparent in the eventual poetic ekphrasis designed to be performed aloud in response to the observation of decorated artefacts. I would like to conclude with the sentiment that, by considering artefactual imagery from the perspective of performance, the question shifts from the what of iconography, to shine a light on the how of it: how the decoration was conceived, how it was experienced and reinterpreted. Whereas classic iconographic interpretations usually offer one-­sided readings of the relationship between text and image, a performance perspective on visual art offers a dynamic alternative. Thus, we may also reframe visual art, not as a passive vehicle for circulation and exchange, but as a medium for the generation of new ideas. I have attempted to frame the creation and reception of the box in San Isidoro de León as visual performance. This is to point out the possibility of the hybrid nature of its style and iconography, drawing perhaps from several traditions that converged, by the end of the tenth century, in the southern parts of Scandinavia. It is this same interpretative ambiguity that may have allowed the box to be used in different historical contexts, as the physical modifications of the box imply. It remains the case that, as with most of the art which survives from the period, a definitive answer about any original meaning eludes us. Any meaning or meanings it had, acquired through the passage of many years, will always remain an alterity to us. Such is the case for the transient nature of performance.

Notes 1 Old Norse literature portrays skilled poets as dark and with prominent features, temperamental in character but gifted with the ability to compose poetry. Such qualities might find a counterpart in the Old Norse god of poetry and warfare, Óðinn. See Clunies Ross (2005, 86–91) for more instances and further analysis in connection with Skalla-­Grímr’s skills as a blacksmith and poet.

Performing Old Norse Poetry in Visual Art 183 2 Even so, the identification of this scene is not unproblematic since Hymir, Thor’s companion on the trip, is missing (Fuglesang 2007, 202). 3 Ramsund stone carvings (Sö 101) dated to the first half of the eleventh century on account of their stylistic features might be the earliest instance where several scenes of the myth in Völsunga saga can be identified. The twelfth-­century Hylestad church portal carvings (Kulturhistorisk Museum C4321) are a popular example where the scene of Gunnarr in the snake pit appears in an iconographic programme with other scenes which also occur in the saga. 4 ‘When the stag reaches fifty years old it looks for the snake’s lair and attracts it outside putting his nose close to the hole of the lair and holding its breath. Then the snake comes out and gets into the mouth of the stag and the stag eats it. Then the stag must look for a river to drink from, so that it can live for fifty years more. Otherwise, it will die. As the Prophet David says, “Like the stag wants the fresh water, so my soul wants you, Lord.” ’ Physiologus, in Bestiario medieval (1986, 106), quoted in Jesús Suárez López (2007, 4). My translation. 5 See, for example, another of the reliquaries from San Isidoro, now at the National Archaeological Museum of Madrid, bearing the Kuffic inscription ‘Allah’s blessing over your nation! Perpetual health . . . accomplished/happiness permanent . . ., lasting . . . fortu . . . ne, prosperity . . . for his nation’. The inscription is interrupted by the mounts and hinges of the box. My translation from Spanish after R. Amador de los Ríos in Ángela Franco Mata (1991, 53). 6 Interestingly, Pliny the Elder dedicates some lines to highlighting the aversion that snakes have against the ash tree: Historia Naturalis XVI (1999, 667) quoted in Suárez López (2007, 12). 7 The function as reliquary seems to convince most scholars. However, it has also been speculated that the cylinder was a pyxis, an idol, a game piece, a knife handle or a container for perfume, salt or sewing gear (Morales Romero 1991, 40–7; Fuglesang 2001, 165; Tesch 2007, 203; Gaborit-­Chopin 1978 in Roesdahl 1998, 553–4, 2011, 375; Wicker 2019, 154–6). James Graham-­Campbell and Eduardo Morales Romero draw attention to other cylinders made of bone material in Mammen style such as that found in a grave at Aarnes, in Norway. Other similar examples are known from Wolin, London and Bornish in Uist, which are closer to Ringerike style (Graham-­Campbell 2013, 108; Morales Romero 2004, 158). Sten Tesch makes a functional comparison with other bone-­material cylinders used as salt containers (2007, 203), but unlike the box at San Isidoro none of these cylinders are openwork, have such elaborated decoration or have metal lids.

Bibliography Abbreviations

B: Bergen, Norway DR: Denmark GF: Gotlands Museums Föremålssamling IR: Ireland RMN: Réunion des Musées Nationaux – Grand Palais photo agency SHM: Swedish History Museum TCD: Trinity College Dublin, Ireland U: Uppland, Sweden Vg: Västergötland, Sweden Bj: Björkö, Sweden

184  Rebeca Franco Valle Artefacts and Monuments Type Antler, runic inscription Brooches

Provenance

Location

Fishamble street, National Museum Dublin, Ireland of Ireland Björkö, Uppland, Swedish History Sweden Museum, Stockholm, Sweden Brooch Jämjö, Öland, Swedish History Sweden Museum, Stockholm, Sweden Casket (Fig. 7.6) Basilica of San Museo de la Real Isidoro, León, Colegiata de San Spain Isidoro, León, Spain Casket Saint John’s Unknown Cathedral, Cammin, Poland Casket Saint Stephan’s Bayerisches National Cathedral, museum, Munich, Bamberg, Germany Germany Cauldron Rævemosen, National museet, Gundestrup, Copenhagen, Denmark Denmark Pyxis Madinat alHispanic Society of Zahra, America, New Córdoba, York, USA Spain Pyxis (Fig. 7.1) Madinat alMusée du Louvre, Zahra, Paris, France Córdoba, Spain Key Hellvi, Stora Swedish History Ire, Gotland, Museum, Sweden Stockholm, Sweden Manuscript Unknown Manuscripts and illumination Archives Research from the Library, Trinity Book of Kells College Dublin, Ireland Manuscript Baghdad, Bibliothéque illumination Ummayyad Nationale, Paris, from the Caliphate France fables of Kalīla wa-Dimna ­ (Fig. 7.2)

Inventory Number

Dating

E172:9630/ IR12 SHM 34000: Bj 655

c. 1000

SHM 13534

tenth century

IIC-3-089­ ­ ­ 002-0009 ­

c. 1000

n/a

c. 1000

MA 286

c. 1000

C6562–76 D752

Second century BC c. 966

OA4068

967–8

c. 800

SHM 700–850 22917.183.I IE TCD MS. c. 800 58, fol. 290v. MS. Persan 376, fol. 74v.

c. 1279–80

Performing Old Norse Poetry in Visual Art 185 Type Pendant (Mask)

Provenance

Sogn og Fjordane, Norway Pendant (woman Klinta, Köping, figurine) (Fig. Öland, 7.3) Sweden

Location

Inventory Number

University Museum, B 5525 Bergen, Norway

Swedish History Museum, Stockholm, Sweden Pendant (woman Öland, Sweden Swedish History figurine) Museum, Stockholm, Sweden Pendant (Þórr’s Sigtuna, Swedish History hammer) Uppland, Museum, Sweden Stockholm, Sweden Pendant (Þórr’s Scania, Sweden Swedish History hammer) Museum, Stockholm, Sweden Picture stone Stora Hammars, Swedish History (Stora Lärbro, Museum, Hammars I) Gotland, Stockholm, Sweden Sweden Picture stone Tjängvide, Swedish History (Tjängvide) Gotland, Museum, (Fig. 7.4) Sweden Stockholm, Sweden Picture stone Stenkyrka Smiss, Gotland Museum, (Stenkyrka Gotland, Visby, Gotland, Smiss I) Sweden Sweden Picture stone Stenkyrka Swedish History Lillbjärs, Museum, Gotland, Stockholm, Sweden Sweden Picture stone Ardre church, Swedish History (Ardre VIII) Gotland, Museum, (Fig. 7.5) Sweden Stockholm, Sweden Picture stone Klinte, Gotland Museum, (Hunninge I) Hunninge I Visby, Gotland, Sweden Runestone Jelling, Denmark Jelling, Denmark Runestone Aarhus, Jylland, Moesgaard Denmark Museum, Højberg, Denmark Runestone Altuna, Uppland, Altuna, Uppland, Sweden Sweden

Dating 800–1000

SHM 128

800–1000

SHM 6485– 266707

800-1100 ­

SHM 27883:1 Unknown

SHM 29750:15

Unknown

SHM 29971:1 800–1000

SHM 4171

800–1000

GF A3428

800–1000

SHM 13742:2 800–1000

11118:8

800–1000

GF C9286

800–1000

DR42 MJy 77

c. 965 c. 970–1020

U1161

c. 1000

186  Rebeca Franco Valle Type

Provenance

Location

Inventory Number

Dating

Runestone

Frugården, Olsbro, Norra Åsarp, Sweden Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, United Kingdom Oseberg, Vestfold, Norway Källunge, Visby, Sweden

Frugården, Olsbro, Norra Åsarp, Sweden Museum of London, UK

Vg181

1010–40

4075

Early eleventh century

Viking Ship Museum, Oslo, Norway Gotland Museum

C55000_224

c. 820

GF C4413

Heggen, Buskerud, Norway

Kulturhistorisk Museum, Oslo, Norway

Early eleventh century Early eleventh century

Stone Slab

Wagon Weathervane Weathervane

C23602

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Performing Old Norse Poetry in Visual Art 187 Almazán, Vicente. 1986. Gallaecia Scandinavica. Introducción ó Studio das Relacións Galaico/ Escandinavas Durante a Idade Media, Vigo: Editorial Galaxia Anderson, Glaire D. 2016. ‘A Mother’s Gift? Astrology and the Pyxis of al-­Mughira’, Journal of Medieval History 42:1, 107–30 Anderson, Glaire D. 2018. ‘Aristocratic Residences and the Majlis in Umayyad Córdoba’, in Music, Sound, and Architecture in Islam, ed. by Michael Frishkopf and Federico Spinetti, Austin: University of Texas Press, 228–54 Barnes, M. P., J. R. Hagland and R. I. Page. 1997. The Runic Inscriptions of Viking Age Dublin, Medieval Dublin Excavations 1962–81 B (5), Dublin: Royal Irish Academy Birkett, Thomas E. 2011. ‘Ráð Rétt Rúnar: Reading the Runes in Old English and Old Norse Poetry’, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Oxford Brunning, Sue. 2015. ‘ “(Swinger of) the Serpent of Wounds”: Swords and Snakes in the Viking Mind’, in Representing Beasts in Early Medieval England and Scandinavia, ed. by Michal D. J. Bintley and Thomas J. T. Williams, Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 53–72 Christys, Ann. 2015. Vikings in the South: Voyages to Iberia and the Mediterranean, Studies in Early Medieval History, London: Bloomsbury Academic Clunies Ross, Margaret. 2005. A History of Old Norse Poetry and Poetics, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer Coffins, Roger. 1995. Early Medieval Spain. Unity in Diversity, London: Macmillan Press Egeler, Matthias. 2013. ‘Eikþyrnir and the Rivers of Paradise. Cosmological Perspectives on Dating Grímnismál 26–28’, Arkiv för nordisk filologi 128, 17–39 Erzen, Jale Nejdet. 2007. ‘Islamic Aesthetics: An Alternative Way of Knowledge’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65:1, 69–75 Fierro, Maribel. 2005. Abd al-­Rahman III. The First Cordoban Caliph, Makers of the Muslim World, Oxford: Oneworld Publications Franco Mata, Ángela. 1991. ‘El Tesoro de San Isidoro y la Monarquía Leonesa’, Boletín del Museo Arqueológico Nacional 9, 35–68 Franco Valle, Rebeca. 2016. ‘Viking Art in the Church. A Scandinavian casket in San Isidoro de León, Spain’, unpublished master’s thesis, University of Oslo Fuglesang, Signe Horn. 1991. ‘The Axehead from Mammen and the Mammen Style’, in Mammen. Grav, Kunst og Samfund I Vikingetid, ed. by Mette Iversen, Højbjerg: Jysk Akaeologisk Selskab, 81–107 Fuglesang, Signe Horn. 1998. ‘Swedish Runestones of the Eleventh Century: Ornament and Dating’, in Runeninschriften als Quellen interdisziplinärer Forschung: Abhandlungen des Vierten Internationalen Symposiums über Runen und Runeninschriften in Göttingen vom 4–9 August 1995, ed. By Klaus Düwel, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 15, Göttingen: de Gruyter, 197–218 Fuglesang, Signe Horn. 2001. ‘Animal Ornament: The Late Viking Period’, in Tiere-­ Menschen-­ Götter: Wikingerzeitliche Kunststile und ihre Neuzeitliche Rezeption, ed. by Michael Müller-­Wille and Lars Olof Larsson, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 157–94 Fuglesang, Signe Horn. 2007. ‘Ekphrasis and Surviving Imagery in Viking Scandinavia’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 3, 193–224 Gaborit-­Chopin, Danielle. 1978. Elfenbeinkunst im Mittelalter, Berlin: Gebr Mann Verlag Graham-­Campbell, James. 2013. Viking Art, World of Art, London: Thames and Hudson Gunnell, Terry. 2013. ‘Vǫluspá in Performance’, in The Nordic Apocalypse: Approaches to Vǫluspá and Nordic Days of Judgement, ed. by Terry Gunnell and Annette Lassen, Turnhout: Brepols, 63–77

188  Rebeca Franco Valle Harris, Julie A. 1995. ‘Muslim Ivories in Christian Hands: The Leire Casket in Contexts’, Art History 18:2, 213–21 Hermes, Nizar F. 2014. ‘The Moor’s First Sight: An Arab Poet in a Ninth-­Century Viking Court’, in Historic Engagements with Occidental Cultures, Religions, Powers: Perceptions from Europe and Asia, ed. by Anne R. Richards and Iraj Omidvar, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 57–69 Hoffman, Eva R. 2001. ‘Pathways of Portability: Islamic and Christian Interchange from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century’, Art History 24:1, 17–50 Klindt-­Jensen, Ole and David M. Wilson. 1966. Viking Art, London: Allen and Unwin Kristoffersen, Elna Siv. 1995. ‘Transformation in Migration Period Animal Art’, Norwegian Archaeological Review 28:1, 1–17 Kristoffersen, Elna Siv. 2000. ‘Expressive Objects’, in Form Function and Context. Material Culture Studies in Scandinavian Archaeology, ed. by Deborah Olausen and Helle Vandkilde, Acta Archaeologica Lundensia 31, Stockholm: Almquist and Wiksell International, 265–74 Kristoffersen, Elna Siv. 2010. ‘Half Beast-­Half Man: Hybrid Figures in Animal Art’, World Archaeology 42:2, 261–72 Lawson, Michael Kenneth. 2004. Cnut: England’s Viking King, Stroud: Tempus Looijenga, Tineke. 2003. Texts and Contexts of the Oldest Runic Inscriptions, Leiden: Brill Malmer, Brita. 1966. Nordiska Mynt Före ar 1000, Acta arcahaeologica Lundensia 8:4, Lund: CWK Gleerups Forlag Martin, Therese. 2019. ‘Caskets of Silver and Ivory from Diverse Parts of the World: Strategic Collection for an Iberian Treasury’, Medieval Encounters 25:1–2, 1–38 Morales Romero, Eduardo. 1991. ‘Arte Vikingo en España’, in Revista de Arqueología 12 Mayo, 40–7 Morales Romero, Eduardo. 2004. Historia de los vikingos en España. Ataques e Incursiones contra los Reinos Cristianos y Musulmanes de la Península Ibérica en los siglos IX-­XI, Madrid: Ediciones Miraguano Morphy, Howard. 2010. ‘Art as action, art as evidence’, in The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies, ed. by Mary Beaudry and Dan Hicks, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 263–90 Neiß, Michael. 2009. ‘A Matter of Standards. Iconography as a Quality Indicator for Viking Age Brooches’, Lund Archaeological Review 15, 127–48 Neiß, Michael. 2013. ‘Viking Age Animal Art as a Material Anchor? A New Theory Based on a Head Motif ’, in The Head Motif in Past Societies in a Somparative Perspective, ed. by Leszek Gardela and Kamil Kajkowski, Bytów: Muzeum Zachodniokaszubskie w Bytowie, 74–87 Neiß, Michael and Rebeca Franco Valle. 2021. ‘Devices of Ekphrasis? – A Multimodal Perspective on Viking Age Animal Art’, Archaeological Review from Cambridge 36:2 Nordeide, Sæbjørg W. 2006. ‘Thor’s Hammer in Norway: A  Symbol of Reaction Against the Christian Cross?’ in Old Norse Religion in Long-­Term Perspectives. Origins, Changes, and Interactions. An international Conference in Lund, Sweden, June 3–7 2004, ed. by Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert and Catharina Raudvere, Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 218–23 Oerhl, Sigmund. 2006. ‘Zur Deutung Anthropomorpher und Theriomorpher Bilddarstellungen auf den Spätwikingerzeitlichen Runensteinen Schwedens’, in Wiener Studien zur Skandinavistik, Vol. 16, Wien: Praesens Pentz, Peter. 2018. ‘Viking Art, Snorri Sturluson and Some Recent Metal Detector Finds’, Fornvännen 113:1, 17–33

Performing Old Norse Poetry in Visual Art 189 Pérez Llamazares, Julio. 1925. El Tesoro de la Real Colegiata de San Isidoro de León, Reliquias, Relicarios y Joyas Artísticas, León: La Crónica de León Prado-­Vilar, Francisco. 1997. ‘Circular Vision of Fertility and Punishment: Caliphal Ivory Caskets from Al-­Andalus’, Muqarnas 14, 19–41 Prado-­Vilar, Francisco. 2005. ‘Enclosed in Ivory: The Miseducation of al-­Mughira’, Journal of the David Collection 2:1, 138–63 Puerta Vílchez, Jose Miguel. 2013. ‘Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance’, in Reflections on Qurtuba in the 21st Century, Madrid: Casa Árabe, 29–66 Roesdahl, Else. 1998. ‘Cammin – Bamberg – Prague – León. Four Scandinavian Objects d’Art in Europe’, in Studien zur Archäologie des Osteeraumes Von de Eisenzeit zum Mittelalter, ed. by Michael Müller-­Wille, Neumünster: Wachholtz, 547–54 Roesdahl, Else. 2010. ‘Viking Art in European Churches (Cammin-­Bamberg-­Prague-­ León)’, in Viking Trade and Settlement in Continental Western Europe, ed. by Ibsen Skibsted Klaesoe, Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 149–61 Roesdahl, Else. 2011. ‘From Scandinavia to Spain: A Viking-­Age Reliquary in Leon and its Meaning’, in The Viking Age: Ireland and the West. Papers from the Proceedings of the Fifteenth Viking Congress, Cork, 18–27, August, 2005, ed. by John Sheehan and Donnchadh Ó Corráin, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 353–60 Roesdahl, Else. 2013. ‘King Harald’s Rune-­Stone in Jelling: Methods and Messages’, in Early Medieval Art and Archaeology in the Northern World: Studies in Honour of James Graham-­Campbell, ed. by Andrew Reynolds and Leslie E. Webster, Leiden: Brill, 859–75 Rosser-­Owen, Marian. 2005. ‘Islamic Objects in Christian Contexts: Relic Translation and Modes of Transfer in Medieval Iberia’, Art in transfer 7:1, 39–64 Rosser-­Owen, Marian. 2007. ‘Poems in Stone: The Iconography of Amirid Poetry, and its “Petrification” on Amirid Marbles’, in Revisiting Al-­Andalus: Perspectives on the Material Culture of Islamic Iberia and Beyond, ed. by Glaire D. Anderson and Mariam Rosser-­Owen, Leiden: Brill, 83–98 Sawyer, Birgit. 2003. The Viking-­Age Rune-­Stones: Custom and Commemoration in Early Medieval Scandinavia, Oxford: Oxford University Press Shalem, Avinoam. 1995. ‘From Royal Caskets to Relic Containers: Two Ivory Caskets from Burgos and Madrid’, Muqarnas 12, 24–8 Shalem, Avinoam. 2004. The Oliphant. Islamic Objects in Historical Context, Islamic History and Civilization 54, Leiden: Brill Shalem, Avinoam. 2005. ‘Objects as Carriers of Real or Contrived Memories in a Cross-­ Cultural Context’, in Austausch diplomatischer Geschenke in Spätantike und Byzanz, Mitteilungen zur Spätantiken Archäologie und Byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte 4, ed. by Johannes G. Deckers, Marcell Restle and Avinoam Shalem, Munich: University of Munich Press, 101–19 Sindbæk, Søren Michael. 2014. ‘Crossbreeding Beasts: Christian and Non-­Christian Imagery in Oval Brooches’, in Conversion and Identity in the Viking Age, ed. by Ildar H. Garipzanov and Rosalind Bronté, Turnhout: Brepols, 168–93 Skamby Madsen, Jan. 1992. The Danish Vikings, Copenhagen: Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Staecker, Jörn. 2007. ‘Decoding Viking Art. The Christian Iconography of the Bamberg Shrine’, in On the Road. Studies in Honour of Lars Larsson, ed. by Birgitta Hårdh, Kristina Jennbert and Deborah Olausson, Acta Archaeologica Lundensia 26, Lund: University of Lund Press, 301–6 Suárez López, Jesús. 2007. ‘La cervatina bendita y la serpiente maldita: la lucha mítica del ciervo y la serpiente y un conjuro asturiano contra la culebra (narrativa e iconografía)’, Culturas Populares 5, Digital Journal

190  Rebeca Franco Valle Tesch, Sten. 2007. ‘Cum Grano Salis – Salt and Prestige’, in Cultural Interaction between East and West: Archaeology, Artefacts and Human Contacts in Northern Europe, ed. by Ulf Fransson, Marie Svedin, Sophie Bergerbrant and Fedir Androshchuk, Stockholm: Stockholm University, 227–35 Varenius, Björn. 1994. ‘The Hedeby Coinage’, Current Swedish Archaeology 2, 185–93 Walsh, Patrick G., ed. 1990. Cassiodorus: Explanation of the Psalms I, Psalms 1–50, New York: Paulist Press Wicker, Nancy. 2019. ‘The Scandinavian Container at San Isidoro, León, in the Context of Viking Art and Society’, Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 11, 135–56

8 How the Hell Do You Read This? The Evolution of Eddic Orality Through Manuscript Performance Frog Have you ever tried to read the Codex Regius (R) manuscript of the Poetic Edda? Not just to check a verse or go through it in parallel with an edition, but to just sit and read through a poem or two from beginning to end? Research on eddic poetry has given increased attention to the textual form of eddic poems as they are preserved in manuscripts. Judy Quinn in particular (e.g., 2016) has been a vocal advocate of the importance of returning to manuscript texts when developing readings of particular passages, rather than relying on the choices and interpretations of editors in published editions. In parallel with the rise in attention to the manuscript texts, the gradual building of interest in performance in Old Norse research, especially since the 1990s, seems to have reached a watershed. Scholars are increasingly open to thinking about embodied renditions and the use of poetry by people. Enough scholars, as well as practitioners, have engaged with the topic that it has become the centre of focussed discussion, as at the conferences on ‘Old Norse Poetry in Performance’ held at the University of Oxford in 2016 and 2019. My concern here lies at the intersection of these two trends in current scholarship. A few years ago, Terry Gunnell (2005) reminded us that the manuscripts of eddic poems are physically small and relatively low-­budget productions, which says something about them and their significance for people who engaged with them. I am interested here in the interaction of medieval people with these verbal texts rendered and reproduced in material form. My argument is quite simple. The premise is that, in the period when the earliest manuscripts were produced, reading was predominantly a social rather than private practice, consistent with reading practices elsewhere (see e.g., Coleman 1996). The writing and copying of the poems reflect the usage of the texts and social trends in such usage, when poems are entering writing from multiple situations, often compiled and organised into collections. This usage clearly involved reading, and the social trend supports that reading involved the oral delivery of texts in contexts where others would be able to listen and be edified and entertained, could evaluate the delivery DOI: 10.4324/9780367809324-13

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and potentially criticise it, as well as discuss what had been performed. From this premise, three complementary factors come into focus that produce a perspective on how people interacted with these manuscripts. First, the documentation of eddic poems is dependent on an environment where these were still part of the living oral-­poetic ecology. The oral background of eddic poetry has long been generally accepted (e.g., Harris 1983 [2008], 189) and the poems can be described as oral-­derived texts (on which see Foley 1990; see also Gísli Sigurðsson 1998; DuBois 2003). Oral traditions operate on a principle of ‘use it or lose it’: they must be used in order to receive social value and be learned and used by others or they disappear. The wealth of preserved eddic poems could not enter writing without a correspondingly vital oral tradition, of which the written texts are but fragments and glimpses.1 Second, when oral forms of verbal art initially encounter literacy, the oral delivery of written texts is not necessarily differentiated from familiar forms of oral delivery. The public reading of eddic poems can therefore be expected to have followed the conventions of their oral delivery in other contexts. This does not mean that the tradition was static and did not evolve, but the public use of written texts must be assumed to have been an extension of the oral tradition rather than contrasted with it (Mundal 2010, 166–7; and see later in chapter). There is no reason to suspect that oral poems were written out in order to be delivered anew in a different way. Whatever the precise uses of the written text-­scripts may have been, it was undoubtedly an evolution of the tradition’s practices. The roles of written texts may eventually have transformed or perhaps even displaced the oral tradition across the centuries (see also Gísli Sigurðsson 1998, xx), but the entry of the poems into writing and the early reading of these written texts can be assumed to have been based on continuity. The oral delivery of eddic poems in such an environment would be evaluated on the basis of knowledge of conventions of at least voice and rhythm in the oral tradition (cf. Gunnell 1995). Manuscript reading practices can be reasonably assumed, at least initially, to have manifested direct continuity from oral performance practices, with which they must have existed in parallel. This type of social reading practice can be described as manuscript-­ based performance, or, more simply, manuscript performance.2 Third, orthography offers indicators of some form of continued orality of the eddic poems, even if this occurred in symbiosis with a written tradition. The fluent delivery of eddic poems from the Codex Regius (GKS 2365) or AM 748 I a 4to requires more than literacy. Verses and whole series of verses are abbreviated in text-­specific ways3 and cannot be read exclusively through knowledge of general abbreviation conventions in other manuscripts. Fluent oral delivery, avoiding pauses and false starts, places constraints on the practicality and viability of scanning back for an earlier, expanded form of the same verses, which might not be visible on the same page. Readers would be driven to learn, at the very least, those passages where eddic manuscript abbreviations are used for extended stretches of text. In conjunction with

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reading practices and presumably also oral performance practices, the manuscripts teach readers the poems, which they should learn sufficiently for fluent manuscript performance. Rather than replacing the oral tradition, abbreviation practices unite with manuscript performance practices to support the view that such manuscripts were initially an extension of oral performance. This is not to say that the aim of abbreviation was to stimulate the learning of the poems per se, but certain uses of the practice, in particular, seem to anticipate that the reader will learn to go through the respective stretches of text from memory. The implication is thus not simply that scribal efficiency drives a reader to learn certain lines in a few poems because they are abbreviated, but rather that scribes’ use of abbreviation reflects expectations of how a reader will interact with the written text. In this case, manuscripts supported rather than spontaneously replaced people learning the poems for oral delivery, which opens up the question of whether collections of eddic poems were in some way linked to pedagogy.

Overcoming Ideologies Old Norse scholarship has been haunted by a tendency to view orality and literacy as opposed and exclusive categories, a view that was commonplace across disciplines for much of the twentieth century. Historically, this idea is a holdover from the era of European Romantic Nationalism. The distinction between modern and non-­modern cultures was polarised (e.g., Anttonen 2005), and the ideology of that era brought into focus features of difference between culture types and construed these as exclusive. Thus, the distance between such constructs as modern and primitive, scientific and non-­scientific, written and oral, and so forth, was seen as absolute (see also Gal and Irvine 2019). The ideology of exclusivity became projected onto the discussion of medieval texts. Written texts of eddic poems were seen as products of oral culture, and yet they were also seen as immediately isolated from it. This view combined with an assumption that the transition from oral tradition to written text happened only once for any text, so that all variants and fragments identifiable with that text could be – and indeed should be – compared to reconstruct a single, ultimate manuscript exemplar (e.g., Dronke 1997).4 This ideology was sometimes at odds with the associated valorisation of identifying and reconstructing non-­modern, non-­Christian traditions in heritage construction projects. Snorra Edda thus became a focus for heated debate because its mythology had to be orally derived in order to hold the authenticity essential for constructing pre-­Christian religion, yet the absolute distance imagined between orality and literacy demanded that, as a text attributed to a literate author, it must rely on written texts as authorities and exemplars without recourse to knowledge derived from orally based practices.5 Perspectives on oral and written culture in medieval Scandinavia have evolved considerably, especially since a turn in scholarship beginning around

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1990 (e.g., Gísli Sigurðsson 1990; Quinn 1990; see also Harris 1983 [2008]). However, interest in these topics has remained centred on approaching oral traditions and variation in the background of written texts on the one hand, and approaching meanings or developing interpretations of the written texts on the other (e.g., Quinn 1992; Acker 1998; Gísli Sigurðsson 1998; Mellor 1999 [2008]; Thorvaldsen 2008). Questions of dynamic and ongoing interactions of oral and written culture have produced rich discussions in research on Old English poetry (e.g., O’Keeffe 1990; Amodio 2004; Hopkins 2021), and these discussions have significantly affected thinking about the poetry in society and in manuscript transmission. In research on eddic poetry, however, the gap between oral and literate culture continues to be viewed as absolute by many scholars, reflected in the common inference that, if a poem was available in written form, a written exemplar would have been used when quoting it, for example in Snorra Edda, or when emending a text while copying it. That a copyist or reader of the text might use knowledge of the poetry rather than only other manuscripts tends to remain beyond the scope of consideration (although see Harris 1983 [2008], 191–202). Medieval Icelandic society would not support a significant gap between oral and literate culture. Literacy was not corollary with certain communities as opposed to others, each with separate and exclusive social practices. Moreover, the ambivalence toward eddic poetry on mythological subjects implicit in transcribing the poems is dependent on them not being identified as socially other from the perspective of literate Christians. If the poems were seen as characteristic of uneducated, backward peasantry, whereas educated Christians had exorcised such practices from their own communities, identification as ‘pagan’ would become a marked and ideologically polarised feature of difference. Whereas the ideology of Romantic Nationalism valorised non-­Christian traditions as identity-­building resources, medieval Christian ideology stigmatised non-­Christian mythology as something to be eradicated. Snorra Edda offered a framework for allowing the positive evaluation of the poems and stories by re-­framing them,6 but neither this nor manuscript collections of eddic mythological poems reflect a modest ‘conflicted curiosity’ (Kaplan 2011, 189) or flirting fascination with non-­Christian mythology. Saga literature’s so-­called antiquarian interest in paganism predominantly reflects traditions surrounding the transmission of legends about non-­Christian practices that are presented in broader narrative contexts (McKinnell 2003; Frog 2019a). This extends to humorous and farcical accounts, like the pseudo-­incantation in Bósa saga ok Herrauðs, but such cases are embedded in telling stories and should not be confused with ethnographic descriptions.7 Nevertheless, there is no evidence of contemporary interest in independently writing and compiling descriptions of such practices themselves or ritual speech associated with such rituals,8 compiling the descriptions found in different sagas or compiling stories of vernacular mythology outside of Snorra Edda. The eddic poems were written out independent of any broader saga narrative and they were written as metrical text,

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including non-­semantic expletive particles that are necessary for reading the metrical rhythm of lines, although these are performance-­based features that generally tend to be omitted when oral poetry is transcribed in other contexts. These factors, the entry of both individual poems and (probably) groups of poems into writing at multiple times and (probably) places, indicate their value to literate people and, more specifically, their value as poems. In their historical context, these written texts were significant social, political and economic investments that opposed (aggressively, in the case of Snorra Edda) the authorised Christian ideology’s stigmatisation of these traditions as fundamentally ‘other’ and ‘pagan’.9 Without an imported ideology like Romanticism to drive interest, this sort of stance-­taking would require more than local presence: the people with the technology of writing and resources for manuscript production would need to feel that the poems’ value and relevance was sufficient to actively invest in them. There is no reason to think that Icelanders associated with writing were, as a rule, somehow isolated from oral traditions. Such isolation would require that the oral tradition was inaccessible to the elite and that they subsequently valorised and collected ‘pagan’ poems of low culture, as did nineteenth-­ century enthusiasts. There is no doubt that oral traditions of skaldic poetry persisted among the elite, and the inclusion of the survey of mythology, rich in eddic poetry quotations, in the Gylfaginning section of Snorra Edda is widely considered to reflect the importance of eddic poetry for interpreting and composing skaldic poetry (Leslie 2012, 146–54 and works there cited). The position of Gylfaginning within Snorra Edda as a pedagogically oriented treatise points to a view of eddic poetry or vernacular mythology as very significant for a poet’s education. Rather than losing the poetry and rediscovering it among anonymous illiterate masses, the literate elite were almost certainly raised with eddic poetry, seeing it as compatible with their Christianity, and it was through that background of experience that they saw it as important and worth advocating. Considering its prominence in Snorra Edda, such knowledge may even have been seen as important for a well-­rounded cultural competence or education.

Manuscript Performance Why manuscript collections of eddic poems were produced remains a mystery. What is clear is that the poems they contained were not written down to be shelved and ignored or stored for future generations. The poems’ written texts are clearly intended for use. Oral poetry is not simply ‘text’; it is a practice or practices that incorporate language. Such practices may include the reproduction of poems that are also recognised and referred to as ‘pre-­ existing’ entities, but the poetry is invariably bound up with people doing things that reciprocally participate in structuring it, its value and variation. Practices of oral poetry can evolve to incorporate written media, as in cases of ballads and broadsides, Icelandic rímur or Old English verse, in which case

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text-­scripts may survive even when the practices do not. Importantly, lifting the language of oral poetry from practice and translating it into a written medium does not occur without motivation (Jonsson 1991, 145). Whatever was happening with eddic poems, reading such texts in the thirteenth century was almost certainly a vocal and social rather than silent and private practice, and thus the written poems were likely intended for oral delivery (cf. Coleman 1996; see also Clover 1982, 189–204).10 Poetry is characterised as being presented in a way that sets it apart from other forms of language use (Tsur 1992). Oral poetry is widely discussed as ‘sung poetry’ (e.g., Reichl 2012, 9), although this may be a bit misleading: to a Western ear today, ‘singing’ tends to be narrowly conceived in relation to ideals of aesthetic, melodic uses of voice, and this is differentiated from chanting or rapping, while other melodic and rhythmic verse performance might be more vaguely classed as some type of formalised or ritual speaking. Conventions of oral delivery can be assumed based on comparative evidence of how traditions of oral poetry work, internal features of the preserved poetry and descriptions of poetic performances. For example, so-­called skaldic but not eddic forms exhibit phonological ‘cohesion’, whereby a syllable’s quantity or rhyme is changed through support of the following consonant as part of it, which indicates a difference in conventions of elocution.11 The delivery of both categories of poetry is described by verbs of speaking while the delivery of other vernacular poetries and liturgy could be described as ‘singing’ (Gade 1994, 138–40). Specific conventions for the delivery of eddic poems in fornyrðislag and ljóðaháttr remain unknown, yet ljóðaháttr is particularly linked to direct speech (Quinn 1992). Terry Gunnell (1995) has argued that eddic poems in ljóðaháttr must have been connected to distinct performance practices that likely involved some level of drama, pointing out that the linguistic register of these poems is also closer to everyday speech and their metre allows greater rhythmic flexibility. Ljóðaháttr delivery must have been distinct: the alternation of long lines and so-­called Vollzeilen indicates a different rhythmical structure, and the preferred cadence of Vollzeilen as well as of long lines differs from that of fornyrðislag, indicating a difference in conventions of performance. During the period when eddic poems were being adapted into or composed in writing, the oral delivery of the written texts can be assumed to have followed the conventions of oral performance: they operated in aural environments where, from the perspective of those listening, performance would be assessed on the basis of what was heard rather than whether it was delivered from a written or memorised script or composed in situ. Whatever the formal conventions of performance practices, collections of transcripts of eddic poems emerged amidst such conventions where the reading of the manuscript texts would likely have contributed to these practices, augmenting and extending the oral tradition, in what might be described as a step in the tradition’s evolution. Performance based on the written texts is here described as manuscript performance. The argument that follows is built around the formal challenge of orally delivering abbreviated lines in the course of public reading, but it is important

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to stress that manuscript performance should not be assumed to be a slavish recital of the written script, as might be expected for a poetry reading today. Comparative ethnographic evidence shows that even the ritual performance of sacred written texts may involve and motivate variation (Blackburn 1988, 25). The preserved texts of eddic poems contain lines and passages that are clearly non-­ideal (Frog 2021, 87). If audience evaluation focussed on the well-­formed and good ordering of lines and passages, as is common for oral traditions (e.g., Timonen 2000), the performer would likely want to ‘improve’ these in oral delivery. Medieval manuscript performance in other milieux shows that a performer might strategically reshape a text in relation to the audience or situation (e.g., Coleman 1996, 116). Especially in an environment where the use of written poems was an extension of oral practices, manuscript performance could draw heavily on personal knowledge and competence (cf. Blackburn 1988, 25) and potentially be completely divorced from the written script (cf. Foley 2002, 1–3), if only because a reader might lose his or her place on the page and simply push forward. The present chapter’s empirical emphasis focuses on questions of reading while maintaining the flow of performance, yet the concept of manuscript performance extends to dimensions of practice that must be acknowledged even though, for eddic poetry, they remain conjecture and speculation.

Texts That Teach Mythological Poems

Extended abbreviations are predominantly found in the mythological poems and in Fáfnismál-­Sigrdrífumál (not distinguished by a rubric). AM 748 I  a preserves only mythological poems; those also in the Codex Regius are all genetically related copies and it is apparent that the extended abbreviations in those poems have been copied from their exemplars. Paul Acker (2019) recently pointed out that the text-­specific abbreviation practice of repeating passages of Old Norse poetry appears to be an innovation that is unique for medieval manuscripts.12 For a reader today, this often prompts scanning through the text to find the preceding example, rereading it and skipping back to the abbreviation. Some abbreviations seem structured to facilitate this. In Hávamál, a long line and Vollzeile repeated in two consecutive passages may be abbreviated by writing out the first and last words in full and only the first letter of each word in between (comparable to the contraction of a word). In order to make the relationship between transcriptions of the lines visually salient, they have been laid out on the principles of a ‘diagraph’ (Du Bois 2014), vertically aligning equivalent elements: (1) O snotr maþr/hyggr ser alla vera // viðhlöiendr vini (Hávamál st.24, ll.1–3) vini (Hávamál st.25, ll.1–3) O snort maþr/h. s. a. v. // v. A foolish man/thinks everyone is to him // a friend who laughs with him

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In this case, scanning back two lines on the page for the repeated phrase would be possible in manuscript performance. Since the string of abbreviated letters stands out and is distinctive to the single repetition, there would be no serious risk of the reader jumping back to the wrong place on the page. The delivery of oral poetry, however, is normally characterised by an exceptional degree of fluency that accords with the rhythms of performance. False starts, pauses and their fillers (er . . ., um . . ., etc.) that are organically interwoven with conversational speech are normally eliminated. Repeated jumping back and forth on the page risks, sooner or later, requiring time that would exceed what oral delivery could allow without pausing. Abbreviations for repeating verse series are more often open-­ended, particularly where the series is repeated multiple times. They are comparable to so-­called suspensions as abbreviations in which only the first letter or letters are written. Multi-­line suspensions, however, may involve both full words and different types of abbreviations; the abbreviations are often inconsistent, and such suspensions seem to become shorter across multiple repetitions. In Hávamál stanzas 112–37, the opening sequence of a long line followed by two Vollzeilen is repeated 21 times. In the first repetition, the abbreviation indicates each word until the beginning of the first Vollzeile, at which point it concludes with a punctus elevatus, here indicated ‘?’, which is equivalent to ‘etc.’. The second repetition occurs close to the end of the line on the manuscript page and concludes abruptly; the third goes as far as the beginning of the second half-­line, while the fourth again concludes abruptly at the manuscript’s margin. The accident of the abbreviation repeatedly encountering the edge of the page seems to have affected the rate of shortening, so that the following 16 repetitions present only the first two words: (2) Raðomc þer loddfafnir/ en þv ráð nemir // nióta mvndo ef þv nemr // þer mvno góð ef þv getr (Hávamál st.112) Radomc þer l. /a. þ. r. n. // n.? (Hávamál st.113) Raðomc þ. l. | (Hávamál st.115) Radomc þer l. f. /ē. (Hávamál st.116) Rað. þ. | (Hávamál st.117) Raðomc þer (Hávamál st.119) Raþomc þer (Hávamál st.120) Radomc þer (Hávamál st.121) Radomc þer (Hávamál st.122) Radomc þer (Hávamál st.125) Radomc þer (Hávamál st.126) Radomc þer (Hávamál st.127) Raðomc þer (Hávamál st.128) Radomc þer (Hávamál st.129) Radomc þer (Hávamál st.130) Raðomc þer (Hávamál st.131)

How the Hell Do You Read This?

Raðomc þer Rað. þer Raðomc þer Raþomc þer

199

(Hávamál st.132) (Hávamál st.134) (Hávamál st.135) (Hávamál st.137)

I advise you, Lodd-Fáfnir/and you the advice should take // you will enjoy it if you take it // for you it will be good if you get it Scanning back to the first, expanded form of the verses becomes increasingly problematic as the text progresses, both owing to the distance of separation on the page and the risk of jumping back to the wrong repetition. At st.123, the page must be turned and the reader is abandoned to rely on knowledge or memory. Fluent manuscript performance demands remembering the verses, which is reinforced by the number of times they are repeated. Not all abbreviated passages are repeated regularly or in such numbers. In Völuspá, for example, the recurring long line couplet describing the gods going to their judgement seats occurs four times. The first occurrence comes after 12 long lines, or after six lines on the manuscript page, so scanning back is at least possible. The second occurrence comes only another 57 long lines later, well after the page has turned. The amount of intermediate text makes it improbable that a reader could remember the lines without already knowing the passage: (3) Þa gen/gengo regin oll/aravk stola // ginheilog goð/oc vm þat gettvz (Völuspá R st.6 ll.1–4) Þa g. r. a. /ar. (Völuspá R st.9, ll.1–4) Þa g. r. a. /a. (Völuspá R st.24, ll.1–4 / st.23, ll.1–4) Þa g. r. a. (Völuspá R st.26, ll.1–4 / st.25, ll.1–4) Then go all gods/to their doom seats // mythic-holy gods/and on this considered Recurrent passages may also entail morphological variation. In Þrymskviða, the proposal that Þórr should be disguised as Freyja in bridal dress is six long lines made up of 32 orthographic words. The same six lines are repeated in abbreviated form with morphological variation and a slight adjustment in phrasing eight long lines later. In this case, it is not enough to skip up five lines earlier on the page and repeat what was transcribed there. The reader must also accommodate morphological variation from the proposal in direct speech to third-­person narration. Moreover, the abbreviation exhibits a phraseological variation in the second long line, where the verb phrase hafi hann ‘let him have’ is exchanged for the conjunction ok ‘and’, requiring additional morphological variation of the following noun phrase to agree with the verb binda ‘to bind’:

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(4) Bindo ver þor þa/brvþar lini // hafi hann iþ micla/men Brisinga // latom vnd hanom/hrynia lvcla // oc kven vaþir'/vm kne falla // en abriosti/breiþa steína // oc hagliga/vm ha/fvþ typpom (Þrymskviða st.15, l.5 – st.16, l.8) Bund’o þeir þor þ. b. l. & e. m. men br. l. v. h. h. l. & k. v. vm kne f. en a. br. b. s. & h. v. h. t. (Þrymskviða st.19) Let’s dress Thor then/in bridal linen // let him have that great/Brisings’ necklace // let around him/jingle keys // and women’s clothes/around his knees to fall // and on his breast/to spread jewels // and something proper/we’ll put on his head They dressed Thor then/in bridal linen // and that great/Brisings’ necklace // let around him/jingle keys // and women’s clothes/around his knees fall // and on his breast/spread jewels // and something proper/they put on his head Jumping back to the first passage would still require the reader’s familiarity with the poem to make the necessary morphological variations, and fluent delivery would not be guaranteed. Such a reading strategy would also presumably miss the phraseological variation in the second long line. The only way for the reader to guarantee fluent manuscript performance would be to already know the passage. Some recurrent series of verses have variation built into them, such as the openings in numbered lists of questions or units of mythic knowledge,13 where alliteration in the first long line is normally on the number in the series. The numbered list in Vafþrúðnismál is particularly interesting because the repeating opening is a series of lines, with alliteration-­driven variation. With the possible exception of the omission of the article in the second question, the a-­line, which concludes with the ordinal number, is written out in every repetition. The b-­line varies in relation to alliteration, although not consistently. The same formula b-­line is written out for the first (it eina) question and abbreviated for the second (annarr), where the ordinal number carries alliteration. The formula changes in the third (it þriðja), where the formula is written out and alliteration is carried by the verb segja ‘to say’ in the a-­line and svinnr ‘quick; wise, clever’ in the b-­line. The b-­line is abbreviated in the fourth (fjórða), where the abbreviation ‘f.’ appears in what seems to be the position of svinnr, so editors expand it with the synonym fróði ‘wise’. The next several questions alternate between ‘s.’ and ‘f.’ until the tenth question (it tíunda), where a different b-­line is written out for alliteration with the ordinal number, and then written out again with a minor variation in the 12th question (it tólfta). Something appears to have happened in the 11th question (it ellipta), where the b-­line begins the question that otherwise would only begin in the following a-­line (for discussion, see Frog 2021, 60–72). The Vollzeile is written out for the first question, abbreviated in the second and third and then omitted until the ninth question, where

How the Hell Do You Read This? 201

the abbreviation suggests a variation, after which it is written out again with slightly different phrasing. // oc þv vafþrvðnir vitir. (Vafþrúðnismál st.20) Segðv þat. ii. /e. þ. ę. d. // oc þ. v? (Vafþrúðnismál st.22) Segðv þat. iþ iii. /allz þic svinnan qveþa // oc þ. v. v. (Vafþrúðnismál st.24) Segðv þat. iþ iiii. /a. þ. f? (Vafþrúðnismál st.26) S egðv þat. iþ v. /a. þ. f? (Vafþrúðnismál st.28) Segðv þat. it. vi. /a. þ. s. q. (Vafþrúðnismál st.30) S egðv þat. iþ vii. /a. þ. s. q. (Vafþrúðnismál st.32) Segðv þat. iþ viii./a. þ. f? (Vafþrúðnismál st.34) Segðv þat. Iþ ix. /a þ. s. q. // e? (Vafþrúðnismál st.36) S egðv þat. iþ x. /a. þu tiva rávc // avll vafðrvðnir vitir (Vafþrúðnismál st.38) Segðv þat. et. xi. /hvar ytar tvnom i // havggvaz hverian dag. (Vafþrúðnismál st.40) Seg|þv þat. iþ xii. /hvi þu tiva ravc // avll vafðrvðnir vitir (Vafþrúðnismál st.42)

(5) Segðv þat iþ eína /ef þitt öþi dvgir

Say you this the one thing /if your knowledge suffices // and you Vafþruðnir know Say you this second /if your knowledge suffices // and you Vafþruðnir know Say you this the third /as you are said to be clever // and you Vafþruðnir know Say you this the fourth /as you are said to be wise // and you Vafþruðnir know Say you this the fifth /as you are said to be wise // and you Vafþruðnir know Say you this the sixth /as you are said to be clever // and you Vafþruðnir know Say you this the seventh /as you are said to be clever // and you Vafþruðnir know Say you this the eighth /as you are said to be wise // and you Vafþruðnir know Say you this the ninth /as you are said to be clever // or you Vafþruðnir know Say you this the tenth /as you the gods’ fates // all Vafþruðnir know Say you this the eleventh /where men in the courts // fight every day Say you this the twelfth /how you the gods’ fates // all Vafþruðnir know

In this case, in addition to navigating other abbreviations, a reader requires knowledge of how to interpret ‘f?’ in the fourth repetition for fluent performance. Heroic Poems

In addition to mythological poems, the Codex Regius also contains a collection of heroic poems. Repeating passages are less common in these poems, but here are found two cases where extended abbreviations are used across poems. Detailed palaeographic analysis reveals that the heroic poems were likely copied from an existing collection that had already been copied several times and that these were first brought together with a collection of poems on mythological subjects in the Codex Regius (Vésteinn Ólason 2019, 235–42 and works there cited). The first case has been discussed by Joseph Harris (1983 [2008]), in his elucidation of the process of the scribal

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editing of the overlap between the two poems on Helgi Hundingsbani, Helgakviða Hundingsbana I (HH I) and Helgakviða Hundingsbana II (HH II). The dialogue in HH I stanzas 45–6, each a unit of four long lines, is verbally almost identical to HH II stanzas 23–4. In order to make the variation more visible, the passage has been laid out here in long-­line couplets: (6) Uęi ycr sinfiolti.q./sęmra | myclo // gvNi at heýia/ oc glaþa orno. (HH I st.45, ll.1–4) þer er sinfio|tli /sęmra myclo // gvNi at heyria/oc glaþa órno. (HH II st.23, ll.1–4) en se onytom / orþom at bregðaz | // þot hring brotar/heiptir deili. (HH I st.45, ll.5–8) eN onytom / o. a. d. | // þott hilldingar /heiptir deili. (HH II st.23, ll.5–8) Þicciat mer godir/granmars synir | // þo dvgir siclingom/satt at mẹla. (HH I st.46, ll.1–4) Þiccit mer goðir/gran. s. // þo. d. s. /s. a. m. (HH II st.24, ll.1–4) þeir hafa marcat/amóins heimom | // at hvg hafa/hioriom at bregda. (HH I st.46, ll.5–8) þeir męrcþ h. /a. m. h. // at hvg hafa/hior. a b. (HH II st.24, ll.1–4) Would be for you Sinfjölti (said)/much more fitting // to go to battle/and gladden the eagle For you Sinfjölti /much more fitting // to go to battle/and gladden the eagle than would be useless/words to bandy // though the princes/may be enemies than useless/words to deal // though the princes/may be enemies I don’t expect good/from Granmarr’s sons // though the doughty princes/truth to tell I don’t expect good/from Granmarr’s sons // though the doughty princes/truth to tell they have shown/at Móinsheimar // that they have the spirit/swords to wield they shown have/at Móinsheimar // that they have the spirit/swords to wield

Harris discusses these abbreviations in the context of the editing of the overlap between the two poems, which could have been done already in the exemplar of the Codex Regius. At a glance, the abbreviations look erratic: only a single b-­line is abbreviated in HH II st.23 and then the full text is written out for the following long line. In HH II st.24, the first a-­line is written out and then the rest of the long-­line couplet is abbreviated; the third a-­line is partly written out and the fourth is fully written along with much of the following word. The abbreviation in HH II st.23 is applied to help the verse fit onto the line before the margin, which suggests that it was introduced by the scribe of the Codex Regius. In this case, it implies that introducing abbreviations here prompted the introduction of further abbreviations in HH II st.24. The writing out of successive a-­lines rather

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than regularly writing out the whole passage is unusual. That the abbreviations appear to be introduced in situ rather than being planned points to the copyist recognising the passage as ‘the same’ as one prior, which makes it quite possible that the abbreviation ‘d.’ reflects the wording in the exemplar (Bugge 1867, 195) rather than merely being a scribal error. It is unclear whether the scribe of the Codex Regius was also editing the overlap between the two poems,14 which would increase the likelihood that he was actively looking at the two versions of the poem together. For a reader of the Codex Regius, on the other hand, they are separated by a third poem, Helgakviða Hjörvarzsonar. A  reader stumbling over the abbreviation would face the challenge of finding HH I sts 45–6 seven pages earlier. A second use of extended abbreviation across poems is found between Guðrúnarhvöt st.4 and Hamðismál st.6, ll.1–6 and st.7, ll.1–2, two pages later. Abbreviations are not introduced in the first long line. In the following pair of long lines, the first a-­line is written out (Hamðismál st.6, l.3 has additional words naming a character), followed by the systematic abbreviation of each following word, which in the last b-­line shows a variation in word order. The following long line in Hamðismál is not in Guðrúnarhvöt, which proceeds immediately to the line found as Hamðismál st.7, ll.1–2. Here, the first word is written out and each additional word is abbreviated. Guðrúnarhvöt st.6, ll.9–10 is similar to Hamðismál st.7, ll.3–4 and they share a prepositional phrase, but this is not abbreviated. The introduction of abbreviations between HH I and HH II suggest that these abbreviations were also introduced by the Codex Regius scribe. In addition to being spread across poems, the abbreviated sequence is interesting because the passages vary, with the second having an additional long line and a slightly different final long line. Hamðismál is the final poem in the manuscript, so this unusual use of abbreviation might be attributed to a concern about running the text onto an additional leaf, but the poem is quite short, and there seems to be plenty of additional space, so the abbreviation may have had more to do with perceiving the repetition as salient. Elsewhere in the heroic poems (not including Völundarkviða), extended abbreviations in Fáfnismál and Sigrdrífumál follow the patterns of abbreviations in the mythological poems. In Guðrúnarkviða I, the three long lines of st.5 are repeated as st.11. The first two long lines are treated like a couplet with the systematic abbreviation of each word after the first and then writing out the last word. In the following long line, the a-­line is written out and the b-­line is abbreviated, as in HH II st.24, a similarity that suggests this abbreviation was introduced by the same scribe. The irregularity of the abbreviations in HH II could reflect the scribe’s concern that a reader would have considerable difficulty finding the full version of the passage seven pages earlier and his decision to provide more prompts. A reader of Guðrúnarkviða I st.11, on the other hand, could scan up seven lines on the same page, so a single continuous abbreviation would not present more challenges than the passage from Þrymskviða discussed above. That the scribe

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breaks the abbreviations into groups thus seems more likely to reflect a personal sense that abbreviations should not exceed a pair of long lines without additional prompts, presumably because the abbreviations might otherwise interfere with reading. If this interpretation is correct, it points to general expectations about readers’ knowledge of the poetry. Full versions of lines are provided in at least one instance, giving any reader the possibility to learn them, after which it was sufficient to give a prompt for one to two long lines, even when the full version of the lines had appeared seven pages earlier. The editing of the Helgi poems warrants comment from the perspective of manuscript performance. HH II is a striking mix of prose and verse that is in some respects reminiscent of sagas. Harris (1983 [2008], 201) observes that the handling of the texts reveals something about the redactor’s sense of text identity. The poems are not engaged as versions of the same thing from which the differences are complementary and may be compiled and organised into a more complete or complex text, as was done with variants of Völuspá beginning already in the seventeenth century (as in AM 218 4to). Instead, the redactor focussed on difference, preserving what is not in the first version and reducing what is repeated to summaries, with a reference sem fyrr er ritat í Helgakviða ‘as already is written in Helgakviða’, followed by two long lines that, as Harris notes, exhibit variation suggesting quotation from memory, followed immediately by another prose reference to what has been written. The quotation does not only refer the reader to the relevant passage of the other poem. Judy Quinn (1997) has argued that the quotation of only the beginnings of skaldic poems in saga prose reflects a cueing technique for readers to recite the respective poems from memory. The strategy here also seems to provide a cue for remembering the relevant passage and reciting it. Another prose summary in HH II concludes sem segir í Völsungakviða inni fornu ‘as it says in The Old Völsungakviða’, and is followed by what seems to be the quotation of 16 long lines from the respective poem. The repetition of content between the prose and verse begs the question of whether HH II was initially redacted in a collection that contained this otherwise unpreserved poem and a later redactor chose to exclude it, motivating an expansion of the verse cue into an extended quotation. In this case, it is unclear whether the copyist would look up the passage in the other poem or, as seen in the cue above, write it out from memory. HH II is clearly organised as a written text within the context of additional written texts. The reference back to earlier texts might be interpreted as reflecting a usage centred on private reading, yet similar reference techniques seem to be used elsewhere in Old Norse literature, making it seem more likely intended as a mnemonic cue, and that, in public reading, the passage should be delivered from memory. The extended quotation of The Old Völsungakviða, on the other hand, contrasts with the technique discussed by Quinn: if the scenario described above is correct, the redactor seems to treat a verse cue as insufficient without the poem available to be

How the Hell Do You Read This? 205

learned from the same manuscript. The Codex Regius scribe was copying the manuscript c. 1270, and, whether owing to a personal perspective or reflecting differences in the local poetic ecology, provides a dense combination of cues with detailed abbreviations, and thus seems less confident that a reader would be able to reproduce a passage from a different poem based on only a few lines. Learning Aural/Oral Poetry?

Of course, manuscripts of eddic poetry were not available in a lending library for readers to pick up like a crime novel for the thrill of a story they had never read before. A reader would most likely be familiar with prior performances, if only in connection with how the manuscript was being used. This passive knowledge would offer foundations for fluent reading, facilitating the navigation of the handwritten text and its abbreviations. At the same time, the abbreviations assume the retention of verses and whole passages of text. The manuscript thus teaches the poetry by placing demands on the reader to know and fluently perform its texts. Such demands are salient in multi-­line passages in Völuspá and those separated across heroic poems, for which abbreviations become no more than cues. The orthography is encoded with assumptions about the reader’s knowledge, making text-­specific abbreviations a mnemonic device. In the mythological poems, these are repeating sequences within a poem that the reader should know, even if the manuscript makes it possible for the reader to review or check all passages of a text, more or less, before a manuscript performance. The scribe of the Codex Regius extends this practice to abbreviations across poems, with more general implications about expectations of the reader. The manuscript seems to reflect a general ideology of the material text as both secondary to oral performance and as something that the reader should learn, although the abbreviations manifest only in repeating passages. That readers would learn the texts is not itself surprising. These are not long epics in which performers retell a story more or less freely in the poetic idiom of a composition-­in-­performance tradition like Homeric or South Slavic epics (Lord 1960; Honko 1998). Eddic poems are a short poetic form comparable to ballads, North Russian bylina-­epics or Finno-­Karelian kalevalaic epics – types of poems that people internalise and reperform as recognised verbal texts. Any repeated performance practice of such poems leads people to learn them to some degree, even if they are performed only at certain times, like Christmas songs today. Repeated manuscript performance would lead readers to remember at least lines and passages of the poems, particularly where this was demanded for fluent recital, while this emphasis on remembering would promote learning them more generally. The manuscripts of eddic poems might be compared in this respect to written texts of Christian hymns, which may be initially engaged as strict scripts and gradually become more akin to prompts or aids, or may eventually

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become entirely unneeded. However, if the written eddic poems were conceived not as ideal exemplars of poems but as variants equivalent to one oral performance among others that might contain both idiosyncratic flourishes, non-­ideal turns of phrase and metrically problematic lines (Frog 2021), the relationship between written text and manuscript performance may have commonly been more dynamic than a mechanical recital of words written on the page from the outset.

A Pedagogical Project? The collections of eddic poetry are particularly interesting because they must have emerged in an environment where an oral tradition of the poems was still operating. Two common motivations for people to start writing down poetry are (a) that the material text is desired to valorise the poems or poetry as cultural capital, and (b) that the written form is planned as a medium for communicating poems to people who did not know or could not perform them. The relatively small, low-­budget manuscripts in which eddic poetry is recorded make documentation for the valorisation as cultural capital unlikely. However, it is as unlikely that the written entextualisation of eddic poetry would have been seen as a medium for communication with people who might not have known the poems. Scholars often seem to regard written eddic poems as artefacts isolated from social practices, although this has been changing. Such isolation does occur over time as a historical outcome of manuscript survival, but, at the time that they were written down, the eddic poems were likely connected to people who could perform them. The poems appear to have been committed to parchment to enable manuscript performance. ‘Reading’ as oral performance may itself have been stylised or valorised, whether or not what was recited corresponded to what was written on vellum. In a context where people would customarily recite eddic poems based on competence and memory, learning the poems would most likely remain – at least initially – the expectation. A written text would thus most likely be intended to support rather than replace this learning, perhaps not unlike written hymns and prayers that should be used by people in connection with performance practices. Snorra Edda seems to be a work that successfully valorised and justified vernacular mythology and poetry as valuable and interesting forms of cultural capital (see also Clunies Ross 2005; Wanner 2008). Documenting mythological poems and gathering them into collections appears to have followed on from Snorra Edda and been influenced by it (Lindblad 1978b; Frog 2011). It is therefore interesting to consider the possibility that written collections of eddic poems may be a response to Snorra Edda reimagined as a pedagogical project. Such an interpretation would be consistent with whole eddic poems being preserved along with copies of Snorra Edda.15 As mentioned previously, Snorra Edda devotes substantial effort to the presentation of knowledge linked to eddic poetry and quotations of it, probably

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reflecting the fact that certain portions of society viewed eddic poetry as relevant and significant for educational purposes. The Skáldskaparmál section on skaldic language was separated from the mythography of Edda and copied independently, yet this seems to be in parallel with the rise of use of eddic poems in manuscripts, and the AM 748 I a collection of mythological poems was preserved with the AM 748 I b Skáldskaparmál, both texts being written by the same scribe. Thus, Snorra Edda’s mythography with only quotations of eddic poems could, at least potentially, have stimulated the value of eddic poetry in contemporary elite education. This rise in its value may even have marginalised Snorra Edda’s summaries and scattered quotations by turning focus onto teaching full poems. It remains unclear precisely what was happening in the background to the practice of transcribing eddic poems, but written documentation and collection point to interest in the poetry itself, as well as changes in its social perception and use. Manuscript collections of eddic poems further indicate transformations in the practice of poems’ oral performance, transformations characterised by continuities of the oral tradition.

Rethinking Written Texts and Oral Practices Historically, eddic scholarship has been subject to a tyranny of the written text, even if this has shifted from reconstructing a ‘best text’ to being as true to the manuscripts as possible. There has been a marked rise in thinking about the orality of eddic poetry, but the limitations of the corpus have combined with the lack of well-­suited comparative models for variation to form a substantial stumbling block to ‘learn[ing] to reckon with a type of text that possessed a “flexible fixity” ’ (Poole 1993, 82, on skaldic poetry). Variation tends to be invisible or simply beyond the field of scholars’ vision, which is comfortably compatible with the research question: What did this originally mean? – a question commonly posed with an assumption of meaning and intention behind every written word. Considering manuscript performance poses the alternative question: How would someone publicly read this? The preceding discussion has focussed on the implications of extended abbreviations for scribes’ expectations of readers, for readers’ learning of lines and poems and, by extension, for pedagogical intentions behind writing out complete examples of oral poems and gathering them in devoted codices. The resulting model provides a platform for considering the question How would someone publicly read this? also in relation to lines that are unmetrical, for instance with an extra word (e.g., Grímnismál st.25, l.2) or something missing (e.g., Völundarkviða st.26, l.1), and in relation to passages where the written lines probably seemed jumbled to performers and audiences (e.g., Vafþrúðnismál st.40, ll.1–2, on which see Frog 2021, 65–8). If manuscript performance was evaluated on the same principles as other oral performances, these passages were likely varied in oral delivery.16 The same passages have been discussed and emended through the history of modern

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editing, but with concern for the cause of the problem and emendation as a reconstructive corrective. Manuscript performance shifts to a contemporary reader’s solution-­oriented perspective as motivated by practical concerns. This is a small but very significant step in confronting the tyranny of the preserved text, because it demands acknowledging that even the written text would be dynamic and variable in use. Once the door is opened to formally driven variations, the agency of the performer must be considered in relation to other motivations for variation related to meanings or organisation. Reorganising passages may sound more like editing than reading today, yet it seems expected in a copy of Háttatal (GKS 2367 4to), where ‘the scribe forgot one stanza (v. 38) and enters it at the end [. . .] without providing information on its rightful place in the order of the poem’ (Nordal 2001, 47). In manuscript performance, a well-­ ordered text would presumably require the recital of this stanza earlier in the poem. This situation may be compared to Grímnismál’s lists of Óðinn’s names (sts 46–50, 54), where the last passage might seem like an appendix added after the end of the poem, noting that poems that look well-­ordered to researchers today might have been viewed critically by contemporary performers (Timonen 2000). Reordering in reading is enabled by learning the passages. Once acknowledged, it means that performers might also add passages not in the manuscript while omitting and reorganising others. The degree of verbal fixity in the tradition should not be underestimated (Frog forthcoming in 2022), yet modern ideologies of written text as fixed and invariable do not seem to hold for medieval milieux outside of perhaps the Bible as the Word of God. When the writing out of eddic poems emerges as an extension of the oral tradition, there is no reason to think that the resulting script was taken as ‘the’ poem rather than ‘a’ performance (Frog 2021, 86–7; see also Gísli Sigurðsson 1998), a point worth reflecting on when considering its value as a pedagogical tool. Recognising manuscript performance is also relevant for considering potential relations between written texts. For example, some copies of Skáldskaparmál exhibit scribal interventions around passages also found in Alvíssmál, aligning the poem’s name and quotations’ formulae with the text known from the Codex Regius (cf. Jón Sigurðsson 1966, 459, 460, 596, 603). Whereas customary philological analysis would interpret this as influence from the written text, manuscript performance practices allow the interventions to be rooted in knowledge and competence based on the aural/oral tradition. However dynamic the oral tradition, a pedagogical role of the manuscript texts would shape individuals’ internalisation of the poems in the local community. Public reading would likely increase the frequency of aural encounters with the written version and its title relative to alternatives, with cumulative impacts across decades and generations (see also Gísli Sigurðsson 1998, xx). Viewing the written texts as integrated with the tradition rather than contrasted with it throws a wrench into other discussions about text relations.

How the Hell Do You Read This? 209

The philological principles of text comparison for determining a relation break down when a written exemplar becomes an instrument in learning an oral/aural tradition. Whether Snorri Sturluson relied on written eddic poems in writing Gylfaginning requires reframing as whether written scripts of them were part of how he learned them (although see previous discussion). Similarly, manuscript performance throws a wrench into the question of whether the versions of Völuspá in the Codex Regius and Hauksbók are related through a written exemplar or independent examples of the oral tradition. Hypothetically, the potential for performers to add, omit and rearrange passages creates the possibility for a Hauksbók-­like text to be produced in a public reading of the Codex Regius. Realistically, the earlier written text may have been reshaping a local tradition for decades, while the later version might involve conscious reshaping of that tradition with particular, complex aims (on which see Thorvaldsen 2019). Perhaps the most interesting dimension of manuscript performance practices is that about which we can say the least. For example, HH II raises the question of whether, in manuscript performance, a reader might perform based on knowledge of other poems rather than simply saying sem fyrr er ritat í Helgakviða ‘as already is written in Helgakviða’ or sem segir í Völsungakviða inni fornu ‘as it says in The Old Völsungakviða’. In addition to whole poems, Snorra Edda can also be considered a work for manuscript performance. Observing that Gylfaginning’s lists of names of dwarves (ch. 14) and of Óðinn (ch. 20) are stripped to the names only, without even conjunctions, a reader might easily recite these in forms like those known from Völuspá and Grímnismál. In sagas, quoting the opening passages of skaldic poems seems intended in many cases as a prompt, enabling the reader to embark on a fuller recital (Quinn 1997), raising the question of whether performers of Gylfaginning may have added expansions and digressions in eddic verse to what they read. In other medieval cultures, an important dimension of public reading in many settings seems to have been discussion and interpretation by the reader and others present (Coleman 1996). That people evaluated and otherwise responded to unaided oral and manuscript performances is reflected in the saga literature (see e.g., Hemann Pálsson 1999). If we accept the theory of manuscript performance practices and that the writing out and copying of eddic poems are indicators that they were interesting enough to be read and reread publicly, then it is reasonable to infer that they were also interesting enough to talk about. If the writing out of these poems was pedagogically oriented, discussion and interpretation would undoubtedly be an integrated part of that usage. It may not be possible to say anything about discussions of particular passages in a poem like Hávamál, Völuspá or Lokasenna, but this model resituates the poems from obscure, dead texts to live performance and public discussion. Passages may have been cryptic, and some turns of phrase may have simply been taken for granted, but manuscript performance practices make it likely that enigmatic passages got talked about and perhaps debated during the thirteenth century. When manuscript performance

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appears as a direct evolution from oral performance practices, this type of discourse arena would form a context and background for Gylfaginning and its early reception, with the possibility that the organisation and exegesis of mythic knowledge from eddic poems in this work has been adapted, at least in part, from a role of eddic poetry in vernacular pedagogy.

Notes 1 The comprehensive documentation of an oral tradition is impossible and the tradition can be assumed to have been exponentially greater than what is preserved, even if the ways in which it was greater remain unknown (the number and variety of poem types and genres or local and regional variation). 2 This concept is complementary to what Elizabeth Eva Leach terms performing manuscripts to refer to ‘manuscripts that reflect and produce performances’ through ‘texts that reflect or generate acts which are separate from the text, both temporally and in their sensory medium’ (2017, 11). Whereas performing manuscript refers to a manuscript that gets performed, manuscript performance refers to a performance produced from a manuscript. Relatively recently, some scholars have begun to use the latter term to describe manuscripts and their organisation of text themselves as ‘performances’ (e.g., De Looze 2006, 21). The idea of manuscripts as performances and the interesting theoretical issues it raises for distinguishing and locating types of agency will not be addressed here. 3 In medieval manuscripts, abbreviations of words by omitting the end are commonly called suspensions, differentiated from contractions and so forth. This terminology was developed for individual words, whereas the phenomenon addressed here entails the abbreviation of text sequences that may exceed 30 orthographic words and employ multiple strategies. I therefore simply use the more general term. 4 A related idea was that each poem was a composition commensurate to poems of modern literature, in which case parallel passages found in different poems were interpreted as being adapted from one into the other, whether in the oral tradition or in written composition (e.g., Thorvaldsen 2008). 5 This debate was ongoing during the twentieth century, with some extreme views still found relatively recently (e.g., Dronke 1997). The discussion was significantly impacted by the influential work of Gustav Lindblad (e.g., 1978b). Lindblad’s detailed studies have become a common reference point for considering that Snorra Edda did not rely on a written version of Völuspá but written versions of Vafþrúðnismál and Grímnismál may have been available. 6 The project of Snorra Edda differed from that of Romanticism in both the scope of interest and the aims of heritage construction. Romanticism was built on a broadly encompassing ideology of the spirit of a nation as an ethno-­linguistic group being expressed through traditions of its peasantry and pre-­Christian culture. The initial idea was that folk poetry and mythology are inspired expression that modern, educated people could lift from superstitious and uncouth practices and appreciate for their aesthetic value (e.g., Herder 1878 [1769], 380). Snorra Edda is concerned with the validation of the art of skaldic poetry, of which the presentation of mythology appears to be a direct extension. The motivation for the work seems to be personal and pedagogical, to teach a young king, who was interested in translating continental literature, to appreciate skaldic poetry and thereby to become a patron of Snorri Sturluson (see further Wanner 2008). Snorra Edda is a heritage construction project that seeks to cleanse the mythology and poetry of the polarised evaluation as ‘pagan’, and to elevate especially skaldic poetry as valuable. However, the non-­ Christian mythology is foregrounded as entertaining and important for interpreting

How the Hell Do You Read This? 211 and composing poetry but not as inherently valuable because of a connection to a collective past or an origin through spiritual inspiration. It is presented as a bunch of silly and fantastic lies that were used to fool people and gain power in situations specific to Scandinavian history, and thus not applicable to, for instance, Irish mythology. Moreover, the focus on teaching the art of skaldic poetry and its appreciation does not engage at all with a rhetoric of its prestigious position in courts and for kings in the past – it is mainly a sort of handbook. The connection of the mythology to Scandinavian history appears to be an incidental outcome of the strategy of distancing it from paganism through euhemerism (i.e., identifying the gods as human sorcerers who fooled people with their stories), whereas the text mentions them as a source of fun. Snorra Edda is a heritage construction project in its cleaning up of traditions from the past and asserting their relevance to the present and as things to be carried into the future, but it is not attempting to frame them as heritage in the sense of things belonging to the past. 7 Although the descriptions may carry information about historical practices (see Frog 2019a, forthcoming), Clive Tolley (2009, I, 487–8) stresses the ‘deceptive allure of verisimilitude’. For instance, comparative evidence shows that the disrupted ritual in Völsa þáttr likely reflects a historical type of ritual practice (Coffey 1989), yet the account’s attribution of verses to the Christian king in connection with disrupting the ritual shows that the poetry of the þáttr is driven by the narrative, and thus the earlier passages cannot be assumed to accurately reflect ritual speech as it would be performed in other contexts. 8 This makes it improbable that preserved eddic poems were viewed as the verbal part of ‘pagan’ rituals when written down. 9 I distinguish here between authorised Christianity as that of the general administrative apparatus of the Church and the local and individual understandings of Christianity that can be based on reflexive self-­identification as Christian. 10 The possibility that the poems were being written in the thirteenth century without intentions for use is improbable in the extreme. Documentation simply for preservation would require both (a) heritagisation of the poetry as something belonging to the past with the potential of being lost but that should also be preserved for the future, and (b) a perception of writing as an instrument for preserving things for future posterity. A preservation project without planned usage seems anachronistic (preservation for whom?) and would not account for creating and copying organised collections of the poetry. Preservation in this sense must be distinguished from writing out poems for contemporary usage by readers of a manuscript if orally based knowledge of them had waned (e.g., Quinn 1997). Since eddic poems entered writing in different times and contexts, the motivations for writing them were not necessarily uniform, but there is no reason to think that any poems were written down without ideas about some sort of contemporary use. 11 On cohesion, see Kristján Árnason (1991, 169–72); on rhythm in skaldic performance, see Gade (1994, 141–2); on ideals of non-­variation in eddic recitals, see Frog (forthcoming in 2022). 12 Similar practices are, however, found later, in nineteenth-­century folklore collections. They are commonplace, for example, in the early transcriptions of Finno-­ Karelian kalevalaic poetry made by people such as Elias Lönnrot. 13 Hávamál sts 146–63 (18 items), Vafþrúðnismál sts 20–43 (12 items), Sigrdrífumál sts 22–37 (seven items followed by a lacuna; 11 items as found in later manuscripts), Grógaldr sts 6–14 (nine items). 14 This passage in HH II is followed by a shift into prose, which refers the reader back to what is written in HH I. If the scribe of the Codex Regius was editing the overlap between the two poems, then it may be inferred that the scribe had already started copying the passage when recognising that the same text was in the other poem. If an

212  Frog earlier scribe had been editing the text, the same scenario occurred but the Codex Regius may have systematically written out the recurrent passage from the exemplar. 15 Grötta söngr appears in the Codex Regius manuscript. Rígsþula is preserved with the Codex Wormianus. 16 For an ethnographic example of an oral performance tradition of written texts in which performers manage similar challenges, see Blackburn (1988, 25).

Bibliography Primary Sources Bugge, Sophus, ed. 1867. Sæmundar Edda: Hins Froða, Christiania: P. T. Mallings Forlagsboghandel Dronke, Ursula, ed. and trans. 1997. The Poetic Edda II: Mythological Poems, Oxford: Clarendon Faulkes, Anthony, ed. 2005. Snorri Sturluson, Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning. 2nd edn., London: Viking Society for Northern Research Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1896. Håndskriftet nr. 748, 4 to, bl. 1–6, i den Arna-­Magnæanske samling (brudstykke af den ældre Edda) i fototypisk og diplomatisk gengivelse, Copenhagen: S.L. Møllers bogtrykkeri Heimir Pálsson. 2013. Snorri Sturluson, The Uppsala Edda: DG 11 4to, London: Viking Society for Northern Research Jón Sigurðsson. 1966 [1852]. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar – Edda Snorris Sturlæi, II: Tractatus philologicos et additamenta ex codicibus manuscriptis, photographically reproduced edn., Osnabrück: Otto Zeller Neckel, Gustav and Hans Kuhn, eds. 1963. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst vewandten Denkmälern i: Text, 4th edn., Heidelberg: Winter Universitätsverlag See, Klaus von et al. 1997–2019. Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, I-­VII vols., Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter

Secondary Sources Acker, Paul. 1998. Revising Oral Theory: Formulaic Composition in Old English and Old Icelandic Verse, New York: Garland Acker, Paul. 2019. ‘A History of Oral Formulas and Eddic Poetry’, unpublished paper presented at the conference the Formula in Oral Poetry and Prose: New Approaches, Models and Interpretations, 5–7 December 2019, Tartu, Estonia Amodio, M. 2004. Writing the Oral Tradition: Oral Poetics and Literate Culture in Medieval England, South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press Anttonen, Pertti. 2005. Tradition through Modernity: Postmodernism and the Nation-­State in Folklore Scholarship, Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society Blackburn, Stuart H. 1988. Singing of Birth and Death: Texts in Performance, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press Clover, Carol. 1982. The Medieval Saga, Ithica: Cornell University Press Clunies Ross, Margaret. 2005. A History of Old Norse Poetry and Poetics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Coffey, Jerome E. 1989. ‘The Drunnur – A Faroese Wedding Custom’, Arv: Nordic Yearbook of Folklore 45, 7–16 Coleman, Joyce. 1996. Public Reading and the Reading Public in Late Medieval England and France, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

How the Hell Do You Read This? 213 De Looze, Laurence. 2006. Manuscript Diversity, Meaning, and Variance in Juan Manuel’s El Conde Lucanor, Toronto: University of Toronto Press Du Bois, John W. 2014. ‘Towards a Dialogic Syntax’, Cognitive Linguistics 25:3, 359–410 DuBois, Thomas. 2003. ‘Dynamics and Continuities of Tradition: What a Finnish Epic Song Can Teach Us about Two Old Norse Poems’, in Dynamics of Tradition: Perspectives on Oral Poetry and Folk Belief: Essays in Honour of Anna-­Leena Siikala on her 60th Birthday, 1st January, 2003, ed. by Lotte Tarkka, Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 233–47 Foley, John Miles. 1990. Traditional Oral Epic: The Odyssey, Beowulf, and the Serbo-­Croatian Return Song, Los Angeles: University of California Press Foley, John Miles. 2002. How to Read an Oral Poem, Urbana: University of Illinois Press Frog. 2011. ‘Snorri Sturluson qua Fulcrum: Perspectives on the Cultural Activity of Myth, Mythological Poetry and Narrative in Medieval Iceland’, Mirator 12, 1–28 Frog. 2019. ‘Understanding Embodiment through Lived Religion: A Look at Vernacular Physiologies in an Old Norse Milieu’, in Old Norse Mythology, Materiality and Lived Religion, ed. by Klas Wikström af Edholm, Peter Jackson Rova, Andreas Nordberg, Olof Sundqvist and Torun Zachrisson, Stockholm: Stockholm University Press, 269–301 Frog. 2021. ‘Preserving Blunders in Eddic Poems: Formula Variation in Numbered Inventories of Vafþrúðnismál and Grímnismál’, Scripta Islandica 72, 43–91 Frog. 2022. ‘Text Ideology and Formulaic Language in Eddic Mythological Poems’, Saga-­Book 46 Frog. Forthcoming. ‘Rituelle Autoritäten und narrative Diskurs: Vormoderne finno-­ karelische Sagenüberlieferungen als analoges Modell für die Annäherung an mittelalterliche Quellen’, in Magie und Literatur, ed. by Andreas Hammer, Norbert Kössinger and Wilhelm Heizmann, Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag Gade, Kari Ellen. 1994. ‘On the Recitation of Old Norse Skaldic Poetry’, in Studien zum Altgermanischen: Festschrift für Heinrich Beck, ed. by Heiko Uecker, Berlin: de Gruyter, 126–51 Gal, Susan and Judith T. Irvine. 2019. Signs of Difference: Language and Ideology in Social Life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Gísli Sigurðsson. 1990. ‘On the Classification of Eddic Heroic Poetry in View of the Oral Theory’, in Poetry in the Scandinavian Middle Ages: Atti del 12° Congresso Internazionale di Studi Sull’Alto Medioevo Spoleto 4–10 Septembre 1988, Spoleto: La Sede del Centro Studi, 245–55 Gísli Sigurðsson. 1998. ‘Ingangur’, in Eddukvæði, ed. by Gísli Sigurðsson, Reykjavík: Mál og Menning, ix–li Guðvarður Már Gunnlaugsson. 2019. ‘Palaeography’, in The Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda: Konungsbók Eddkvæða GKS 2365 4to, Reykjavík: Mál og Menning, 345–451 Gunnell, Terry. 1995. The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer Gunnell, Terry. 2005. ‘Eddic Poetry’, in A Companion to Old Norse-­Icelandic Literature and Culture, ed. by Rory McTurk, Oxford: Blackwell, 82–100 Harris, Joseph. 1983 [2008]. ‘Eddic Poetry as Oral Poetry: The Evidence of Parallel Passages in the Helgi Poems for Questions of Composition and Performance’, in Joseph Harris, ‘Speak Useful Words or Say Nothing’: Old Norse Studies, ed. by S. E. Deskis and T. D. Hill, Islandica 53, Ithaca: Cornell University Library, 189–225 Herder. 1769 [1878]. ‘Journal meiner Reise im Jahr 1769’, in Herders sämmtliche Werke, ed. by Bernhard Suphan, Vol. IV, Berlin: Wiedmannische Buchhandlung, 343–461 Hemann Pálsson. 1999. Oral Tradition and Saga Writing, Studia Medievalia Septentrionalia 3, Wien: Fassbaender Honko, Lauri. 1998. Textualising the Siri Epic, FF Communications 264, Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica

214  Frog Hopkins, Stephen C. E. 2021. ‘Of Scopas and Scribes: Reshaping Oral-­Formulaic Theory in Old English Literary Studies’, in Weathered Words: Formulaic Language and Verbal Art, ed. by Frog and Lamb, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Jonsson, Bengt R. 1991. ‘Oral Literature, Written Literature: The Ballad and Old Norse Genres’, in The Ballad and Oral Literature, ed. by Joseph Harris, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 139–70 Kaplan, Merrill. 2011. Thou Fearful Guest: Addressing the Past in Four Tales in Flateyjarbók, FF Communications 301, Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica Kristján Árnason. 1991. The Rhythms of dróttkvætt and Other Old Icelandic Metres, Reykjavík: University of Iceland, Institute of Linguistics Leach, Elizabeth Eva. 2017. ‘Performing Manuscripts’, in Performing Medieval Text, ed. by Ardis Butterfield, Henry Hope and Pauline Souleau, Cambridge: Legenda, 11–19 Leslie, Helen F. 2012. The Prose Contexts of Eddic Poetry: Primarily in the Fornaldarsǫgur, Bergen: University of Bergen Lindblad, Gustav. 1978a. ‘Centrala eddaproblem i 1970-­talets forskningsläge’, Scripta Islandica 28, 3–26 Lindblad, Gustav. 1978b. ‘Snorre Sturlasson och eddadiktningen’, Saga och Sed 1978, 17–34 Lord, Albert B. 1960. The Singer of Tales, Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature 24, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press McKinnell, John. 2003. ‘Encounters with Völur’, in Old Norse Myths, Literature and Society, ed. by Margaret Clunies Ross, Viborg: Odense University Press, 110–31 Mellor, Scott. 1999 [2008]. Analyzing Ten Poems from the Poetic Edda: Oral Formula and Mythic Patterns [original title: ‘Function and Formula: An Analysis of Ten Poems from the Codex Regius’], Lewiston: Mellen Mundal, Else. 2010. ‘How Did the Arrival of Writing Influence Old Norse Oral Culture?’ in Along the Oral-­Written Continuum: Types of Texts, Relations, and their Implications, ed. by S. Ranković, L. Melve and E. Mundal, Turnhout: Brepols, 163–81 Nordal, Guðrún. 2001. Tools of Literacy: The Role of Scaldic Verse in Icelandic Textual Culture of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, Toronto: University of Toronto Press O’Keeffe, Katherine O’Brien. 1990. Visible Song: Transitional Literacy in Old English Verse, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Poole, Russell. 1993. ‘Variants and Variability in the Text of Egill’s Höfuðlausn’, in The Politics of Editing Medieval Texts, ed. by Roberta Frank, New York: AMS Press, 65–105 Quinn, Judy. 1990. ‘Vǫluspá and the Composition of Eddic Verse’, in Poetry in the Scandinavian Middle Ages: Atti del 12° Congresso Internazionale di Studi Sull’Alto Medioevo Spoleto 4–10 Septembre 1988, Spoleto: La Sede del Centro Studi, 303–20 Quinn, Judy. 1992. ‘Verseform and Voice in Eddic Poems: The Discourses of Fáfnismál’, Arkiv för Nordisk Filologi 107, 100–30 Quinn, Judy. 1997. ‘ “Ok er þetta upphaf ”: First-­Stanza Quotation in Old Norse Prosimetrum’, Alvásmál 7, 61–80 Quinn, Judy. 2016. ‘The Editing of Eddic Poetry’, in A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, ed. by Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn and Brittany Schorn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 58–71 Reichl, Karl. 2012. ‘Plotting the Map of Medieval Oral Literature’, in Medieval Oral Literature, ed. by Karl Reichl, Berlin: De Gruyter, 3–67 Thorvaldsen, Bernt Øyvind. 2008. ‘Om Þrymskviða, tekstlån og tradisjon’, Maal og Minne 2008:2, 142–66 Thorvaldsen, Bernt Ø. 2019. ‘The Literary Adaptation of Vǫluspá in Hauksbók and Snorra Edda’, Maal og Minne 2019:1, 93–113

How the Hell Do You Read This? 215 Timonen, Senni. 2000. ‘Thick Corpus and a Singer’s Poetics’, in Thick Corpus, Organic Variation and Textuality in Oral Tradition, ed. by Lauri Honko, Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 627–59 Tolley, Clive. 2009. Shamanism in Norse Myth and Magic, 2 vols. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica Tsur, Reuven. 1992. Toward a Theory of Cognitive Poetics, Amsterdam: North-­Holland Vésteinn Ólason. 2019. ‘The Codex Regius – A Book and Its History’, in The Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda: Konungsbók Eddkvæða GKS 2365 4to, ed. by Guðvarður Már Gunnlaugsson, Haraldur Bernharðsson and Vésteinn Ólason, Reykjavík: Mál og Menning 217–56 Wanner, Kevin J. 2008. Snorri Sturluson and the Edda: The Conversion of Cultural Capital in Medieval Scandinavia, Toronto: University of Toronto Press

Part V

Modern Approaches to Performing Old Norse Poetry

9 Old Norse Poetry in Performance Perils, Pitfalls and Possibilities1 Brian McMahon

The field of Performance Studies is not altogether new, but its influence on the literary criticism of medieval texts has only recently been felt. One of its most prominent advocates is Richard Schechner, whose first attempt to provide an overview of its scope was published as recently as 2002 and has since been revised and regularly updated in a total of four editions. The value of Performance Studies for scholars of Old Norse poetry is easily described: whether we are reading eddic or skaldic verse, it has long been recognised that the relationship between the oral and textual cultures involved in the origin and transmission of this material is at once both crucial and elusive. These questions of origin have inspired several colourful metaphorical descriptions of the written poems, ranging from Christopher Abram’s suggestion that ‘[a]n eddic poem can be viewed as a fossil of a once vital and living tradition of myth and poetry, which developed organically as it moved through time and space’ (2011, 19) to Ward Parks’ preferred model: From an oral culture’s standpoint, the written text could be defined as memory concretised, memory torn out from its native soil in human experience but in the process fixed in durable form that frees it, apparently, from the effects of time. (1991, 58) Andy Orchard (2011, xv) describes the written poems as ‘echoes of an age already aged when the words were written down’, and similar imagery is discernible in the title which Margaret Clunies Ross chose for her influential two-­volume study, Prolonged Echoes (1994–8). Yet the characteristic quality of an echo is that it is heard rather than seen: a point which must be borne in mind whenever we approach these poems today. Terry Gunnell has used various analogies for the practice of reading these poems without reference to the oral culture in which they originated, ranging from that of ‘a blind person listening to a film’ (1995, 183) to describing the written poems as a form of ‘musical notation’ (2012, 17; see also Gunnell 2016, 95). Each of these images recognises that there is something latent within the poetry which private, silent study alone cannot access. DOI: 10.4324/9780367809324-15

220  Brian McMahon

There is an emerging consensus that a comprehensive critical response to Old Norse poetry should not ignore its long-­assumed oral origins. This assertion by itself may by now be fairly uncontroversial, but its implications remain much disputed. This chapter sets out to identify several of the drawbacks we experience whenever we seek to interpret these poems through the prism of Performance Studies, and then to make the case for doing so anyway, fully cognisant of the perils which strew our path. If we grant that there is at least potential value in examining Old Norse poems as the echoes of an oral (and, therefore, performative) tradition, then two approaches are open to us, in addition to the private, individual study of these texts. The first is to give them a new lease of life by performing them for modern audiences, a process by which performers (be they actors, reciters, dancers or musicians) treat the manuscript texts and various critical editions of the poetry as scripts which can form the basis of new theatrical works. It is important to differentiate this approach from the ‘re-­enactment’ of a hypothesised medieval performance: instead, what I am describing here involves a new enactment, built upon texts which probably derived from an oral culture but did not necessarily circulate in their extant written forms within it. This approach has something in common with the practice of ‘reoralisation’ which, as Stephen Tranter has written, sees the practice of performing written texts as being [. . .] analogous to the process of pedestrianisation in town planning. To return a text to the oral domain is not to return it to a prelapsarian condition, any more than we can pedestrianise a street by ripping off the tarmac. (1996, 45) Performing these poems using modern dramaturgy for the benefit of modern audiences has much in common with contemporary performances of ancient Greek drama, Homeric poetry and Shakespeare’s plays. The aim is to give each poem a new voice – not to imitate its hypothesised medieval voice. What, then, is the value of this approach for scholarship? The actor Simon Russell Beale put it well when he described ‘performance’ as ‘three-­ dimensional literary criticism’ (Billington 2009). One approach to performing medieval poems is to see them not as dead and fossilised texts but as living works, perhaps slumbering on the page, awaiting the long-­absent reagents of speech and motion to enliven them and provide new access not only to what they say but to how they work (and, just as importantly, to how they cannot work in performance). This approach has some parallels in Jan Kott’s writing on Shakespeare (1967), in which he urged performers to approach the plays as having something to say now, not merely something which was of value then. The approach I have been describing so far is the less controversial of the two which I will set out in this chapter, since it begins by acknowledging

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the limitations of the contemporary performer, whose stated object is to resituate the medieval poem in an entirely new context rather than to recreate a hypothetical medieval style of delivery. The aim is to demonstrate what the poems are, rather than investigate what they were. The alternative approach to performing Old Norse poetry is one which does seek to recover something of the now lost oral performative tradition which is thought to lie behind many of the extant poems. This is the practice of ‘performance archaeology’, what Gunnell describes as ‘the chance to “dig up” a three-­dimensional performance from two-­dimensional textual remains’ (2012, 18). This approach involves reading the poems as one might ‘read’ an archaeological dig site: seeking clues in the text about the performative demands made on the speaker (or, in certain cases, speakers). Such data might be inferred from the metre in which a poem is written, references within the text to movement, space or setting, and the acoustic effects generated when certain words, collocations and phrases are spoken aloud. Unlike the creation of an entirely modern performance constrained merely by the ‘script’ of the written poem, ‘performance archaeology’ examines the poetry for clues about how a medieval performer and his audience might have interacted. It is an experimental approach, often concerned with staging performances of the poems in sites similar to those they evoke – inspired, perhaps, by the experience of dramatic practitioners like the late Peter Hall, who claimed, ‘I have done Greek plays in ancient Greek theatres and have been forced to contemplate techniques which I have never thought of in the study or found in a book’ (Hall 2000, 28). This statement neatly encapsulates the potential value of attempting to restore the poems to some semblance of their medieval oral manifestation(s). This approach is necessarily tentative, and some scholars have cautioned against relying on it too confidently (see, for instance, Clunies Ross 2020, 120–1). Nevertheless its value lies as much in identifying new routes for enquiry as in generating unassailable conclusions: put simply, despite Hall’s optimistic claim that ‘theatre people and academics now often talk the same language’ (2000, 13), this is not always the case, and experimental practice-­as-­research performances of Old Norse poems which draw on ‘performance archaeology’ can at least help to confirm what is practically possible, dramatically engaging and susceptible of further investigation. In short, we may approach the topic of Old Norse poetry in performance in two ways. The first is concerned with looking forward – exploring how the poems can work when performed today; the second, ‘performance archaeology’, is concerned with looking backward  – seeking evidence within the texts themselves for the circumstances and conventions of their medieval oral transmission. Understanding and appreciating the difference between these two approaches is crucial if the methodology of Performance Studies is to be usefully applied to the study of medieval texts. Because the field is new, we run the risk of failing to distinguish with sufficient care between these very different ways of reading and interpreting Old Norse

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poems. In this chapter I will argue that both have something to offer, but it is important that they not be used indiscriminately.

Practice-­as-­Research Scholars working on early modern texts designed for performance, where the original context for transmission is often better understood than is the case for Old Norse poetry, have long been aware of the utility of practice-­ as-­research. This involves designing experiments to ‘test’ ideas about how a text might have been performed by imposing upon modern performers the same conditions which constrained their antecedents. Thus, numerous projects have explored the implications of rehearsing a play under the restrictive timetable adopted by early modern theatre companies. Reconstructed playhouses (such as the Sam Wanamaker in London or Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Virginia) have generated new insights about the acoustical constraints which applied to actors, as well as sight lines and other performative considerations about which the texts appear silent (but which, in fact, shaped them). These practical constraints often appear to have been commuted into ‘features’ of the texts by their authors. To take one example, the use of cue-­scripts rather than promptbooks in a staging of Two Lamentable Tragedies at University College London in 2014 caused those participating to develop a new appreciation of how early modern playwrights might write several similar-­sounding cue lines in the same scene, thereby stimulating a confusion among the actors by encouraging ‘over-­cueing’ (pre-­empting one’s cue) at climactic moments when clamour was dramatically desirable (Whipday and Cox Jensen 2017). The nature of rehearsing from cue-­scripts is that each actor learns only his own part in the play, together with the few words which ‘cue’ (i.e., trigger) each of his lines. If a script is written so that the same ‘cue’ triggers speech from several characters, this creates confusion as many voices begin to speak at once. This device may be interpreted as either a flaw or a feature, but the question of which it is in the case of Two Lamentable Tragedies only arose from a practice-­as-­research experiment. This is not to suggest that the same effect could not occur to a scholar working privately from a critical edition of the text, but the performative experiment allows such a hypothesis to be put to the test. Similar experiments designed to yield new insights and approaches to Old Norse poetry have been attempted, but as the records of these are neither complete nor always easy to access. Gunnell, for instance, asserts that ‘Skírnismál, Lokasenna and Hárbarðsljóð have all been presented effectively as dramas in Iceland in recent years’ (2008, 301) without discussion of what is meant by ‘effectively’ or more specific citation of the performances he has in mind (though see further Gunnell and Sveinn Einarsson 2018, 256 n.49). Collecting records, data and insights from these various experiments presents many challenges (for instance, it is not possible to capture and transmit the holistic experience of live performance on film), but would nonetheless

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represent an important contribution to the ‘literature’ which deals with these texts. To give one representative example of the insights which practice-­as-­ research performances of Old Norse poems can generate, John McKinnell has invoked this technique when considering whether the eddic poem Lokasenna would work best in performance if recited by one or multiple speakers. In his discussion of the exchange between Loki and Byggvir (stanzas 43–6), McKinnell observes, [It] would take a gifted performer to make it clear to the audience what is going on, though a light-­hearted experiment with students at Durham has suggested that it might be quite possible if there were more than one performer. (2014a, 188) Without begrudging these students their light hearts, there is clearly a case for developing speculative activities of this kind into more rigorous experiments – applying something of the scientific method and using practice-­as-­research stagings of these poems in order to more seriously interrogate and refine our hypotheses about how these poems were intended to work by those who conceived and recorded them in pre-­modern contexts.

Combining ‘Performance Archaeology’ with Practice-­as-­Research ‘Performance archaeology’ presents a number of technical challenges, but the insights it potentially affords are welcome. As Gunnell points out, ‘Shakespeare’s plays [. . .] tell us a great deal about Shakespeare’s theatre, and the same applies to the extant medieval dramas’ (2006, 239). Such ‘dramas’ range from the York and Chester mystery cycles to the eddic poems in ljóðaháttr (Gunnell 1995). The implication is that the written texts which have survived contain implicit ‘directions’ for performance, perhaps an echo of the text’s oral origins or else an instruction to which a medieval reader would be more instinctively attuned than a modern scholar. Gunnell’s work thus sets out to excavate certain otherwise overlooked dimensions of the poems by resituating them in an imagined (or experimental) performative context. In an analysis of Vafþrúðnismál, for instance, he remarks that Vafþrúðnir, who is seated throughout the exchange, comments four times on Óðinn’s apparent desire to remain standing. Gunnell points out the double proxemic significance of this were the poem to be staged: Óðinn’s greater height and stance would cause him to appear visually challenging to the jötunn and would also enable him to remain visible to members of an audience potentially stood or sat several rows deep (2012, 33). As an example of how this approach can yield new insights, this kind of three-­dimensional analysis could also be applied to the ‘sinking’ of the sibyl

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at the end of Völuspá, which concludes with the line Nú mun hon søkkvask ‘now must she sink’; or to the parallel instruction given by Brynhildr to the ogress in Helreið Brynhildar: Søkkstu, gýgjar kyn! ‘sink ogress’.2 At the narrative level, these are creatures of the underworld being consigned to a nether realm, but the topographical implications for a recitation could hardly escape a performer’s attention. For a scholar reading the poem in a manuscript or critical edition, the proxemic relationship of the characters can remain ambiguous, but for the performer, a choice must be made: to stand or sit, to rise or sink. Even if texts like Helreið Brynhildar and Vafþrúðnismál were not intended to be acted out in practice, it is difficult to imagine that their early audiences did not encounter them with an understanding of their dramatic resonance and potentiality (Gunnell 1995, 25). Several of the texts which make up the Poetic Edda end with some kind of ‘sinking’, including Grímnismál (assuming we include the prose coda), Guðrúnarkviða in annarr, Atlakviða and Hamðismál. We might also note that when Óðinn conjures the spirit of the völva in Baldrsdraumar the verb used is ‘to rise’: nam hann vittugri valgaldr kveða, unz nauðig reis. he began to intone a corpse-­reviving spell for the magic-­woman, until reluctantly she rose.3 Similarly, Óðinn himself is said to ‘rise’ from amid the throng of the gods at the beginning of the poem (st.2). Skírnismál begins with Skírnir being instructed to ‘rise’ (perhaps somehow reflecting or punning on the solar connotations of his name?) while the situating of Sigurðr in a pit in the prose introduction to Fáfinsmál, only to have him jump out and overshadow the dying dragon when the poem begins, is likewise a striking visual suggestion which might influence the staging decisions taken by any reciter. It would be an indefensible stretch to assert that each (or any) of these lines is identical to a ‘stage direction’ in modern dramaturgical parlance. Nonetheless, these examples collectively suggest that the poems of the Edda take an unusually frequent interest in the relative position of their protagonists in relation to each other, and it would be an obstinate performer indeed who disregarded these proxemic invitations. Seeking parallels for the eddic poems in the Old Norse sagas should only ever be done tentatively, especially where the dating even of the written texts is particularly uncertain. Nonetheless, the case of the völva rising and sinking in Völuspá does appear to suggest certain parallels when linked to two instances of seeresses prophesying in the sagas. The first of these is the scene of Þorbjörg lítilvölva recounted in chapter  4 of Eiríks saga rauða, in which the seeress declaims her prophecy from a seated position atop a hjallinn ‘raised platform’. The saga-­teller offers an uncharacteristically thorough

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description of her situation: Var henni búit hásæti ok lagt undir hana hœgindi; þar skydi í vera hœnsafiðri ‘There was a high-­seat set for her and under her was a cushion; that was to be stuffed with hens’ feathers’ (Einar Ólafur Sveinsson and Matthías Þórðarson 1935, 206). The other comparable instance of sibylic prophecy in the sagas comes from chapter 2 of Örvar-­Odds saga, in which each man in the hall is compelled to ‘rise’ to hear his fortune foretold.4 These accounts together emphasise that physical position in a hall or other public setting mattered to the early audiences of this literature, and eddic poems in particular (Gunnell 2012). This observation recalls the importance associated with high seats throughout the corpus and with raised platforms, mound-­sitting (see Skírnismál, prose following st.10) and the law rock (where the law was recited at the annual Alþingi); all are topologically symbolic and all are forms of elevation. In The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia, Gunnell proposes a link between the eddic poet’s choice of metre and the manner of performance for which  the poem was designed. He argues that the poems composed in ljóðaháttr are the most intrinsically dramatic in the collection. In assessing these poems, he regards the prose passages as a late interpolation which is superfluous when the poems are realised in three-­dimensional performance. He therefore implicitly takes issue with such comments as that made by Russell Poole, who, in a subsequent review of Ursula Dronke’s edition of Skírnismál, asserts that ‘the general reader may be misled by the construction of the poem as a play’ (1998, 149). To Gunnell’s mind, it is rather true to say that we have been misconstruing it as a poem all this while, and not a verse-­ drama – the more correct generic classification.5 This distinction leads us to the central utility of ‘performance archaeology’ as a method for encountering these written texts: it addresses our need to consider them all as works that were heard and seen, rather than only as words on a page. It helps us to contend with the received wisdom and assumptions which characterise the editing and reception of the poems today. Take, for instance, the case of Völuspá and the much-­mooted question of exactly how many seeresses speak during the poem. It is remarkable how many papers have been published on this topic, each proffering a new and innovative hypothesis, without considering the poem from the viewpoint of performance and attempting the experiment of performing the work with one or multiple reciters and taking account of the consequences of this for an audience. Which performative choices render the poem most clearly? Which approaches are invalidated by the impossibility of realising them in performance? Ruth Finnegan has written that ‘a piece of oral literature, to reach its full articulation, must be performed. The text alone cannot constitute the oral poem’ (1977, 28). I follow her in proposing that the refusal to explore a poem in the context of the oral performative tradition in which it developed and through which it was intended to be disseminated represents a failure to explore it fully.

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This is the case for ‘performance archaeology’. I have attempted to provide a fair overview and point to several of its potential applications. There are, however, limitations which restrict how much new information this approach can provide. The first important caveat is that modern audiences are likely to respond differently to textual cues in a poem when compared with medieval audiences, because we operate in different performative milieux. The second is to recognise that, as medievalists, we often lag behind our colleagues who study more recent literature, in that we have almost no contemporary performance criticism to draw on to corroborate our claims. The third is that we cannot assert with confidence that the texts available to us closely resemble the inferred oral prototypes to which pre-­literate medieval audiences once listened. We could treat manuscripts like the Codex Regius as promptbooks, but there is scant evidence that it was designed primarily or exclusively for this purpose.6 It is entirely possible that the poems, when performed, might have been recalled from memory, but such a hypothesis places us at a still more distant remove from these inaccessible half-­imagined performances of centuries past. So, ‘performance archaeology’, while valuable in generating new lines of enquiry, has its limits when it comes to proving a point. There are several practical applications – and the drawbacks should not prevent us from seeking these out – but I want to turn now to the alternative approach to the poems outlined above: performing them for modern audiences without any overt attempt to mimic a medieval recitation.

Modern Performance Until quite recently, the trend in Old Norse studies has been institutionally historicist to such a degree that, as the quotations given at the beginning of this chapter suggest, we have often treated the Poetic Edda entirely as a window onto a lost world, not as the mirror held up to reflect our present nature. Many of these poems have survived by chance, and some are of questionable literary worth, but others still sparkle with artistry and invite us to consider them as we would a newly published work. Whether, or to what degree, the Old Norse poems which survive lent themselves to oral performance then, the fact remains that they do so now. There is nothing preventing us from applying to them a modern aesthetic criticism to complement our historicist analysis, yet the enthusiasm for doing so has so far been less pronounced than in the case of post-­medieval literature. I can only surmise that we imagine the poems hold such tantalising secrets that our instinct is to excavate, rather than to treat them as the basis for modern performances which seek to draw out their universal resonances – as is done, for example, with the works of Shakespeare. Yet, by choosing to perform them anew, using modern musical and dramatic techniques, we can achieve a level of critical engagement no less valid and valuable than what can be achieved

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through scrutiny of the written texts, which speaks to what the poems are rather than what they were (or might have been). This is the other strand of the ‘Old Norse Poetry in Performance’ project: to take ancient poems and quite literally breathe life into them; to make the case for their living on, albeit in a form which would seem alien to their medieval progenitors, but which at least acknowledges them as texts meant to be heard, seen and experienced rather than simply read (Gunnell 2006). If several are  – as we presume  – tapestry texts to which successive artists, scribes and authors added over time, what is to stop us from engaging with them on those same terms? This is certainly the approach taken by contemporary practitioners like Leif Stinnerbom and Einar Selvik (see interviews elsewhere in this volume), and critical appreciations of their practice continue to yield new insights into the latent properties of these texts. Opponents might hold that this approach is less scholarly than the painstaking work of textual criticism and codicology, but I would argue that in any form of literary analysis the fundamental subject is the text itself. If it contains certain aesthetic qualities which are most readily accessed through performance, then it is incumbent on us to perform it. Returning to the metaphorical language so often employed when discussing oral literature, M. T. Clanchy has written, ‘The paper text of the music is not thought to be a substitute for its performance, even though an expert reader may hear the music in his mind’ (2013, 287). At this point it is helpful to address the distinction which is sometimes drawn between ‘performance’ and ‘reading aloud’. From the perspective of Performance Studies, it is essential to appreciate that there is no substantial difference, except that ‘performance’ is a broader term which may include improvisation and recitation from memory. Even a monotone delivery represents a kind of performance because it involves an act of interpretation. ‘Performance’ tends to imply both speech and movement, but of course speech is generated through movement: by engaging the diaphragm, vocal cords, respiratory system, tongue and lips. The written text is always static; the performer is always in motion, even where that motion amounts to pausing in delivery to catch their breath or suspending their delivery to sustain a moment of high tension. By embodying and voicing the text, the reader becomes a performer, introducing to the written words an array of prosodic choices and harmonic effects. To take just one example of how an awareness of performance is exerting an increasingly powerful influence on this field, here is Judy Quinn’s summation of the eddic poem Grottasöngr: The shifting of voice from one giantess to another and, on occasion, to the two of them in concert (marked mainly grammatically [. . .]) makes their song acoustically complex, a spatially disorienting effect that mirrors the uncertainty of Fróði’s intellectualism. (2013, 177–8)

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This insight, though drawn from the written text rather than a practice-­as-­ research experiment, effectively picks up on notions of prosodics (‘acoustically’), proxemics (‘spatially’) and that mirroring effect which Hamlet tells us ‘was and is’ the purpose of playing. Each of these is an aspect of performance which lies latent in the poem on the page.

Directing Hárbarðsljóð I want to conclude this chapter with a case study of the eddic poem Hárbarðsljóð from the perspective of a modern dramaturg exploring its latent performance potential. I will begin by approaching the poem as a ‘performance archaeologist’ might, seeking evidence of how it was performed for medieval audiences (or, more accurately, how the composer of this written iteration of the poem understood it to work in performance). I will then discuss how a modern performer might approach the poem, treating it as a ‘script’ and seeking to draw out its resonances for a post-­medieval audience. Looking Backwards (The ‘Performance Archaeology’ Approach)

Hárbarðsljóð is a verbal duel, part senna, part mannjafnaðr, in which the participants identify themselves as the god Þórr and the ferryman Hárbarðr (Bax and Padmos 1983, 159). Most readers of the poem have interpreted Hárbarðr’s name as a fairly transparent pseudonym for Óðinn.7 The plot, such as it is, involves Þórr arriving at a stretch of water (sund ‘sound/inlet’) and seeking passage with Hárbarðr. The ferryman rejects this request and a contest ensues. The poem naturally lends itself to being recited by two speakers, one taking the part of Þórr and the other that of the ferryman who identifies himself as Hárbarðr. It is entirely possible for a single reciter to perform both parts, but this does place additional demands on the reciter to establish what Stanislavski terms the ‘given circumstances’ (2008, 52–3) encapsulated in the prose introduction to the poem preserved in the Codex Regius. The involvement of two reciters removes the need for intrusive prose commentary and allows more space for the dramatic imperative to ‘show, not tell’.8 As Gunnell points out, ‘all that the audience knows (if the prose introduction is removed) is that there are two figures, one apparently young, “the lad of lads” (“svein sveina”) mentioned in st.1, and the other old’ (1995, 272). In performance, the initial anonymity of the two participants would enable the audience to achieve a certain satisfaction by working out their identities from the content of their exchanges – and perhaps from their attire, stance and the use of props, such as a hammer or broad-­brimmed hat, not explicitly required by the text (though Þórr does refer to his hammer in stanza 47). The poem indicates that a distance must exist between the verbal combatants, and the location specified in the dialogue could indicate that the poem was intended to be performed from either side of a stretch of water (Gunnell

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1995, 274) – though a table or fire pit might serve as a suitable stand-­in. Carol Clover notes that ‘the “sundering flood” setting [. . .] is a venerable and widespread tradition’ in flytings (1979, 125), so establishing this location – whether in the audience’s imagination or in fact – would effectively prime them to anticipate a senna/mannjafnaðr of the type which then takes place. Since the audience gradually becomes aware that both interlocutors are gods, while Þórr apparently remains ignorant of this fact, there is strong satirical potential in the poem, which might be amplified if a disparity of social status or reputation were to exist between the two performers. The text contains some indications of how both characters are attired, and these would oblige the reciters to make a choice: either to adopt items of costume inspired by the poem or to perform dressed as themselves. Neither choice is neutral, since both contain comedic potential. When Hárbarðr accuses Þórr, berbeinn þú stendr/ok hefir brautinga gervi ‘bare-­legged you stand and wearing beggar’s attire’ (st.6), this is amusing either because it undermines Þórr’s dignity (reflected in the performer standing bare-­legged, as described) or because it is a claim not supported by the performer’s attire, which therefore draws attention to the theatrical nature of the contest (an example of the so-­called double-­scene phenomenon: see further Lönnroth 1978). This would hardly be the only false claim made by one of the combatants in this verbal duel (Bax and Padmos 1983, 166), and could thus be deemed consistent with the ‘farcical’ nature of the text (Clover 1979). How the reciter performing the part of Hárbarðr should be attired remains an open question, but his assumed name (meaning ‘greybeard’) becomes similarly charged when we recognise that the performer taking the ferryman’s part must either wear a grey beard, thus ensuring that Þórr addressing him as sveinn sveina ‘lad of lads’ is comedically absurd (Gunnell 1995, 272), or not wear a grey beard, causing the audience to wonder why he adopts this seeming misnomer as an alias. In live performance, the performer cannot be in a state of indeterminate hirsuteness, as he may in a private reader’s imagination. To perform is to choose. The intrinsic comedy of the poem was identified as early as the late nineteenth century (Grundtvig 1874, 200; Clover 1979, 144 fn.44), and comic readings gained traction following the work of Jón Helgason, who styled it en lille komedie ‘a little comedy’ (1942–53, II, 35), and Ludvig Holm-­Olsen (1985, 321). As to what kind of comedy the poem contains, generic distinctions have ranged from Clover’s influential argument that it is a ‘farce’ (1979) to Bax and Padmos’s characterisation of it as ‘a game with well-­defined moves’ (1983, 166), to Martin Arnold’s preference for regarding it as ‘a flyting pantomime’ (2014, 12). The ‘performance archaeologist’ is sensitive to the fact that comedy is socially contingent, and generated as much (if not more) by the rapport established between performer and audience as by the text itself. On the page, Hárbarðsljóð may be potentially serious or comic; the victory may go to either Hárbarðr (Clover 1979, 139) or Þórr (Lindow 2016, 123); Hárbarðr’s disguise may be persuasive or farcical. Realising the poem in performance involves stripping away these ambiguities.

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One particularly vexing ambiguity in the text which must be resolved one way or another in performance is the question: who initiates the verbal duel? Arnold believes it is Þórr who ‘begins aggressively’ when he calls out to the ferryman, addressing him as sveinn sveina ‘lad of lads’ (which Arnold translates ‘a boy’s boy’) (2014, 5). Bax and Padmos agree that Þórr ‘degrades’ the ferryman (whose identity he does not appear to recognise) by addressing him in this way (1983, 152), and Clover draws attention to the conventional nature of this opening line which initiates the ‘usual shouting of belligerent questions over the sound’ characteristic of ‘over-­water flytings’ (1979, 130, 125). Yet Clover’s whole approach to the poem rests on its unconventionality which, in her view, amounts to a parody of the flyting form. Depending on the mise-­en-­scène of a given performance, Þórr’s opening line might be delivered with a more neutral  – or even benevolent  – inflection, turning Hárbarðr’s response into the text’s initial act of unprovoked aggression. Consider: Þórr and Hárbarðr are separated by a body of water (whether real or imagined, in any given performance). It is essential to the plot that the sound is sufficiently wide that it cannot conveniently be swum or forded. This would imply that a certain distance should exist between the combatants (a point to which Þórr ruefully alludes in stanza 27 when he acknowledges that he cannot seilask um sund ‘stretch across the sound’). Even if we disregard the introductory prose, the initial exchanges make clear that Þórr has just arrived, and so Hárbarðr may have his back turned or may be seated or otherwise situated such that Þórr does not at first perceive his grey beard and maturity. This, of course, presumes that the performer reciting the part of Hárbarðr does wear such a beard: as noted above, this is not an absolute requirement, and such a disparity between Hárbarðr’s assumed name and his appearance could simply enhance the comedy. Taken on its own terms, Þórr’s opening question seems innocent enough: Hverr er sá sveinn sveina,/er stendr fyr sundit handan? ‘Who is that lad of lads who stands on the opposite side of the inlet?’ What the wording alone does not capture is the tone in which Þórr speaks. Depending on the reciter’s chosen intonation, this introductory salvo might seem generous; warm-­ hearted; business-­like; or, contrastingly, presumptuous; intemperate; patronising. Much turns on the word sveinn, which implies youth but is not necessarily scornful. The opening stanza has comedic force if Þórr displays unprovoked aggression, but has no less (and perhaps more) comedic force if he is simply mistaken in his initial attempt to identify Hárbarðr – something he continually fails to do accurately for the duration of the poem. This reading finds some support in Hárbarðr’s apparently mocking line, veiztatu fyrir görla ‘you do not know clearly what is before you’ (st.4). Instead of answering Þórr’s opening question directly, Hárbarðr poses a question of his own. This reverses the dynamic of the conversation, placing Þórr on the defensive. Hárbarðr asks, Hverr er sá karl karla[?] ‘Who is that churl of churls[?]’ – perhaps intending to provoke Þórr – making it all the more significant that Þórr’s response (the offer of food) is fair and mollifying: either he has not understood the provocation or he has chosen not to rise to

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it, since his need for passage is so great. It is possible either that he recognises his mistake in calling this grey-­bearded stranger a sveinn, and equally possible that he offers the food as an insulting gesture, deliberately ratcheting up the tension between them. A performer interpreting the role must choose between these options and thus establish for the audience whether this iteration of Þórr is reasonable or aggressive. Þórr is either physically encumbered, carrying the meiss ‘basket’ he refers to in stanza 3, or must gesture to indicate it when he offers Hárbarðr his tribute. If props were ever used in a medieval performance of the text, the nature and contents of such a basket would inform the audience’s understanding of how generous or insulting this gesture is. Clover suggests Þórr’s offer of food in exchange for passage could be ‘a comic inversion of a more traditional and appropriate offer of gold’ (1979, 130), and this is true, but it is equally possible that the offer is generous – or, at least, proportionate – and that by spurning it Hárbarðr is taking upon himself the role of provocateur. So, is Þórr unequivocally the agitator here? A performance of the poem might make this less certain, without contradicting the written text. For one thing, since the name ‘Hárbarðr’ is a disguise  – and one likely chosen for its Odinic associations (see Grímnismál st.49) – we must allow the possibility that it is a poor disguise, or even a test, and that the reciter of Hárbarðr’s part might, indeed, look more like a sveinn than a greybeard. When he later names himself in stanza 10 and asserts Hylk um nfan sjaldan ‘I seldom hide my name’, the audience – and his interlocutor – might interpret this either as a joke or a provocation, playing on Þórr’s earlier reference to him as a young man. Another consideration is the width of the body of water dividing the two speakers. When Þórr calls across to attract the ferryman’s attention, it is possible he cannot see his interlocutor clearly and might therefore mistake him for a younger man. A performance of the poem might indicate the distance between the speakers either vocally or dynamically, through staging and gesture (Þórr might shade his eyes or or strain to see). Even a sole reciter, performing the poem by reading aloud from a book, might establish a similar sense of distance by employing the same vocal inflections and gestures. All of this has a bearing on the dynamics of the confrontation which an unvoiced reading of the poem may exclude or overlook. As the poem approaches its climax, each participant speaks with greater brevity, possibly a cue to the performers to increase the pace of their delivery (Gunnell 1995, 274). Hárbarðr taunts Þórr in stanza 48: Sif á hó heima, hans mundu fund vilja. þann muntu þrek drýgja, þat er þér skyldara. Sif [Þórr’s wife] has a lover at home, he is the one you want to meet. You should endure that trial of strength, which is more urgent.

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This barb clearly enrages Þórr, who then appears possessed by a new sense of urgency: heldr hefir þú nú mik dvalðan ‘you have now held me here too long’ (st.51). He abandons the field after obtaining directions from Hárbarðr. Since their entire exchange has been characterised by lies and deception on the ferryman’s part, this coda leaves open the questions of whether Hárbarðr’s directions are reliable and whether, having apparently realised his interlocutor is deceitful (st.49), Þórr decides to follow them or strike out in the opposite direction. Once again, there is latent comedy in either choice, which may have been enhanced in a setting where the audience recognised that one route was auspicious and the other perilous. The opportunities to enhance the dramatic irony in the text through casting, costuming and setting are extensive. Looking Forwards (The Modern Dramaturgical Approach)

So far, we have examined the written text for clues about what medieval audiences might have expected from a performance of Hárbarðsljóð. This analysis has raised questions about where the recitation might ideally take place, how the participants would be costumed and what props might be incorporated into a performance. These same questions can generate new approaches to the poem, as outlined above, but more often than not they can be answered only on the basis of probability, rather than with confidence. Modern performers must ask the same questions of the text and arrive at definitive answers, unencumbered by any sense of fidelity to what medieval performances must have looked, sounded, smelt and felt like. For the modern performer, the only constraint is the text in its extant form, and this now includes such elements as the prose passages and speaker attributions which may or may not echo staging decisions made by one or more medieval reciters long ago. The performer trained in modern theatrical techniques will approach the introductory prose as a kind of ‘stage direction.’ From it, we learn that Þórr is travelling ór austrvegi ‘from the east’. This makes sense narratively, since we understand him to be returning from one of his regular forays into Jötunheimr. The fact that he is travelling towards home indicates something about his motivation and state of mind. It is possible that he is fatigued, and certainly his journey will become more urgent when the ferryman puts the idea in his mind that his wife has been unfaithful during his absence (st.48). On the other hand, we learn from stanza 3 that he has breakfasted heartily and experienced no such sense of urgency when he set out in the morning. The prose also introduces an important dynamic difference between the quarrelling parties: Þórr begins the poem by entering the ‘performance arena’ (Foley 1995, 47). To the dramaturg, this suggests that Hárbarðr is already present, visually indicating that this is his territory and Þórr is intruding upon it. Since Þórr has to come to the water – the site of their conflict – whereas Hárbarðr has only to stand his ground, the latter appears at

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once to be more settled and at ease with his surroundings. The prose makes no mention of whether Þórr is dressed or equipped in any particular way (although in stanza 3 he refers to having a basket on his back), but indicates that Hárbarðr is standing með skipit ‘with his ship’, a detail which, if realised or indicated in the staging, would further enhance the visual impression that his position is superior to Þórr’s – he is fighting the contest on his own terms and on his own turf. The prose introduction ends with the speech cue Þórr kallaði ‘Þórr called out’, significantly the only point at which the verb kalla ‘to call’ is used rather than kveða ‘to say/recite’. This same word appears in the following stanza, meaning that whether or not the prose was a late addition the word itself is germane to the poem. The distinction invites a performer playing the role of Þórr to alter his vocal intonation and volume in order to distinguish ‘calling’ from ‘saying.’ This dynamic choice could establish for the audience the scale of the distance between the two characters (even if, in a restricted performance arena, the reciters were actually in fairly close proximity). On the question of costume, Hárbarðr says to Þórr, berbeinn þú stendr [ . . . ]/þatki at þú hafir brœkr þínar ‘barelegged you stand [. . .]/you haven’t even any breeches’ (st.6). Here, the private reader can immediately visualise Þórr standing in the manner described. This is consistent with his later threat to wade across the water (st.13), although his failure to follow through may indicate that the sound is too deep to be crossed in this way, rendering the threat impotent, as his adversary plainly realises. In performance, though, the reciter is either clad below the waist or unclad, and either state introduces comic possibilities. In the second case, the reciter’s state might already have provoked mirth when he entered the performance arena. The private reader is left to wonder why the god is without his breeches, but any performer tasked with conveying Þórr’s haste to be home might easily invent a piece of stage business which involved preparing himself to ford or swim the inlet. Perhaps he begins to undress before he sees the ferryman, introducing the still more awkward dynamic of having been discovered in a compromising state. Such a staging would provide a clue for the audience to appreciate why he is so susceptible to provocation by Hárbarðr. Of course, an alternative performance choice would be to have the reciter reading the part of Þórr remain fully clothed throughout, a choice which would also provoke mirth, but for a different reason: the seeming contrast between the accusation made by Hárbarðr and the evidence of the audience’s own eyes. Such a contrast could be accentuated by incredulous looks and gestures in performance which a private reading cannot communicate. This would be consistent with Clover’s view (1979, 130) that the reference to Þórr’s attire is intended to convey the more general impression that he resembles a beggar rather than to imply that he is literally naked from the waist down. Either way, the attire of the reciter will register in performance and so affect the implications of these lines. As noted already, the poem has less to say about Hárbarðr’s clothing. The only possible clue occurs in stanza 52, where Hárbarðr apparently refers to

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himself as a féhirðir ‘shepherd’, having previously only been identified as a ferryman. The context may encourage us to read this as a self-­deprecating remark, designed to reflect the scale of Þórr’s impotence – outclassed in the flyting by someone of such a lowly profession. Other readings are possible: perhaps Hárbarðr intends the term metaphorically, suggesting that Þórr is easily led, like a sheep, and he who does the leading is like a herdsman. It is possible that this reference alludes to an early reciter of the poem who was (when not in role) a shepherd, and the joke might therefore be understood as an aside for the benefit of the audience. In a modern performance, a choice must be made as to whether the reciter speaking the part of Hárbarðr resembles a shepherd and how this is expressed. This question raises the larger issue of when (and whether) the audience of the poem should successfully identify the ferryman as the disguised Óðinn. Since the chief god commonly appears in disguise, this revelation should not be wholly surprising, and indeed the apparent reference to the Útgarða-­Loki episode in stanza 26 introduces the idea that things are not always as they seem. In performance, the character of Óðinn could readily be suggested by the reciter adopting his attributes, which would identify him for the audience in much the same way that a saint’s or evangelist’s do in medieval art. If the reciter performing the part of Hárbarðr were to be equipped with a broad-­brimmed hat or to seem only to have one eye, this would affect the audience’s interpretation of the flyting, since they would not share in Þórr’s failure to perceive the deception. The line Hylk um nafn sjaldan ‘I seldom hide my name’ would then perform the function of making the audience complicit in Óðinn’s deception of Þórr: they would recognise the lie (of all the Æsir, Óðinn is most frequently seen in disguise) and consequently anticipate that Þórr will lose this contest to his cannier father, just as Vafþrúðnir loses a similar eddic exchange when he realises the true identity of his challenger in Vafþrúðnismál. Whenever the poem is performed today, the reciter(s) must determine whether, and at what point, Hárbarðr assumes Óðinn’s attributes. They must also decide whether Þórr then perceives these props or whether they are visible only to the onlookers (we have already considered the possibility that Þórr is struggling to see clearly across the inlet). For the reciter performing the part of Þórr, it is important to establish when and whether he recognises that he is being deceived. There are a number of points at which he might conceivably guess his interlocutor’s true name – for instance, when Hárbarðr suggests that he communes with the dead (st.44), a practice suggestive of seiðr and therefore associated (though by no means exclusively) with Óðinn. This is an unlikely claim from a self-­styled herdsman; but then again other stories such as the Útgarða-­Loki episode in Gylfaginning suggest that Þórr is particularly susceptible to being deceived. The line hygg ek, at þú liúgir ‘it seems to me that you are lying’ in stanza 49, though ostensibly a repudiation of the specific claim that Sif is an unfaithful wife, could, through a particular choice of intonation, be made to seem applicable to Hárbarðr’s

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entire persona and conduct. In short, the reciter has the freedom to alter the outcome of the flyting in performance – what reads on parchment as a victory for Hárbarðr, who refuses to cross the inlet, could instead be performed as an exchange which ends with Þórr inferring the ferryman’s true identity, thus emerging as the unexpected (and somewhat pyrrhic) victor. These possibilities remain open when the text is fixed on the page, but in performance it is not possible to avoid choosing one over another. A formal characteristic of this poem, which famously resists settling on a regular metre, is the call-­and-­response pattern which recalls the format of early modern cue-­scripts (discussed earlier). Renaissance dramatists often wrote ‘cue’ lines which closely paralleled the responses they were designed to trigger. The advantage of this pattern was threefold: an actor would hear something like his own line, and this functioned as a mnemonic cue; it also created a harmonious cadence for the audience; and it repeated significant information. This call-­and-­response structure also lends itself neatly to the one-­upmanship demanded of participants in a flyting. As Clover notes of stanza 30, ‘Not only is [Hárbarðr’s] first line a direct imitation of Þórr’s preceding line [. . .] his choice throughout mimics his conventional language of struggle and conquest’ (1979, 137). For the reciter speaking Hárbarðr’s lines, the opportunity to introduce a mocking tone is both encouraged and facilitated by the use of repetition.9 At the beginning of the poem the repetitions are fairly formulaic. Þórr’s seemingly abrasive reference to the ferryman as sveinn sveina ‘lad of lads’ earns him a response addressed to karl karla ‘churl of churl’, but the later parallels are increasingly pronounced. Segðu til nafns þíns ‘tell me your name’ demands the ferryman; Segja mun ek til nafns míns ‘I will tell you my name’ replies Þórr, emphatically. Hylk um nafn sjaldan ‘I seldom hide my name’ asserts the ferryman; Hvat skaltu of nafn hylja [?] ‘why should you hide your name[?]’ parrots Þórr, picking up on his adversary’s diction but seemingly not on the latent irony in Hárbarðr’s statement. Ek mynda þér þá þat veita,/ef ek viðr of kœmisk ‘I would have helped you with that if I could have’, asserts Þórr; Ek mynda þér þá trúa/nema þú mik í tryggð véltir ‘I would have trusted you then if you didn’t betray me’, retorts the ferryman, continuing to parallel and parody his would-­be passenger. To the modern dramaturg’s ear, this parallelism closely resembles the cadence of a patter song. The sonic effect of reciting the lines aloud is harmonious, reinforcing how well-­matched the two participants in the flyting are (although the mocking tone adopted by Hárbarðr might contradict this impression in performance). Potentially, both are concealing something – Hárbarðr his true identity; Þórr that he has already guessed it; Hárbarðr perhaps that he realises this, and so on. The prosodic harmony of these repeated phrases and cadences captures the balance of power between the duelling contestants. Moreover, each takes his cue from the other in a very obvious way, and these lines function as in-­built mnemonic aids. The modern dramaturg might be tempted to see parallels between this technique and post-­medieval dramatic exchanges,

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such as the following passage from Shakespeare’s Richard III. Here, Richard seeks to win Elizabeth’s daughter to be his second wife. The interlocutors are (almost) evenly matched, and the playwright demonstrates this through the metre and parallel phrasing they employ: Richard: Elizabeth: Richard: Elizabeth: Richard: Elizabeth: Richard: Elizabeth: Richard: Elizabeth: Richard: Elizabeth:

Infer fair England’s peace by this alliance. Which she shall purchase with still lasting war. Say that the king, which may command, entreats. That at her hands which the king’s King forbids. Say, she shall be a high and mighty queen. To wail the tide, as her mother doth. Say, I will love her everlastingly. But how long shall that title ‘ever’ last? Sweetly in force unto her fair life’s end. But how long fairly shall her sweet lie last? So long as heaven and nature lengthens it. So long as hell and Richard likes of it [.  .  .]. (Simeon 2009, 359–60)

This is not a world away from the language of Hárbarðsljóð, and the comparison serves to reinforce the fact that the poem is inherently dramatic and designed to be performed in order that we may more fully appreciate its aesthetic qualities (Arnold 2014, 11).

Conclusion Both ‘performance archaeology’ and modern performances of Old Norse poems can provide valid and valuable insights into these texts. Each method has its limits, but they perform a complementary function. Where they are confused  – for instance, when a practice-­as-­research project is conceived without clearly committing itself to one approach or the other – the results are likely to be irredeemably speculative and ultimately unhelpful. However, where the techniques and terminology of Performance Studies are carefully applied to the Old Norse corpus, with all the proper caveats and controls in place, it becomes possible – as indeed it remains necessary – to delve deeper into the latent performative potential which lives on in these texts. Rather than treat these poems as fossils only, let us render them their due and restore them, at least from time to time, to the dramatic, oral and performative media which, at the very least, informed their written iterations.

Notes 1 I am grateful to Terry Gunnell for his comments on an early draft of this chapter, and to the attendees at the Old Norse in Oxford Research Seminar (6 June 2019) and at the panel on ‘The Texture of Performance: A Material-­Cultural Approach to the

Old Norse Poetry in Performance 237 Performance of Old Norse Poetry’ at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds (2 July 2019) for their helpful questions and suggestions. The views expressed and errors which remain are my own. 2 Quotations from eddic poetry are taken from Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason (2014). 3 Translations are mine. 4 The cultural association between prophetic speech and elevated sites may also be inferred from the association of the prophetess Þórdis with the symbolically named Spákonufell in Kormaks saga. 5 The susceptibility of several eddic poems to being presented as verse-­dramas had previously occurred to early editors, notably Gudbrand Vigfusson and F. York Powell (1883). 6 Though see Frog’s chapter ‘How the Hell Do You Read This?: The Evolution of Eddic Orality Through Manuscript Performance’ in the present volume. 7 This identification has never been universally accepted – Victor Rydberg (1906, 961 fn.12), following Holtzmann and Bergmann, suggested that he might really have been Loki. Most modern scholars concur with Carol Clover (1979, 126) in believing him to be Óðinn. There is, of course, the third possibility that he is precisely who he claims to be: a servant of Hildólfr (st.8) and nothing more. Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason express their confidence in identifying ‘Hárbarðr’ as vafalaust dulnefni Óðins ‘surely a pseudonym of Óðinn’ (2014, 201). 8 Jón Helgason (1953, 35) and Gunnell (1995, 274) both argue for the practical advantages of two reciters, but the poem can be performed by one without loss of coherence. 9 On the use of echo, see further Harriet Soper’s chapter ‘Dramatic Implications of Echoed Speech in Skírnismál’ in the present volume.

Bibliography Primary Sources Einar Ólafur Sveinsson and Matthías Þórðarson, eds. 1935. Eiríks saga rauða, Íslenzk fornrit 4, Reykjavík: Hið Íslenzka Fornritafélag Guðni Jónsson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson, eds. 1943–4. ‘Ǫrvar-­Odds saga’, in Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda, 3 vols., Reykjavík: Bókaútgáfan Forni, I, 283–399 Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason, eds. 2014. Eddukvæði, 2 vols., Reykjavík: Hið Íslenzka Fornritafélag Simeon, James R., ed. 2009. William Shakespeare. Richard III, 3rd edn., The Arden Shakespeare, London: Bloomsbury

Secondary Sources Abram, Christopher. 2011. Myths of the Pagan North: The Gods of the Norsemen, London: Continuum Arnold, Martin. 2014. ‘Hárbarðsljóð: Parody, Pragmatics and the Socio-­Mythic Controversy’, Saga-­Book 38, 5–26 Bax, Marcel and Tineke Padmos. 1983. ‘Two Types of Duelling in Old Icelandic: The Interactional Structure of the Senna and the Mannjafnaðr in Hárbarðsljóð’, Scandinavian Studies 55:2, 149–74 Billington, Michael. 2009. ‘Simon Russell Beale is No Shakespearean Fool’, The Guardian Theatre blog, www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2009/jun/22/simon-­r ussell-­ beale-­shakespeare [Accessed 1 August 2021]

238  Brian McMahon Clanchy, M. T. 2013. From Memory to the Written Record, 3rd edn., Chichester: Wiley-­Blackwell Clover, Carol. 1979. ‘Hárbarðsljóð as Generic Farce’, Scandinavian Studies 51, 124–45 Clunies Ross, Margaret. 1994–8. Prolonged Echoes: Old Norse Myths in Medieval Northern Society, 2 vols., Odense: Odense University Press Clunies Ross, Margaret. 2020. ‘Archaeology and Textuality in the Study of Pre-­Christian Scandinavian Religion’, in Old Norse Myths as Political Ideologies: Critical Studies in the Appropriation of Medieval Narratives, ed. by Nicolas Meylan and Lukas Rösli, Acta Scandinavica: Cambridge Studies in the Early Scandinavian World 9, Turnhout: Brepols, 117–28 Finnegan, Ruth. 1977. Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Significance and Social Context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Foley, John Miles. 1995. The Singer of Tales in Performance, Bloomington: Indiana University Press Grundtvig, Svend. 1874. Sæmundar Edda hins fróða: den ældre Edda, rev. edn., Copenhagen: Gyldendal Gudbrand Vigfusson and F. York Powell. 1883. Corpus Poeticum Boreale Vol. I, Oxford: Clarendon Gunnell, Terry. 1995. The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer Gunnell, Terry. 2006. ‘ “Til holts ek gekk”: Spacial and Temporal Aspects of the Dramatic Poems of the Elder Edda’, in Old Norse Religion in Long Term Perspectives: Origins, Changes and Interactions: An International Conference in Lund, Sweden 3–7 júni, 2004, ed. by Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert and Catharina Raudvere, Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 238–42 Gunnell, Terry. 2008. ‘The Performance of the Poetic Edda’, in The Viking World, ed. by Stefan Brink and Neil Price, London: Routledge, 299–303 Gunnell, Terry. 2012. ‘The Drama of the Poetic Edda: Performance as a Means of Transformation’, in Progranicza teatralności: Poezja, poetyka, praktyka, ed. by Andrzeja Dąbrówki, Warsaw: Instytut Badań Literackich Pan Wydawnictwo, 13–40 Gunnell, Terry. 2016. ‘Eddic performance and eddic audiences’, in A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, ed. by Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn and Brittany Schorn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 92–113 Gunnell, Terry and Sveinn Einarsson. 2018. ‘Theatre and Performance (1830–2018)’, in The Pre-­Christian Religions of the North: Research and Reception, Volume II: From c. 1830 to the Present, ed. by Margaret Clunies Ross, PCRN-­RR 2, Turnhout: Brepols Hall, Peter. 2000. Exposed by the Mask: Form and Language in Drama, London: Oberon Holm-­Olsen, Ludvig, ed. and trans. 1985. Edda-­dikt, 2nd (rev.) edn., Oslo: Cappelen Jón Helgason. 1953. ‘Norges og Islands digtning’, in Nordisk kultur, VIII: Litteraturhistorie, ed. by Sigurður Nordal, 2 vols., Stockholm: A Bonnier Kott, Jan. 1967. Shakespeare Our Contemporary, trans. by Boleslaw Taborski, 2nd edn., London: Routledge Lindow, John. 2016. ‘Eddic Poetry and Mythology’, in A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, ed. by Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn and Brittany Schorn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 114–31 Lönnroth, Lars. 1978. Den dubbla scenen: Muntlig diktning frän Eddan till Abba, Stockholm: Carlsson McKinnell, John. 2014a. ‘Motivation and Meaning in Lokasenna’, in Essays on Eddic Poetry, ed. by Donata Kick and John D. Schafer, London: University of Toronto Press, 172–99 [A revised version of an earlier article, published in 1987–8 under the title ‘Motivation in Lokasenna’, Saga-­Book 22:3–4, 234–62]

Old Norse Poetry in Performance 239 McKinnell, John. 2014b. ‘Vọlundarkviða: Origins and Interpretation’, in Essays on Eddic Poetry, ed. by Donata Kick and John D. Schafer, London: University of Toronto Press, 221–48 [A revised version of an earlier article, published in 1990 under the title ‘The Context of Vọlundarkviða’, Saga-­Book 23:1, 1–27] Orchard, Andy. 2011. The Elder Edda: A Book of Viking Lore, London: Penguin Classics Parks, Ward. 1991. ‘The Textualisation of Orality in Literary Criticism’, in Vox intexta: Orality and Textuality in the Middle Ages, ed. by A. N. Doane and Carol Braun Pasternack, London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 46–61 Poole, Russell. 1998. ‘Review: ed. Dronke, Ursula, Poetic Edda II. Mythological Poems, Oxford: Clarendon, 1997, pp. xiv, 443’, Parergon 16, 148–50 Quinn, Judy. 2013. ‘Mythological Motivations in Eddic Heroic Poetry: Interpreting Grottasöngr’, in Revisiting The Poetic Edda: Essays on Old Norse Heroic Legend, ed. by Paul Acker and Carolyne Larrington, New York: Routledge, 159–82 Rydberg, Victor. 1906. Teutonic Mythology: Gods and Goddesses of the Northland, trans. by Rasmus B. Anderson, 3 vols., Copenhagen: Norrœna Schechner, Richard. 2002. Performance Studies: An Introduction, London: Routledge Schechner, Richard. 2020. Performance Studies: An Introduction, 4th edn., New York and London: Routledge Stanislavski, Konstantin. 2008. An Actor’s Work: A Student’s Diary, trans. by Jean Benedetti, Abingdon: Routledge Tranter, Steven M. 1996. ‘Reoralization: Written Influence, Oral Formulation’, in (Re) Oralisierung, ed. by Hildegard L. C. Tristram, Tübingen: Narr, 45–54 Whipday, Emma and Freya Cox Jensen. 2017. ‘ “Original Practices and Historical Imagination”: Staging A Tragedie Called Merrie’, Shakespeare Bulletin 35, 289–307

10 Interview with Leif Stinnerbom Brian McMahon

Leif Stinnerbom has been Artistic Director of Västanå Teater, in Sunne, Värmland, since 1990. He directed a widely acclaimed production of Jon Fosse’s Edda in 2019. He was interviewed remotely for this volume by Brian McMahon.

Brian McMahon: Could you start by telling us a little about how your theatrical production of stories from the Poetic Edda first came about? Leif Stinnerbom: The core of Jon Fosse’s Edda [here referred to as Eddan1] originally commissioned by Det norske teatret in Oslo, 2017, is a Norwegian translation of the original eddic poems dealing with the Old Norse gods which have been reordered into a single narrative, with a few cuts and relatively minor additions. In essence it is the Poetic Edda. It is a work that I have long been interested in taking on. BM: What first attracted you to the project? LS: As a director, I  think of myself primarily as a storyteller seeking to deliver a message to my audience. I have a great interest in myths and see it as the responsibility of each era to interpret these stories from the viewpoint of their own time. Old Norse poetry has always interested and fascinated me. I have studied Eddan for a number of years, and this felt like the right time to stage it. Jon Fosse is a great storyteller, and I have worked with several of his texts before. I find his plays mysterious and enigmatic – akin to poetry, always containing something unspoken that produces a kind of erasure of time which I find attractive. In his work, the past and the future fuse in a kind of presence. Indeed, this is exactly the feeling that Eddan evokes in me, and of course, the story itself has a circular understanding of time. Birth and death follow each other again and again. With Jon Fosse’s living interpretation of this old text, I couldn’t keep myself from stepping into its world. BM: How would you characterise your approach to directing the play? LS: I started my work by exploring the old Norse gods from a human point of view, guided by the understanding that humans create their gods based DOI: 10.4324/9780367809324-16

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on their needs rather than the other way around. This means that myths have things to tell us about the humans that created them: their way of life, their fears, their hopes and longings. Who were these people, and what kind of world did they live in? It was clear to me from that outset that they considered life an even bigger mystery than we do, living as we do in the era of science. Humans always wrestle with unsolved riddles. Birth, death – life spans the unknown. I also knew that in order to stage a successful production we’d need to approach the old myths without the modern tendency to think of ancient peoples as being less knowledgeable than us – childish and dumb. Collaborating with Susanne Marko, my dramaturg, I began by trying to analyse and interpret these myths, thinking about how the story might resonate with the present. We based our reading on the notion that Óðinn had discovered some unsettling signs of the times which he did not fully understand, and therefore needed the Völva’s help in interpreting. We felt that Óðinn’s predicament had many parallels with our contemporary condition. The Völva is reluctant to divulge what she knows, and what she ultimately shares surpasses Óðinn’s darkest guesses. For the longest time, therefore, he refuses to accept her vision of the times to come – an attitude all too familiar from the world we live in today! This came to constitute the core of our reading and the subsequent production of the play. It was important to us to emphasise the ambiguity in the Völva’s words. In the obscure intimations of the text, we found a reminder that the world order is fragile and currently under threat, an interpretation influenced by the present peril of climate change and the impact of humanity on our delicate ecosystems. One of the hypotheses we worked with was the idea that in creating mankind, Óðinn and his brothers set in motion a chain of events which inevitably would lead to the ultimate end of the world. The jötnar never constituted the greatest threat  – it was always man, throughout time. BM: Why did you decide to make use of a traditional Chinese opera style to interpret North European myths? LS: My own approach as a director takes its starting point in a non-­naturalistic ideal. I want theatre to be theatrical, in excess of reality. I have therefore always found inspiration in various kinds of stylisation: language, make­up, gesture and movement. My productions tend to use high-­density poetic expression, all the while trying to find a balance between elevated stage-­language and contemporary acting. It’s important to me that the actors truly understand the meaning of the text and that they are able to go beyond the words on the page. In my 35 years as a director, I have had the privilege of periodically engaging with Jingju (traditional Beijing opera), and of learning from some of the art form’s finest masters. Several of my earlier productions have featured

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instruction by Jingju masters. For this production of Eddan, the Shanghai-­ based Bai Tao worked alongside my choreographer Jimmy Meurling. As a rule, I  use multiple elements in my productions: words and acting, music, movement, dance and dumb shows. If I were to summarise my aesthetic, I  would say that music is the engine, and I  frequently draw inspiration from Asian theatre forms which have a powerful sense of the ritualistic, as both Artaud and Brecht and more recent figures like Peter Brook and Ariane Mnouchkine have understood. I have also studied traditional Nordic storytelling, which is another important inspiration. You might say that I play around with the various expressions a Scandinavian popular theatre might have taken if it had grown out of folk storytelling, music, dance and crafts. Partly on the basis of the ritualistic aspects that one can find in many of the eddic poems, I envisioned our production of Eddan as a being cult ceremony of sorts, a ritual in which a human collective of storytellers play non-­humans like jötnar and monsters. BM: How familiar was your audience with the Edda stories? From knowledge of the Poetic Edda, in translation or through modern retellings? Did this influence the way in which you staged the play? LS: I  think most Swedish audience members have some vague memory of the Edda from school. I also think people are generally fascinated by myths. Nevertheless, I  could not assume that my audience would be totally familiar with these stories, so I made sure that prior knowledge is not necessary. I nonetheless tried to do this without simplifying the situations and problems explored in the text. BM: The stories in the Poetic Edda are probably a thousand years old or more. What do they have to offer a modern audience? LS: They offer so much! I am a big fan of Joseph Campbell [1904–87] who describes myths as ‘clues to the spiritual potentialities of human life’.2 To me, such an approach to mythology is becoming increasingly important as our materialist way of life destroys the environment. When it comes to the importance of links to a sense of the mystery of life, there are great parallels between the work of Jon Fosse and Campbell. In the words of Campbell: ‘Now that us moderns have stripped the earth of its mystery – have made, in Saul Bellow’s description, “a housecleaning of belief ” – how are our imaginations to be nourished?’3 The function of myth, according to Campbell, is to bring us to a spiritual plane of consciousness, while the artist’s task is to portray the world as myth. Theatre, in my opinion, carries great responsibility in this respect as an art form that speaks more to the senses than just reason and the intellect. It makes me overjoyed to see (as I often do) my audiences almost dancing their

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way out of the venue – the music, dance and movement of the performance has somewhat lifted them. To me, this proves the ability of art to function as a field of induction – put a piece of iron in a field of magnets, and that piece too will soon be a magnet. BM: Do you have a view as to how the pieces in the Poetic Edda may have originally been performed during the Middle Ages? If so, did that influence your production? LS: It is, of course, impossible to know for certain how these works were performed so long ago, but we can imagine that they did not function as written texts but rather oral storytelling by a performer (or performers) who worked with the listeners to create pictures in the mind in a particular environment. There are several examples in the Scandinavian oral tradition of narratives taking on a more theatrical form, in which the performer used their voice, body, music and even dance to share the story. Terry Gunnell has given several good examples of such performances in the early Middle Ages: the account of the masked gothikon dance performed by Nordic Varangians in Constantinople in around 950; that of the seiðr performance by Þorbjörg lítilvölva in Eiríks saga rauða; and that of the satirical performances by a figure called Steingrímr Skinngrýluson mentioned in Sturlunga saga. I have studied Gunnell’s research into this the topic and I believe that many of his findings are probably accurate. BM: In your production you made extensive use of a chorus who, by turns, assumed various roles in the eddic cycle. Could you talk us through the reasons you decided to use this device? LS: I use a chorus in this way in many of my productions, but they are not always as prominent. A chorus is an excellent tool for moving the narrative forward, and just like in Greek drama we can use the chorus to express opinions and influence the characters. BM: Any modern performance of Old Norse poetry involves both medieval and contemporary elements. How did you go about striking a balance between the two? LS: I begin with the medieval elements, even if I do not relate to the origin in a strictly historically correct sense. There is a persistent tendency in contemporary theatre to situate stories of the past in a modern environment and era, something that can have unimaginative and predictable results. It often means that you spell things out to the audience, lacking trust in their ability to draw their own parallels to their own time. In my view, we should avoid modernising stories from the past and from foreign environments – we should instead strive to make them old anew: mystical, strange, old-­fashioned and timeless. One thing we know for sure is that anyone living today is immensely different from those who lived in past centuries.

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BM: How, and to what extent, did you draw on and incorporate medieval scholarship into your production? What other influences did you draw on? LS: I have a lifelong interest in history and medieval scholarship. My library of Icelandic sagas and literature on this historical period covers metres. One important inspiration to me is Professor Emeritus Lars Lönnroth, a scholar of literary history, whose books I have read from cover to cover. I find his essay ‘Isberg på drift’ [‘Iceberg Adrift’] particularly interesting: it is a discussion of the purported objectivity of the saga genre which points to the undercurrents and underlying techniques common to these stories. He likens the written text itself to the tip of an iceberg, most of which is hidden beneath the surface. As a man of the theatre, this concept is highly familiar to me, and is echoed for example in Stanislavski’s claim that words are just 10 percent of what we communicate,4 meaning that the other 90 percent of the story must be conveyed using subtext, gesture, tone, rhythm, movement body language, costume and surroundings, among other tools. Another text that informed our production is ‘The Strategy of Silence in the Iceland of the Sagas’, by Professor Emerita of History Eva Österberg, who shows that silences in Icelandic sagas, including those in the dialogue, are usually intentional, and thus ripe with dramatic effect that can be explored. The actors also took seriously rules for living given in Hávamál stanza 15, which provided many clues to the ideals of medieval people: Þagalt ok Hugalt skyli þjóðans barn ok vígdjarft vera; glaðr ok reifr skyli gumna hverr unz sinn bíðr bana. Silent and thoughtful a prince’s son should be and bold in fighting; cheerful and merry every man should be until he comes to death. [trans. by Larrington 2014. The Poetic Edda, 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 15] What a paradox, this precept of being joyous and generous in a brutal time, instead of being weighed down by terror and fear of the future. Another crucial influence who has been of frequent assistance to my work on medieval stories is Britt-­Marie Näsström, Professor Emerita in the History of Religion at University of Göteborg, whose specialty is pre-­ Christian religion in Scandinavia with a focus on the role of women in religious history.

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BM: Fosse’s Eddan revolves around a dialogue between Óðinn and the völva of Völuspá – a dialogue modelled on the various wisdom contests in the Poetic Edda. How did you conceive of this relationship in your production? LS: Theatre grows out of the interplay between relationships and conflicts; these two counterpoints also formed the starting point for our production. It is fascinating to note that the wise and well-­spoken Óðinn does not know everything. He does not have the wisdom needed to deal with the large cosmic questions he is facing, and must therefore wake up the dead Völva for guidance. The Völva stands above the opposition between the gods and the giants. She knows that the situation at hand is about the end of the world, something she appears to have lived through several times before, something that means that she has a pretty unsentimental attitude to the fact that worlds come and go. The struggle between Óðinn, master of the word, and the Völva, the bearer of timeless knowledge from the underworld, is the engine that drives our production toward the inevitable: Ragnarök! BM: Your vision for Eddan was highly choreographed, and I was particularly struck by the use of ‘conjuring tricks’ like the apparently instantaneous appearance of the mistletoe lance with which Baldr is killed. Could you talk us through the rehearsal process by which some of this choreography was devised? LS: As I noted earlier, from the beginning the Poetic Edda, like most pre-­ twentieth-­century narratives, was conveyed by means of oral storytelling. Contemporary audiences, however, are more used to visual storytelling, which puts certain demands on a stage production of the text. As far as conjuring tricks go, Fosse’s Eddan is replete with magic and supernatural moments, and to portray these I wanted to use theatrical solutions rather than filmic modes of expression. I strive to make my theatre productions to be both play and ritual, an adventure that tickles the imagination and the soul. The process of creating these solutions involved close collaboration with choreographer Jimmy Meurling as he and I explored how these methods can be integrated into the performance. BM: What role does the setting play in a performance of this kind, past and present? LS: Västanå teater works with the following idea: how would a Nordic folk theatre tradition look if we had had one? All the necessary ingredients are there: myths, music, dance, wooden, metal and textile handicrafts, all of which can be found in different forms of extant folk culture. We imagine that we have learnt and inherited these arts from our forefathers and foremothers, from people who in turn learnt from their ancestors, but

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naturally all such traditions offer space for creativity and innovation. Such trains of thought have been of great help in our creative work. Our storytelling is rarely set in a particular time or place, but rather in a kind of ‘once upon a time back in the past’ idea. It takes place in a mystical landscape in which precise realism is put to one side. The role of the stage designer is to open up the windows of the audience’s imagination, leading them into this world by creating a poetic space in which anything is possible, something that applied very much to our production of Eddan which centred around an enormous world-­tree. Our performance space in the Berättarladan theatre has been inspired by the way in which the recreation of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre (in London) awakens feelings in audiences: here we have an aesthetic sense of beauty, a material surroundings that speaks to all of our senses. In short, we work with the aesthetic that Shakespeare touches on in the prologue to Henry V: But pardon, and gentles all, The flat unraised spirits that have dared On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth So great an object: can this cockpit hold The vasty fields of France? or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt? O, pardon! since a crooked figure may Attest in little place a million; And let us, ciphers to this great accompt, On your imaginary forces work. Suppose within the girdle of these walls Are now confined two mighty monarchies, Whose high upreared and abutting fronts The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder: Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts; Into a thousand parts divide on man, And make imaginary puissance; Think when we talk of horses, that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i’ the receiving earth; For ‘tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings, Carry them here and there [. . .] It is involving the audience in the creation, and here neither the scenery nor the work itself have much to say with regard to the final result. It is about working with hints; if there is too much realistic detail, the audience will have little to add; they will just sit back and follow the action. Our job as storytellers utilising various types of expression is to function essentially as guides for the public travelling the road; our role is simply to point them on the way!

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BM: Were you at all influenced by Robert Wilson’s approach in his 2017 production? Your work and his are remarkably different, for all that they share a common text – can you tell us a bit about the differences between his approach and yours, and what this says about the versatility of the source material? LS: The short answer is no, not at all. I saw his work in Oslo and while I certainly found his way of making pictures impressive, I had no sense of exactly what he was trying to tell us. I found the elements of magic, myth and spirituality missing in his interpretation. These were replaced by a kind of contemporary Western urban irony and distancing that did not feel right for me. Fundamentally, I think of myself as a modern rural artist living in an ancient Nordic countryside who seeks to bring history and tradition from the past into the present time. Traditions naturally evolve, but I do not believe for a second that our time is superior to those of the past. BM: When I watched your production I was particularly struck by moments of humour amid the more serious drama – can you tell us a little about the tone you set out to strike and the way in which you sought to balance humour and drama? LS: To my mind Fosse’s work (and the original material that lies behind it) is full of both beautiful lyricism and burlesque, coarse humour. You cannot help but admire the humour of the ancestors who created these gods, and their ability to make fun of them, which is reminiscent of the work of Aristophanes. When I work with tragedy, I regularly look for comic relief to balance out the solemnity, and with comedies I do the opposite. BM: When you work with eddic poems like Völuspá, which some scholars believe contain authentic echoes of medieval pagan spiritual beliefs and practices, to what extent does this awareness influence your directorial choices? LS: As noted earlier, I find the spiritual dimension to be an important feature of this work, and understanding and relating to medieval values and ways of thinking can be an effective way for the actors to find grounding in their characters. Since I myself have a Sámi heritage, shamanic traditions are not foreign to me. I have great respect for practices of this kind, even though I am not a practitioner myself. I also know how difficult it can be to include spiritual elements on stage without mystifying things in such a way that can risk shutting out part of the audience. My approach is closer to that of conceiving of the entire production as a rite in which both the performers and the audience are involved. As in a ritual, the music and dance elements along with the lighting in the performance venue are meant to activate the audience’s senses and help them experience the play with their whole body, rather than just their brain. For this

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reason, I sometimes open a play with more than ten minutes of music, dance and movement before the first word is spoken. BM: One of the themes discussed in this book is the significance of a performance environment – not just the physical space but also the expectations of an audience, their existing level of familiarity with the material to be performed, their level of excitement and also factors like the weather, time of year and what else may be going on in the space. As a director, how did you anticipate and adapt to these environmental conditions when developing your production? LS: As we keep coming back to, the Poetic Edda was performed, received and passed on as part of an oral tradition; even though the earliest manuscripts take the form of written records, the Poetic Edda, like skaldic poetry, was something that was ‘told’, not read. It is natural to assume the performers of the past were highly skilful in capturing the attention of their audience – there must have been something about the narrative set-­up that really engaged the listeners, since it is likely that they came to these performances with some prior familiarity with the material. There is good reason to believe that the appeal would have been less in what was told and more in how it was told. This made Eddan an ideal text for us, since our actors also come from an oral tradition, our aesthetics regularly relying on significant interplay with the audience. The images are created together with them; this is how we bring the myths that we are dealing with to life. We like to cite Selma Lagerlöf ’s The Saga of Gosta Berling: ‘Oh, children of later times! I have nothing new to tell you, only that which is old and almost forgotten’ (O, sena tiders barn! Jag har ingenting nytt att berätta er, endast det som är gammalt och nästan glömt5). In other words, performers in contemporary times, like those in the past, need to portray the stories in such a way that the audience is involved in the act of creation. The key challenge, therefore, is how one can activate the spectator’s imagination. Performers throughout time have been tasked with making gods and monsters into characters that are alive enough for the audience to care about their stories, their tragedies and their shortcomings. One imagines the poems of the Poetic Edda being performed in firelight in the medieval wintertime, accompanied by rousing music. Our play was put on in a large Värmland barn in the summertime, meaning that we had to create our own magical light and music to stimulate and awaken the imagination. All these considerations were important anchors for the nature of this production. BM: To what extent did you require your actors to familiarise themselves with the source material? Is this kind of detailed research a useful preparation for a contemporary performance, or might it distract from the demands of a modern audience?

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LS: Our work began with more than a year of seminars about the material before we started rehearsing. To me it’s important that the actors familiarise themselves with the history, environment and period they are working with, among other things as a means of bridging the barrier between the contemporary actor and the character they are meant to portray. We create a kind of universe on the stage, and it is crucial that we as storytellers know this universe down to the most minute detail. In this particular case, it was necessary to familiarise ourselves with how the different worlds functioned, how the gods related to each other, their background stories and so forth. All this is in line with Stanislavski’s approach to drama, the main difference being that we are trying to understand and embody a world of the past that is almost forgotten. While the audience does not need to know everything about this world, they must be able to trust that the performers on stage do. More than six months before we started rehearsing, Terry Gunnell gave us an incredible introduction to the Poetic Edda, including the theatrical elements that can be found in iconography from the Stone Age to the early medieval period and a number of early texts. We also had a visit from Jörgen I. Eriksson, who has studied shamanism, both theoretically and practically; he shared his thoughts on the Poetic Edda as a cosmic drama, and we were able to experience a drum journey under his leadership. Finally, we received a visit from Lars Lönnroth who told us about his translation of the Poetic Edda. BM: In your production you make significant use of props – notably the helmet with which Óðinn distinguishes himself from the rest of the chorus in an early sequence. Could you tell us a little about how you settled on the particular props you were going to use? LS: I wanted to make it clear to the audience that the performers are people who step into their different roles when they put on various costumes and mask-­like headdresses. The first to enter his role in this way, assisted by the other performers, is Óðinn. Once he has transformed himself into the god, we want the audience to understand that the regular people, that is, the storytellers, would be destroyed if they looked straight at him, so after his transformation, the storytellers have a radically different way of relating to him. Once he has taken on his costume and his mask, Óðinn calls up the Völva from the underworld, and finally the rest of the ensemble are transformed into gods. When one of the performers needs to switch roles during the course of the play – into a jötunn or animal, for example – they undergo this transformation on the stage, in the full view of the audience. Similarly, when that same actor returns to playing a god, they do so by removing the temporary costume piece or headdress. This use of masks as a form of ritualistic transformation has roots in Nordic traditions that go back as far as the Stone Age.

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BM: Your production was accompanied throughout by original music, composed by Magnus Stinnerbom and played live by musicians situated on the stage. Can you talk us through what you intended to add to the dialogue and performances by this use of music? LS: Västanå Teater is in fact a musical theatre and we always use music in our productions. It adds energy and pulse to the acting, and it is able to express things that go beyond words. Sometimes music and words go hand in hand, but just as often the words will express one thing, while the music will communicate the opposite. This enables us to tell multiple stories at once, much like the actors’ work with words and subtexts. Our composer and music director Magnus Stinnerbom and I tend to agree that music, like Greek drama, should have two different characters: the Apollonian and the Dionysian. Different moments call for one or the other, but generally speaking we’re partial to both modes – wild ecstatic music is expressive and works on the actors and audience in its own way, while Apollonian music is more internal and creates an atmosphere associated with calm dreams and sensual pleasure. BM: Your production was filmed (for which those of us unable to attend in person are very grateful!) and the quality of the film strikes me as very high. I  wonder, however, whether you feel that something of the live experience of the production is lost in the translation of the play from stage to film? Could you tell us a bit about the live experience of the play in performance? LS: Ideally, theatre should be experienced live. The magic of the art form happens in person, in a communal space in which the actors, musicians and dancers share an experience with the audience in the present. Nothing can beat that. In my opinion, it is incredibly important for theatre to keep exploring those characteristics that make it unique, to deepen and develop specifically theatrical expressions and not be distracted by attempts to compete with film. If we do not focus on what makes theatre unique, we risk its disappearance as an art form. To me, the heart of theatre is what we find at the heart of the simplest storytelling situations: someone wants to share something with someone who is willing to listen. With regard to the live experience: when the audience arrives at our theatre – in the summertime, we have around 60 days in which our annual large-­scale production is performed – they are always welcomed by actors in costume who show them to their seats and assist them in whatever way they need. Many arrive early to settle themselves in and have something to eat or drink before the curtain rises. Once they have got their tickets and bought the programme, many put in an order for food in the intermission, when they also get the chance to check out our popular permanent costume exhibition, which evolves from year to year. This features costumes, masks and stage decor from our earlier productions in our Storytelling

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Barn. The intermission lasts for almost an hour, and many of our cast members eat with the audience before the second act starts. The stage that they encounter inside the barn makes use of multiple sites in front of, behind and in the midst of the audience, and also involves multiple altitudes, including acrobatics and even circus acts. Our shows are an explosion of colour, speed and fantasy, recognised features that have brought us a large, returning audience. Indeed, many people will book their hotel and theatre tickets a year in advance, before they even know what we will be staging! The emphasis on experience also applies to the winter season, when we put on smaller productions which are similar in style. For these we use a smaller winter area of the Barn that we call the Loft. BM: Are you able to articulate your relationship, as an artist, to the surviving Old Norse poems? Do you regard your practice as a continuation or medieval performance tradition, a revival, a response or something else? LS: As a storyteller who works with tradition, I  find it important to be familiar with the ways in which traditions have evolved over time. As I noted earlier, we carry out as much research as we can to learn about the ways in which previous generations experienced theatre. However, it is equally important to add something new, interpreting the material

Figure 10.1 Daniel Lindman Agorander as Þórr, a hammer-wielding god. Source: Photograph by Håkan Larsson

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Figure 10.2 The Norns: Verdandi (Sara Eriksson), Urd (Saga Widlund) and Skuld (Edith Nilsson) under the world-tree Yggdrasil. Source: Photograph by Håkan Larsson.

Figure 10.3 Völva (Hanna Kulle) and Óðinn (Paul-Ottar Haga). Source: Photograph by Håkan Larsson.

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Figure 10.4 Fr igg (Evy Kasseth Røsten, in the middle), Sif (Margit Myhr, on the left), Freyr (Nadja Mirmiran, on the right). Source: Photograph by Håkan Larsson.

from the perspectives of our contemporary era. I think of what we are doing as a living tradition that requires a balance between passing on the old while simultaneously giving the freedom to evolve. In the words of Gustav Mahler (apparently): ‘Tradition is not the worship of the ashes, but the preservation of fire’ (Tradition ist nicht die Anbetung der Asche, sondern die Weitergabe des Feuers).

Notes Jon Fosse. 2017. Edda: Den elder Eddan i en scenisk versjon ved Jon Fosse, Leikanger: Skald. Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers. 1991. The Power of Myth, New York: Anchor Books, 5. Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers. 1991. The Power of Myth, New York: Anchor Books, 5. Vasilij Toporkov. 1977. Stanislavskij repeterar Tartuffe, trans. by Julius and Vera Rolander, Lund: Bo Cavefors Bokförlag AB, 45. 5 Selma Lagerlöf. 1891. Gösta Berlings Saga, 5th edn., Stockholm: Albert Bonniers förlag, 134. 1 2 3 4

11 Interview with Einar Selvik Brian McMahon

Einar Selvik fronts the Nordic folk project Wardruna, founded in 2002. He has composed and performed music for the television drama series Vikings (2013–20) and composed a portion of the soundtrack for the video game Assassins Creed: Valhalla (2020), developed by Ubisoft Montreal. He performed at both the 2016 and 2019 ‘Old Norse Poetry in Performance’ conferences, hosted at the University of Oxford. He was interviewed remotely for this volume by Brian McMahon.

Brian McMahon: When you performed at the first and second ‘Old Norse Poetry in Performance’ conferences, in Oxford, you placed great emphasis on space. Your 2016 performance was in Somerville Chapel, a Lutheran-­style, unconsecrated building. In 2019 you performed similar repertoire in Christ Church Cathedral. Could you tell us a little about how you adapt your performances in response to the space in which you find yourself? Einar Selvik: In my work with Wardruna, I discovered at an early point the significance of space when performing, and how potent and potentially powerful it was to perform and experience these kinds of expressions and instrumentation in surroundings and settings which in various ways complimented them. This, of course, applies whether the performance takes place in a church, a concert hall, a Roman or Greek amphitheatre or under the open sky, but the closer the bond is between the setting and the planned sound, the bigger the potential effect is. There is no exact formula and I  try to stay adaptable, open-­minded and present in the moment. In the same way that one has to ‘tune in’ to an audience, one needs to become one with both the space and the music. If and when these align with each other, there is potential for a kind of synergy. I consider space to be the fifth element and try to use it in the same way that an actor uses the stage and his/her body, much like a shaman uses various tools to touch the senses of those present, embodying the non-­physical, and in much same way that a ritual leader makes use of symbols, sounds and space in order to connect with those taking part. For me, ‘claiming’ a space in this manner is of great importance, but it is also about merging DOI: 10.4324/9780367809324-17

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with what is there, rather than trying to make the space into something that it is not. When performing with Wardruna, I rarely speak between most songs. This means that it is the soundscape, the performance and the interaction with the surroundings that carry the various songs and their subjects across the bridge of time. In my acoustic performances, I  find that it can be very valuable to give the song and its content some sort of context in order to shorten the path between the audience and the material. I tend to set the context by means of dialogue and verbal interaction with the audience, and interaction with the given surroundings. Having worked with children for almost 15 years, performing with them on an almost daily basis showed me just how primal and timeless the core mechanisms and premises of performance truly are. The old masters of poetry clearly understood the power of using powerful images, a personal perspective and of balancing grave seriousness with humour – and I find great guidance in these techniques. Performers feed on effect and the same applies to the audience. We all cultivate and develop what works! BM: In your work with Wardruna, as well as your solo repertoire, you combine modern recording and performance technology with replica medieval instruments and other acoustic elements. What effect do you hope to achieve by using all these different sources and modulators of sound together? ES: Reciting and copying the past in itself is not very difficult, but understanding and integrating ancient thoughts, tools and methods into creations that are relevant and sustainable in the modern era is truly challenging, and remains the prime goal in my work. There are many ways of drawing upon what can be considered ‘authentic’, using rhythms, sounds, instruments, tonality, language and poetic structures, just to mention a few. Combining these elements with a modern soundscape potentially gives the listener a great sense of authenticity while at the same time tending to the needs and expectations of modern music. In each of my creations, my aim is to draw the listener as close as possible to the given theme being ‘portrayed’, and modern tools allow me to amplify certain elements. In the case of my work, the themes define the instrumental needs, the sounds I use, where I record, when I record and even the state of mind/bodily condition (cold, hungry, exhausted) in which I should be when I record. One might almost call what I do a form of ‘method composing’ [cf. ‘method acting’]. To give some examples of how this plays out in specific songs: ‘Bjarkan’ involves me playing on birch trees during early spring, just before the leaves spring out (are born) – and only playing on those branches that lean towards the east [cf. Sigrdrifumál st.12].

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‘Dagr’ involves me playing the goat’s horn for the introduction at sunrise on the summer solstice. ‘Laukr’ involves me singing most of the vocals while standing in the middle of a river during the period when the snow is melting in spring. ‘Odal’: The word and the rune represent family, heritage and inheritance and so on, and so I recorded the song, singing with my two children. ‘Wunjo’: The word means joy, happiness and ecstasy and represents emotion in its purest form. I decided that pure emotions are best expressed by children, and thus recorded it with a children’s choir. Sonatorrek by Egill Skallagrímsson deals with the loss of a son. In order to mimic or capture the state of the original poet at the time of composing the poem, I recorded this in a state of having been deprived of both sleep and food for several days. ‘NaudiR’: The song aims to capture the mechanism that potentially occurs when one is in deep need: the fire and strength that ignite in the body and mind when one enters a survival mode. For parts of the vocal recordings here, I fasted for several days and then went up into the snowclad mountains, undressed and started walking as the snow was coming down sideways. I then walked until I had attained the desired state of mind and body, and then started recording. BM: Any modern performance of Old Norse poetry involves both medieval and contemporary elements. How do you go about striking a balance between the two? ES: There are rules and premises to successful performances which, in my opinion, are as timeless as they are universal. A performance feeds off its audience and so any performer at any point in time will attempt to develop and cultivate those things that they deem [to] work when in front of an audience. It is my experience that in order to make a performance resonate and connect with its audience, there is a timeless premise in the need to include contemporary references of some sort  – and in our work, that reference becomes a gateway or a bridge through time. Authenticity will not necessarily feel authentic in terms of effect, especially if the gateway or bridge lacks the necessary contemporary relevance. BM: How, and to what extent, do you draw on and incorporate medieval scholarship in your composition and performance career? What other influences do you draw on? ES: I would consider my approach to music to be interdisciplinary whereby the starting point and founding ‘mantra’ is that one should not climb into trees that do not have roots.

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So, whether it is working with the lyrics or lyrical content of my music or the instruments and techniques, I  always start by finding out what we know and how we know it when approaching a given subject or object. The idea is thus to build on solid ground before venturing into the more intuitive and practical processes, which often means studying and researching the existing primary sources, as well as various relevant academic works, before going on to apply my own practical, performative and musical knowledge, my experience and the logical conclusions I have drawn on the basis of my research. BM: To what extent do you find that institutional scholarship – i.e., professional academia, manifested in gatherings like the ‘Old Norse Poetry in Performance’ conferences – influences or affects your musical approach? ES: Conferences like ‘Old Norse Poetry in Performance’ can be very beneficial for both scholars and performers, and I personally think that developing such interdisciplinary gatherings is something that can help us move forward, helping to provoke and develop new ideas about these and other subjects (as is the case with experimental archaeology). I have much respect and understanding for the need to follow a certain methodology as part of an academic approach to a given subject or object. However, I must admit that when reading scholarly works about Old Norse poetry and its content, it sometimes occurs to me that the scholar in question appears to have very little or no personal experience with regard to the process of creating and crafting expressions by means of metrical poetry. As a consequence, they occasionally ask the wrong questions or spend too much time problematising certain matters that follow an altogether different type of logic and methodology. I should stress that this naturally goes both ways. I have more than once adjusted my practical approach as a direct result of various insights I have obtained from academic works. Arguably interdisciplinary gatherings such as ‘Old Norse Poetry in Performance’ can help us remedy such issues efficiently by encouraging people to work together. BM: Wardruna is often described as a ‘Nordic folk project’, rather than simply a ‘band’. What do you think this means, how important is it to you to consider the group’s work as a ‘project’ and how far does the scope of the ‘project’ extend? ES: Wardruna is not a band in the common notion of the term for several reasons. Nonetheless, calling it a project might not be ideal either as it suggests a defined time span and goal – which it does not have. Throughout the years, people have tried to find a definition and genre label for Wardruna with variable success. Our somewhat unusual combination

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of ethno-­musicology, academic work and art implies that we have in a way created our own genre. I personally tend to talk of Wardruna as a ‘musical constellation’ because its format can vary a great deal, depending on the current setting and needs. In certain situations, we come in the shape of a band involving various numbers of people, and sometimes it is just me. I relate my way of approaching music to the term ‘world music’, referring not so much to the version of the term [coined in the 1960s and popularised in the 1980s that is, as a catch-­all term for non-­Western and especially traditional musics] but rather to the earlier ideas and philosophies that lie behind the concept of musica mundana, in which the music is more than just music and in which the ideas behind and around the music are as important as the music itself. BM: On a similar theme, I wonder whether you have a sense of how your practice is evolving and where it is heading? The Runaljod trilogy is a hugely significant part of Wardruna’s repertoire which speaks to a sense of different pieces of music being designed as part of a holistic vision – how important is it to you that audiences are aware of the way different parts of your repertoire speak to one another? ES: Even though each song, album or project I have done is in many ways connected, I think that each work has the quality of being able to stand on its own as a separate entity. That is at least my intention. For me personally, the music that I have created since the Runaljod trilogy is a natural continuation and development of everything we have done previously, and contains aspects of all my previous works. Through experience, reflection and hungry curiosity, I feel that I am potentially always growing as a human, a scholar, an artist and a musician – this meaning that the potential and the ability to dive deeper into the work is also growing. My work is a book you can read from both ends. BM: You have composed music for, and performed in, the television series Vikings, indebted in part to the sagas but also the product of modern dramatic imagination. How have you approached the task of composing music for this show? And have you encountered any tensions between your interest in the history of medieval music and the requirements and constraints of a modern television production process? ES: My role in the musical team on the show was to add elements that brought a sense of authenticity to the music. I have found that many of the older instruments have a strong inherent ‘visual’ quality to them in the sense that they are very well suited to accompany other images, as well as having the ability to transport the listener back in time. Considering the subject material of the series, it was important for me to include as much as I could of the original Old Norse poetry in my contributions

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to the series, implementing early verses that complemented or enhanced what was happening in front of the camera. This applied not only to the soundtrack – I was also given the task of writing certain songs for the actors and extras to sing in various settings like funerals and rituals, in the shape of battle cries, drunken songs and so on. Various examples can be found throughout the series. To mention just a few: When scoring various battle scenes, I often made use of choirs singing Old Norse battle poetry, on several occasions making use of verses from Darraðarljóð and Höfuðlausn. In one scene where the main character had a vision of themselves standing outside Valhöll, I had a massive choir chanting Grímnismál stanzas 8–10 which could be heard sounding from the inside. In the scene when the main character (Ragnar loðbrók) was thrown into the snake pit, I used the verses from the same scene in Ragnars saga loðbrókar ok sona hans. Egill Skallagrímsson’s Sonatorrek stanza 5 was used for a funeral song, and his verse Það mælti mín móðir became a recurring song sung by the brothers Harald and Halvdan in the series. Hávamál stanzas 76 and 77 were used as a funeral chant for a king, and in a scene leading up to the attack on Paris by [a] Norse army, I made use of the phrase ‘skeggöld, skálmöld, skildir ro klovnir’, from Völuspá stanza 44 [Codex Regius] as a chanted battle cry. Being more than averagely interested in history, there were naturally times of frustration when the show made compromises that affected historical accuracy – especially at moments when doing the ‘authentic’ thing could well have been easily accommodated and would have made things more interesting, but somehow got discarded in order to follow standard modern demands, decisions that in my personal opinion tended to underestimate the viewers’ ability to enjoy more than stereotypical notions of time, culture or theme. Although the level of common knowledge regarding Norse history has increased over the last few years, many stereotypical myths remain. I would say that the show helped eradicate some of them but at the same time, it may have created some new ones. BM: When you work with eddic poems like Völuspá, which some scholars believe contain authentic echoes of medieval pagan spiritual beliefs and practices, to what extent does this awareness influence your compositional and performance choices? ES: One of the most powerful things about working with Völuspá is that on many levels, it manages to remain relevant even today (indeed, profoundly so). It vividly draws upon ideas of cyclic thinking which are present in the natural world that surrounds us, as well as in the rise and fall of civilisations over the course of time.

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The aim behind my work with the poem was to create a melodic theme that would embody the dramatic and emotional aspects of the piece as a whole. The melody needed to mirror both the circularity of the poem as well as those repetitive elements that would have been a feature of the performance of any lengthy poem or song during the Viking period – finding a balance between that and the need that a modern and more impatient listener has for more variety. BM: One of the common themes in this book has been the relationship between memory and manuscript records. I notice that when you perform you are typically relying on your memory – how important is that in a performance context? Do you ever play with a score in front of you? ES: I never use a score when I perform. If a song is very new to me, I might nonetheless have a few keywords on paper on the floor in front of me to keep me on track if I should happen to lose my way. In my experience, knowing a song or a poem by heart or memory opens up a deeper performative connection with the material. I both love and feel a personal connection to the Old Norse descriptions of poetic performance, suggesting, for example, that the performer is ‘entering the ship of Óðinn’ [cf. the imagery of Höfuðlausn, st.1]. When the Karelian songs and poetic material were collected, some of the singers described the process of performing and remembering the songs in a similar way, in terms of ‘Unwinding the ball of yarn’ or ‘Opening the chest of songs’. One notes that they also describe melody as a specific tool for memory. BM: Can you tell us a little about how you work with the demands of eddic and skaldic metres when composing music and performing sung renditions of the poems? ES: As I  noted earlier, my poetry is very much influenced and inspired by Old Norse poetic structures. Sometimes I follow them as closely as I can and sometimes my poems just feature certain elements of various metres. I often feel that modern Norwegian is somehow ‘poorer’ and less suited to these metres than Old Norse, and since I do not feel competent enough to embark on writing solely in Old Norse, the result often becomes a playful combination of the two. When I started chanting and singing Old Norse poetry, I found I was starting to understand it better, and I have since begun to realise just how intuitive the metres are in reality. The more I work with the metres, the better I master them. In time, I hope to be able to follow them more strictly in my work. BM: There has sometimes been a tension  – whether real or perceived – between ‘romantic’ responses to Old Norse poems and the culture they are supposed to reflect (I’m thinking of William

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Morris or W. H. Auden, but also of the way these stories and symbols were appropriated by fascist movements in the twentieth century) and ‘scholarly’ responses, which imagine themselves to be dispassionate. How do you engage with this historical tension when reviving and adapting the texts in your own artistic practice? ES: Sadly, history, cultures and traditions from bygone times have always been manipulated or adjusted to fit various political and religious agendas, often increasing the distance between general knowledge and the correct perception of the available facts. Balancing out such misconceptions and the various stereotypes associated with them is something I have focussed on in my work from the very beginning. It is only natural that historical depictions in popular culture are bound to be a blend of factual knowledge of the past and contemporary notions from the present. What we latch onto is often determined by attractive romantic ideas about a given time. Escapism of that kind is understandable but not always correct or constructive. I have always been very clear that my work is not about romanticising the past, or an attempt to recreate the music of a specific time period – but rather to take thoughts, tools and methods from the past and use them to create new music which builds on the contemporary as well as the ancient. As for the ‘scholarly’ responses you mention, I think that, as I noted earlier, it is healthy that scholars keep to their strict methodologies (although imagining themselves to be totally dispassionate or neutral is bound to be somewhat naïve, just as it is for me). Nonetheless, I would like to see academia working a little harder on their often-­neglected responsibility, role and ability of needing to communicate to a broader audience. This would potentially give less room for misuse and misconceptions to grow! BM: In particular, I wonder whether you would comment on your song ‘Odal’, which engages with a runic symbol used in other contexts as a totem for nationalism. Is there an extent to which you are interested in reclaiming (or rehabilitating?) such symbols, or do you view your work as entirely distinct from this contentious history? ES: My work with runes contains a broader element of both reclaiming and rehabilitation, among other things with regard to the meaning and use of the runes past and present. This is a subject I regularly address in the media and elsewhere. While such rehabilitation is not my prime goal or intention when I am working on these creations, it tends to become more apparent once the correct context has been decided on and ‘portrayed’. As noted in my previous answer, I believe that knowledge is by far the best medicine to cure ignorance. I also feel that it is much more constructive for me to put my prime focus on ‘what I am for’ rather than on everything ‘I am against’.

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BM: One of the arguments made by some contributors to this book has been in favour of ‘practice-­ as-­ research’  – in other words, arguing that poetry which originated in the oral tradition cannot be properly understood or appreciated unless it is performed. How do you respond to this view? ES: Of course, as scholars like John Miles Foley have noted, there is always a loss when an oral poem is removed from its performative context.1 Nonetheless, I also think that a great deal of poetry deriving from an oral tradition has a great value and aesthetic power even in experienced in its extant literary form. Speaking from my own experience, it was only when I started working with these poems orally and in the original language that I started gaining a deeper understanding of the craft and the tradition that lies behind them. It is when I verbalise them that I most powerfully distinguish their rhythms and ‘music’ and hear exactly how logical and intuitive many of the rules that lie behind a metre actually are. As scholars like Terry Gunnell, Simon Nygaard and Anna Millward have shown, verbalising a poem written in metre can also give us clues about the context in which a given poem might have been used or performed. It is also clear that some are very musical while others seem more suited for being spoken. Some, like the curse in Skírnismál and the Ragnarök section of Völuspá, are highly dramatic in how they sound, while others like the Rúnatal in Hávamál and Sigrdrífumál stanzas 4–5 seem to have the feel of a ritualistic chant. For singing, I very much enjoy ljoðaháttr and the closely connected galdralag, metres which often work when applied to one of the oldest known traditional Norwegian song forms, gammelstev. Incidentally, Iceland has several types of older traditional verse forms associated with rímur (such as ferskeytla and ferhenda) that have the same form as gammelstev. For me, Old Norse poetry always becomes much more potent when it is placed in a context that connects it to a form of orality that is closer in nature to its origin. The potency is enhanced still further when you add other relevant elements to the performance, such as space, setting, time, costumes and so on. It is my impression that these elements have a great impact on how the poetry is perceived and understood by the audience. BM: One area not yet touched on in detail by the ‘Old Norse Poetry in Performance’ project is the increasingly popular practice of medieval re-­ enactment. Does your musical practice bring you into contact with this tradition at all? Do you feel that you ever draw on, contribute to or speak to it? Or do you view your work as taking place in a different sphere? ES: My work brings me into contact with various types of historical re-­ enactment events, in which I either perform, give lectures or run workshops on subjects related to my work. Even though, as I noted earlier,

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I do not consider my own work to be a form of re-­enactment, it is still often used in such settings. My involvement in these events has given me many insights into the practical implementation of various hypotheses that have been suggested by scholars (as well as my own), and I  have often been impressed the level of knowledge possessed by some of those involved. These events have also given me very useful opportunities to try out skaldic performances in highly relevant settings, for example, performing stories and songs over a crackling fire inside a completely packed Iron Age longhouse. I once took part in a midnight march together with 700 Viking re-­enactors by the burial mounds of Borre in Norway. We walked silently from the sea up to one of the largest mounds, carrying torches. It was quite a sight to see the long serpentine trail of torches following behind. Once at the mound, everyone gathered around and I performed my skaldic version of the song ‘Helvegen’.2 As I say, all of these events and experiences have given me very useful insight into what works and what does not in settings like these, as well as helping me further develop both my theories and the practice of my work. BM: In a previous interview you spoke of your enthusiasm for ‘visual music.’3 Could you tell us a little about what you mean by that phrase, and why it is important to you? ES: ‘Visual music’ can, in my opinion, be many things. Music or instruments with a quality we would normally call ‘cinematic’ are, of course, part of it, but for me it is also about music in which there is space for you, the listener, to charge your imagination. Such spaces are often found in instrumental music or music that is repetitive or literally monotonous; in music where you do not necessarily understand the language or all of the lyrics; in indigenous expressions such as Joik and throat/overtone singing; and in music where the vocals are somehow veiled in a massive choir, in operatic singing or even the shrieking vocals of black metal music. Open-­ ended lyrics or poetry also have this effect of creating a distance and, at the same time, space for the reader. Such qualities can be found [in] many places and in many forms. The way in which my inspiration speaks to me and the way in which I compose music have always been guided by what I ‘see’ and ‘hear’, and by the fact that I am a musical illiterate in the sense that I cannot read or write scores. This has perhaps cultivated or developed my ability to imagine. I write and find most of my inspiration when I am out walking in an ancient landscape like that of Norway. In a way, the landscape is my muse, and times like this are when I most often envision the songs. At other times, a song can be born out of working with my instruments or with words and concepts. Sometimes the theme of a song has such a strong visual ‘image’ to it that I instantly hear sounds. I then go back into the studio and start ‘chasing down’ the song.

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BM: You often make or commission instruments for a specific piece of music or to accompany a particular text. Can you explain a little of your approach to instrumentation: how do you know what kind of instrument you are after? ES: As mentioned earlier, the creative concept I work with is based around the idea of trying to interpret the subject or object I am giving voice to as much as possible on its own premises  – using relevant instruments, sounds, places and times of recording, particular states of mind, cold, warmth and so on. Many factors can be involved in the process of determining what instruments I use for a specific song. Sometimes they can be very obvious and clearly connected to the given theme of the song, and sometimes it is a more intuitive process in which some instruments are better suited for evoking certain qualities and effects than others. If I am working with ideas that are related to a particular time period, this can also be a deciding factor. Another aspect might be found in the subtleties of a more symbolic language. For instance, it can be of great conceptual and symbolic significance whether the strings of the lyre I choose to use are made of metal, horsehair or the gut of an animal, or what animal the drum skin, horn or flute is made from. The list goes on and on and, as mentioned earlier, I regularly make use of a wide array of more untraditional instrumental substances such as trees, stones, ice, water, fire and other ambient recordings which serve to amplify the particular quality I am searching for. What better way to give voice to a birch tree than to let it speak for itself? BM: Are you able to articulate your relationship, as a practitioner, to the surviving Old Norse poems? Do you regard your practice as a continuation of medieval performance tradition, a revival, a response or something else? ES: Here, I find it best to refer you to the foreword I wrote for my album Skald (2018)4 in which I describe my intentions as being ‘to give voice to the ancient craft that once lay at the heart of the Norse oral traditions, presented as it takes shape in the hands of a humble contemporary skald today.’ To my mind, my practice contains elements of continuation, revival and response, and a great deal of awe and respect comes from my relationship to the surviving Old Norse poems. They contain such a wealth of potential insight into the past. Although the skálds and their poetry might seem foreign to us, I  believe that, in some ways, these works mean that we can get closer to the skálds than we can to any other human beings in the Old Norse past. Traces in the poet’s metaphors, and his or her pictorial paraphrases and turns evoke images of thought, feeling and worldview for our inner eye, and while these images may seem somewhat bizarre to us, it is worth noting how the moods, visual

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Figure 11.1 Einar Selvik. Source: Photograph by Daria Endresen.

images, sounds and notions of the poem still manage to touch us in spite of their age. While the words constantly need to be put into context and interpreted through abstract thought processes, the images they inspire, their music and their poetic thought cut through a millennium, enabling them to speak directly to us.

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Figure 11.2 Einar Selvik and Wardruna performing in the reconstructed Håkonshallen (King Håkon’s Hall) in Bergen, Norway. Source: Photograph © Wardruna.

Figure 11.3 Einar Selvik and Wardruna performing in the reconstructed Håkonshallen (King Håkon’s Hall) in Bergen, Norway. Source: Photograph by Roy Bjørge.

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Notes 1 See Foley, John Miles. 2002. How to Read an Oral Poem, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 60. 2 www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-­Oa5hbbao0 3 https://nordicspotlight.com/interview-­einar-­selvik-­of-­wardruna-­norway/ 4 Warduna. 2018. Skald, Oslo: Fimbulljóð Productions: BHM014CD.

12 Beowulf, the Edda and the Performance of Medieval Epic Notes from the Workshop of a Reconstructed ‘Singer of Tales’1 Benjamin Bagby Over the years of performing my reconstructions of Beowulf and the Eddic poems, I  have often given presentations about my work, either in the form of a pre-­concert talk or as a question-­and-­answer session following the performance. I am always struck by one enormous difference between these two formats; there are usually just some general and hesitant questions before the performance (‘Is it like Gregorian chant?’), but afterwards, a genuinely critical dialogue often ensues, provoked by what the listeners have just experienced, and by their curiosity – or in some cases, consternation – about my working process. I am grateful for the ease with which the listeners can comprehend what I have to say about my work after having heard the performance itself. A brief demonstration of a spoken or sung text, a modal gesture played on the harp or a visual examination of the instrument itself can only make sense in the context of performance, and can hardly be replaced by written words. In this same spirit, the following ‘notes from the workshop’ attempt to provide some background on my work with epic and narrative, much as I would do following a performance (my remarks are generally not intended for an expert medievalist audience, but rather for listeners who come to medieval epic performance for the first time). In this format, however, the crucial element of sound itself – the audible and visual presence of performer and instrument in live performance – will be lacking.2 So I aim to find a common ground – a workshop – where listeners (and potential listeners) can meet with the performer, where practical issues confronting a modern-­day ‘singer of tales’ can be discussed plainly, so that the listener can examine some of the factors leading to one possible reconstruction of medieval epic poetry in performance.3 Regardless of the historical period of music which interests us, the concept of ‘historically informed performance’ thrives on the conviction that today’s performers can find knowledge and instruction in the documentation which has survived from past musical practices: musical notation, descriptions of performance situations, treatises, methods, visual representations of music-­making, playable instruments and so on. Unfortunately, all of this DOI: 10.4324/9780367809324-18

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documentation, which we performers assiduously track down and study, is still missing the one crucial element of musical performance that we would most need and desire to possess: the actual sound, the presence of a living master. Barring the discovery of time travel, we shall never meet our master (and of course, there is always the terrifying sub-­scenario of this time-­ machine fantasy: what would happen if we had access to the original sound and to the master’s living art, but we simply did not like what we heard?). Deprived of this essential face-­to-­face musical experience, we are forever doomed to confront our own past musical cultures ‘through a glass darkly’. This situation is challenging enough in the cases of most European repertoires, but it has obviously not kept generations of contemporary performers and scholars from fashioning a thriving early music scene (especially in baroque music), complete with living masters and identifiable traditions, so that our vision of the past seems bright and clear. However, the situation becomes much more complex and clouded when we seek to perform the musical arts of early medieval cultures which were largely pre-­literate, which knew neither notation nor treatises, and from which we possess only a few descriptions of performance or surviving fragments of instruments. The notationless world of medieval epic song is one such musical culture (a patchwork of cultures, actually) to which I am drawn, a world in which we know that northern peoples – in their huts, their fields, their boats, on horseback, around their cooking fires, their pagan shrines and even in the first Christian monasteries – were singing and listening to song: narrative, heroic epic, myth, instrumental music and long sung tales of their own ancestors’ deeds, real and imagined. What kinds of witnesses have survived from the early Middle Ages which we might use to reconstruct a performance art that has been silent for a thousand years and more? Are there other sources of information to which we might turn in making such an attempt? These are some of the questions I  have tried to answer in my reconstructions of northern European oral epics such as the Anglo-­Saxon Beowulf, and more recently, in stories from the Icelandic Edda. Together, with the members of my ensemble, Sequentia, my initial work with the Eddic poems (songs of the Norse gods Odin, Thor, Loki and others) took place in the years 1995–97.4 The ensemble’s most recent production of the Eddic poems5 features tales of envy, gold lust, revenge and the horrible power they have over that most sacred human institution: the family. The three singers and two instrumentalists (as soloists and in various combinations) tell of the boy hero Sigurd who kills the dragon Fafnir to obtain the gold, of the ill-­fated Burgundian King Gunnar and his beautiful sister Gudrun, and of Attila the Hun and his passionately suicidal sister (the ex-­valkyrie Brynhild). This terrifying family epic is set in poems which are contradictory, weird and seem to take place in a dreamscape which easily accommodates Mirkwood Forest, the Rhine River and the glaciers of Iceland. It is a legend in which the names of actual places and people are freely mixed with those of the old pagan gods, cunning dwarves, dragons,

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shape-­changers, magical swords and horses, supernatural beings and talking birds. It is an archaic story which enthralled many generations of Europeans as they listened to the bards who formed the fabric of their tribal memories. Edda is an enigmatic Icelandic word whose meaning today is obscure, although it once might have meant something like ‘ancient knowledge’. The Edda itself is a medieval collection of 29 poems in Old Icelandic, including ten which deal with the Norse gods and mythology and 19 which recount stories of Germanic heroes6 (a few of whose characters, including Attila the Hun, can even be identified with actual historical figures). This astonishing collection, copied in an unassuming parchment manuscript7 in thirteenth-­ century Iceland (by which time Attila had been dead – and stories about him in constant oral circulation – for 800 years) is universally recognised as a precious treasure of European culture, and one of the only (and certainly the oldest) detailed witnesses we possess to the practices, beliefs and myths of pagan Germanic peoples. The Eddic texts, set in the sophisticated Germanic alliterative verse forms which the Icelanders practiced and valued long after other poetic forms prevailed on the Continent, were transmitted in the uniquely oral tradition of tribal and itinerant ‘singers of tales’ over hundreds of years. They have not survived in the other Germanic languages in which they were originally sung, but thanks to the profoundly literary-­ minded medieval Icelanders (who were themselves newcomers to that volcanic North Atlantic island, arriving from the western Norwegian fjords in the ninth century) who reshaped the texts in their own Norse language, we can still hear today much of the sound of an ancient storyteller’s art. How could I possibly resist trying to rediscover a voice for these thrilling and mysterious oral poems – saved from oblivion by Icelandic singers and scribes – which were once performed during long winter nights, not only in Iceland but all across the north of Europe? It seemed like an impossible task at first, fraught with the pitfalls of pseudo-­historical kitsch and new-­age banality. I was determined, however, to draw upon my long experience in performing medieval song, together with a series of carefully considered reconstructive tools  – which I  explain here briefly  – to take these sung poems off the printed page and back into the world of storytelling, where the human voice becomes an instrument of cultural identity and transformation, the oral medium of an ancient narrative energy. Although it is generally accepted – based largely on descriptions of performance situations – that medieval epic poetry was the domain of tribal or itinerant bardic entertainers, no written musical sources of the Eddic poems dating from the Middle Ages are known to exist. In fact, we would have no reason to expect such sources to have been written at all. The milieu in which these poems were originally transmitted, sung, and acted was that of a uniquely oral culture, and professional singers passed on repertoires and techniques from generation to generation without the hindrance and expense of writing. As is almost always the case with medieval song, the use of musical notation is linked to world of the scriptorium and the noble

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or ecclesiastical collector, not to the world of the practicing musician. (A Christian scribe can hardly have looked kindly on songs about the pagan gods, at least not while his abbot was watching.) If we assume that the living traditions of Eddic performance in Iceland itself were already in decline by the time the oldest and most important text manuscript, the Codex Regius, was copied by a sympathetic scribe in the thirteenth century, then how can we possibly reconstruct sung performances of Eddic poems as they would have been known, say, around the time of Iceland’s official conversion to Christianity in the year 1000?8 The earliest witness we possess to musical settings of the Edda is an account found in Jean-Benjamin de la Borde’s Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne, published in 1780.9 Among other examples (collected for de la Borde by a musician at the Danish Royal Court, whose source was the Icelandic scholar Jón Ólafsson), we find a strophe from the Edda set to a simple melody. Unfortunately, we will never know if this rather pedantically noted melody is indeed the surviving vestige of an oral formula for the vocalisation of Eddic poetry, or if it comes from a non-Eddic Icelandic folk tradition of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, or if it is merely an example of how a musique ancienne Islandaise might have sounded in the fantasy of a homesick Icelander in eighteenth-century Copenhagen. Manuscript sources of secular medieval song from northern Europe are extremely rare, and the sources of surviving Christian music in Scandinavia tend to come from a late medieval, Latin-speaking, ecclesiastical milieu which had strong contacts with continental Europe. Although individual religious pieces can indeed demonstrate unusual, regional characteristics

Figure 12.1 ‘It was early in the ages when Ymir made his dwelling: there was not yet sand nor sea nor chill waves.’ From the beginning of Völuspá ‘Prophecy of the Seeress’. Source: Jean-Benjamin de la Borde, Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne. Paris, P.-D. Pierres and E. Onfroy, 1780–81, II, 403.

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(such as the prevalence of parallel thirds in the two-­voice ‘Hymn to Saint Magnus’ from the Orkneys), they do not shed much light on the performance of oral poetry in the pagan world hundreds of years earlier. In searching for paths to the vocalisation of the Eddic texts, it was obvious that more musical information would be needed than late-­medieval church music or a scrap of melodic material from the late eighteenth century. It was at this point that I decided to make use of the techniques of ‘modal language’ which my ensemble, Sequentia, has developed over the years in our practical work with European medieval song, a view of musical language which has many parallels in other modal cultures. Briefly stated: a mode is perceived not as a musical scale, but rather as a collection of musical gestures, codes, and signs which can be interiorised varied, combined and used as a font to create musical ‘texts’ which can be completely new while possessing the authentic integrity of the original material. (Here, the word ‘authentic’ – the dreaded ‘A-­word’ of early music – is used not in a historical sense but in the sense of recognition: in a crowd of strangers and imposters you would always recognise an ‘authentic’ member of your own family.) However, like the powerfully magic mead drink which gives the Norse god Odin the gift of poetry, this ‘modal mead’ is a concoction which can be both inspiring and dangerous. An examination of the practice of singing epic poetry as it still exists in various cultures will often show us how such performances can be given both a structure and a soul, and in this way help us to temper the seemingly limitless freedom of modal intoxication. Having temporarily put aside the examples of Monsieur de la Borde, where did I turn first for the basic ingredients of this modal brew? To Iceland, of course. To give one example: in the Icelandic sung oral poetry known as rímur  – which in itself is a tradition dating from the late Middle Ages, but whose roots certainly touch much earlier, pre-­skaldic poetic practices – I found a vast repertoire of modal material, which clearly could be grouped into several modal families. During research residencies in Reykjavik in 1995 and again in 2001, I  was permitted to work in the tape archives of Iceland’s historical text institute, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar,10 where I  listened to hundreds of historical recordings of rímur and related song types, making notes, analyses and family trees of the types and uses of modal materials. The result of this process of rumination, which included a weeding-­out of obviously later melodic types (including – in one delightful case – an Icelandic contrafactum of ‘Oh My Darling Clementine’), was a series of modal vocabularies grouped by structural ‘signals’, which could be transmitted orally to the other singers and applied to (and tempered by) the sophisticated metrics of the Eddic texts as taught to us by the Icelandic philologist Heimir Pálsson. Everything was learned in a process which is inspired by oral tradition: we worked only with our Edda texts and our memories; there were rarely any written musical documents, and certainly nothing which could be called a ‘score.’ And in light of this knowledge, the melody found in de la Borde began to make sense; however one chooses

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to see its transmission, it is clear that the melody demonstrates characteristics which point to the use of a specific modal vocabulary consisting of a few limited elements which are constantly repeated and varied. And so, an attentive listener might hear its ‘genetic code’ echoed in some of our reconstructions, just as an experienced Icelandic rímur singer hearing us sing these poems might find at times that some undefinable element makes him feel he actually knows the unknown piece being sung. This is the beauty and sophistication of modal song, especially as a vehicle for narrative: the vocalist makes use of a seemingly simple matrix of tones to support an infinitely complex textual structure, so that all elements  – tone, text and performer  – merge into one organic process which functions uniquely in the service of the story. For this task, all aspects of the singer’s art are called into use, including the wide and flexible spectrum of vocal utterance: plain speech, heightened speech, sung speech, spoken song, simple syllabic song and melismatic song, as well as the more radical elements of human vocal sound: whispering, moaning, groaning, hoarse speech, barking, shouting and, yes, even a scream when it’s called for in the story. In addition, the ‘singer of tales’ functions in close physical proximity to his/her listeners; the singer’s entire body, including hands and feet, which are also sources of sound, is part of the instrumentum which serves the story. And speaking of instruments: the possible addition of an actual instrumental partner (whether a separate instrumentalist or self-­accompanied) allows for expanded elements of dialogue, commentary, support and interlude, all of which only serve to make the modal brew richer, the narrative denser, more focused. When examining oral epics as they are still sung today in various cultures, one hears a surprisingly similar attitude to the usage of modal structures in vocal style, vocal usage and instrumental participation. When performing the Eddic stories or Beowulf, I enter with my voice into a world which is informed as much by the actor’s art as by the singer’s, and in that world I  only rarely make use of the techniques suited to the needs of what we might call lyric song (say, a troubadour canso). These lyric techniques  – which call for vocal consistency, the nuanced ‘delivery’ of a large strophic form with its intricate structure of rhyme and versification, its almost dreamlike disregard for time – are perfectly suited to the re-­creation of a formalised state of soul which, for a few moments, conjures in the listeners’ minds their own similar experiences, their own memories, yearnings and fantasies. But for the storyteller’s art, in which time passes at various speeds, and in which real-­time events are recalled, relived, commented upon and sometimes quite literally inhabited by the ‘singer of tales,’ the use of lyric techniques must be reserved for those isolated moments which call out for them, usually moments of reflection and introspection. Words are sounds, and an essential musical element of these texts is the sound of the language itself. Since no decisions about modal usage in vocal performance can be made independently of the needs of the Icelandic language, Heimir Pálsson not only taught Sequentia’s vocalists the complex

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metrical structures of our texts but also tutored us intensively in the sounds of Old Icelandic. Although almost identical to the language spoken by 290,000 Icelanders today, the language of the Edda does contain different word forms as well as a pronunciation which was obviously quite different before the mid-­twelfth century, when the first documents in Icelandic attest to a phonetic system which places particular emphasis on vowel quality.11 In cases where two or three singers declaim the same text, different versions of the modal gestures may sometimes be heard simultaneously, resulting in a kind of heterophonic texture (verging on improvised polyphony) typical of traditional musical cultures. In addition, there are vestiges of improvised polyphonic vocal practices, one of which, tvisöngur, we can still hear sung in Iceland today. Other aspects of the reconstructive work include a study of Icelandic sources besides rímur, as well as a study of the ancient monophonic dance-­song melodies of the Faroe Islands; situated on a small group of islands between Scotland, Norway, and Iceland, the 47,000 Faroese still dance and sing ancient ballads telling the story of Sigurd and the Rheingold. Surviving modal musical documents from elsewhere in the world of the far-­ranging Vikings (the Baltic region, for example) have also been helpful in understanding the ways in which modal gesture may have been understood in the early medieval north. I have mentioned the importance of metrical structures in these texts, and how these inform the performance and the use of the modes. The metrical genius and sophistication of alliterative Germanic poetry is apparent to anyone who has come into contact with works such as the Eddic poems or Beowulf, yet, as a performer, the issue which interests me is this: how would such metrical structures have expressed themselves in performance, in a culture which hardly knew reading and writing, and which certainly did not know musical notational systems? Our relationship to the Eddic texts (or Beowulf, for that matter) is based on a ‘literate’ course of study: readings, analyses and exercises, using textbooks, editions, translations and manuscript facsimiles. There is no one alive today who has learned this poetic art as a uniquely oral phenomenon. As literate beings, we are fascinated by various metrical structures and functions which can be indicated in writing, with markings which can show us the carefully graded varieties of ‘beats,’ ‘accents’ and ‘secondary stresses’; we take a positivistic delight in expressing metrics by means of musical notation, with its precise – yet unforgiving – font of symbols. We have heard our teachers recite the poems in clearly defined metrical patterns (perhaps with a bit of tapping on the desk for emphasis), and this has become, for us, the ‘sound’ of Germanic alliterative poetry. Like most music students, I was programmed at an early age with a great reverence for notation, metrics and the unassailable authority of ‘the score’, but a subsequent lifelong involvement with medieval European song has provided me with some more pliable, more differentiated tools for the shaping of texts and melodies, for the telling of stories. When I  approached the Anglo-­Saxon poem Beowulf for the first time, with the intention of

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reconstructing a performance, I  listened to all of the available recordings of experts reading the original text. I was struck by what I perceived as an exaggerated emphasis on the pure mechanics of metrics; the metrical patterns of various lines, which for an oral ‘singer of tales’ would normally function on a deeper structural level, had broken the surface of the text (and the story), becoming obvious and heavy in the mouth of the reciter, and intrusive in the ear of the listener. The musician (and storyteller) in me imagined a subtler role for these delightfully vivid and supple metrical patterns, and I resolved to work on the text of Beowulf (and later, the Edda) in such a way that the metrical structures are servants of the performance and not its master. Through long hours of practical work, I searched for ways to give the metrics a powerful yet less superficial function in support of the text, so that the story would be free to emerge as an aural experience, held together from within by an almost imperceptible array of interlocking sounds and impulses. As a performer of metrically structured texts, I do not have the role of teaching metrical theory to my listeners, but of telling a story. This does not mean, however, that the metrical structures are being neglected. On a very deep level I do experience the metrics as I sing and speak the story; they are influencing and shaping my use of voice, instrumental accompaniment, timing, speed, and rhetorical gesture, in short, all of the variables of performance. Assuming a small medieval audience of cognoscenti who had heard a given story already dozens (if not hundreds) of times, there would be among the listeners a subtle appreciation of the text’s inner structures, even a certain delight in the singer’s masking of the obvious and in the performance’s interplay of sounds, patterns, and meaning. I work to create metrically aware performances of the Eddic poems and Beowulf, based on a written source, but I aim to re-­create the spirit of an oral poem performed in a notationless culture. My goal is to allow the metrical structures their important place in the text, so that they function, but subtly, creatively, almost subconsciously. All elements of measured time must be free to help shape the story: from the smallest unit of the individual syllable to the single, long pulse of an entire performance. Equally important in these musical reconstructions are the instruments, especially the harp, flute and fiddle, which are mentioned in early northern sources describing or depicting music-­making. The harp used for the Edda is a copy based on the remains of an instrument found in a seventh-­century Allemanic burial site in Oberflacht (Germany), as reconstructed by Rainer Thurau (Wiesbaden, Germany). This earliest type of harp would have been known throughout the northern world,12 and much interesting work in the field is still being done by musical archaeologists. This Germanic harpa is often referred to as a lyre, in order to differentiate it from the triangular cithara (with its distinctive front pillar, which we still recognise as the most common harp form), and in the Edda text itself it is also known as a harp. Such instruments commonly have very few strings

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Figure 12.2 Reconstruction of Germanic harp by Rainer Thurau (Wiesbaden, Germany). Source: Photograph by Benjamin Bagby.

(the Oberflacht instrument probably had six), and the possible tuning systems  – based on medieval theories of consonance, scraps of information from medieval sources, the limitations of medieval string technology and harp-tuning traditions from other cultures – yield a series of basic intervals which can inform the text being accompanied. I believe we can fairly say that a six-str ing harp such as Oberflacht was tuned according to some kind of system of tones yielding a certain number of consonant intervals (the principal intervals being the octave, perfect fifth and perfect fourth); this would be consistent both with the laws of physics and with the theoretical European concepts of consonance inherited from antiquity. Even for a Germanic bard who had never heard of Pythagoras or Boethius, we could expect certain consonant intervals to sound between the various strings of his harp. There are several plausible tunings which would yield these intervals in various combinations. One such tuning, which I have chosen for my work with Beowulf, is what I call an ‘open’ tuning, since it encompasses an octave between the highest and lowest strings, and the central tone (or finalis) of the resulting mode is situated on the lowest tone. The resulting row of six tones, encompassing an octave, includes a series of gaps which give the tuning its characteristic pentatonic color. Besides the octave, the resulting consonant intervals include a series of three perfect fifths and

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their corresponding perfect fourths, making this ‘open’ tuning extremely stable and modally flexible. It is ideal for the spontaneous outbursts needed in a six-hour performance of the complete Beowulf, and it is the most resonant of all the tunings I have tried.13

Figure 12.3 A musical stave. Source: Benjamin Bagby.

A similar tuning, which I have used in several Eddic poems, retains the principle of an octave span between highest and lowest strings, but places the modal finalis on the second-to-lowest string, with the lowest string one whole tone below it. This also results in a series of perfects fifths and fourths, and I call this the ‘centered’ tuning because the weight of the mode is now placed on the central perfect fifth/fourth, and emphasised by the powerful sub-finalis ­ of the tone below it. It is a less open tuning, demanding more discipline of the principal playing hand; it therefore requires more attention to precision when shaping stories.

Figure 12.4 A musical stave. Source: Benjamin Bagby.

If the idea of an octave span (from highest to lowest string) is replaced by the idea of a six-note consecutive scale of tones, we hear a very different sound altogether, much more concise and much less resonant. As Christopher Page has demonstrated,14 there is an eleventh-century source containing a cithara tuning attributed to Hucbald of St. Amand (c. 880) which tends to support the idea of a diatonic harp tuning, at least within Christian communities which were trying to tame a pagan instrument used to accompany the telling of heroic epics.

Figure 12.5 A musical stave. Source: Benjamin Bagby.

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Figure 12.6 Reconstruction of swanbone flute by Friedrich van Huene (Boston). Source: Photograph by Benjamin Bagby.

There are other plausible tunings for harps, such as a tetrachordal tuning system in which a series of four tones in a fixed relationship (for example: tone/semitone/tone) is repeated, or even overlapped. For this, however, we lack direct evidence. We can only make an informed guess at the exact tuning of the harp which provoked the legendary Caedmon’s abashed retreat to the cowshed, but it cannot have been far from one of the tunings given here. The tuning system of any such instrument will be closely related to the mode which the tradition of the song demands, so that the instrument must sometimes be re-tuned to accompany in a new mode. Regarding playing technique, it hardly needs stating that an instrument of six strings is not suited to playing the elaborate melodies with accompanying chords which we tend to associate with later harps. Instead, we have here a harp type (such as is still known and played in non-European musical cultures, especially in Africa) which has as its means of expression the use of pattern, inversion and variation, and the ‘playing out’ of modal vocabularies. Since one hand must hold the instrument upright on the player’s knee, there can only be one principal playing hand, although several players have found that the holding hand can easily spare a thumb to thicken up the patterns by emphasizing the top strings. Some iconographic evidence (especially depictions of King David playing the cithara) might even point to such a practice. Just as the singers rely

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on a small repertoire of potent modal gestures for the vocalisation of their texts (the ‘matrix’ I mentioned earlier), the harp makes a virtue of its seeming limitations and, like an interlaced Viking design, brings a richness of articulation to the expression of the mode, and hence to the telling of the story. The fiddle used by Sequentia in some Eddic reconstructions is based on one of the earliest depictions of a bowed instrument in northern Europe, dating from the early eleventh century, and was created by Richard Earle (Basel, Switzerland) especially for this production. Techniques of early northern fiddle playing can possibly still be found today, hidden within the thriving hardingfele tradition of Norway. Elizabeth Gaver’s own practical research into the possible medieval antecedents to this tradition have yielded a convincing style of stringing, tuning and articulation.15 Likewise, the use of the flute in Sequentia’s work with the Edda is based on concepts of tuning and consonance from the early Middle Ages. One instrument in particular has an almost shamanistic quality: a tiny flute made from a swan’s bone, reconstructed by Friedrich von Huene (Boston) based on the remains of a tenth-­century instrument found near the city of Speyer on the Rhine River.16 In collaboration with flautist Norbert Rodenkirchen, much was learned about the placement of finger holes, and therefore the tuning system, of such an instrument. In developing instrumental pieces and accompaniments, the players have made use of the same modal vocabularies and language as the vocalists, but then they have factored in the particular playing and tuning characteristics of their own instruments. There is no ‘improvisation’ as such, but then there are also no written scores aside from a few sketches; we think of ourselves as working within a rather strict oral tradition. We can never know if our performances precisely duplicate the art of a particular medieval bard, in Iceland or elsewhere; nor can we ever rediscover the ‘original melody’ to which any epics were sung in the early Middle Ages, since an original melody certainly never existed for any one narrative or story. In each local tradition, in each language and dialect there were varieties of originals being passed along in their own oral traditions. However, I am convinced that by making careful use of specific information and techniques, as described here, coupled with an intuitive spirit based on a working knowledge of both medieval song and the essence of sung oral poetry, it is possible to reconstruct highly plausible performance models which allow our venerable ancestral stories to live again.

Notes 1 This chapter first appeared in print in Performing Medieval Narrative. 2005. ed. by Evelyn Birge Vitz, Nancy Freeman Regalado and Marilyn Lawrence, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 181–92. It is reprinted here by kind permission of the author, editors and original publisher. 2 A DVD of my performance of Beowulf was, however, recorded in Heslingborn, Sweden, in January 2006 and released on DVD in 2007. Moreover, video clips from

280  Benjamin Bagby performances, including a passage from my Beowulf, may be viewed on the website Performing Medieval Narrative Today: A  Video Showcase, ed. by Evelyn Birge Vitz, Nancy Freeman Regalado and Marilyn Lawrence, 2005, New York University, 7 January 2005. 3 I gratefully borrow the term ‘singer of tales’ from the title of Albert B. Lord’s important and influential book, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1960), which discusses the structures and performance of oral poetry from Homeric verse to the sung epic traditions of mid-­twentieth-­century Yugoslavia: ‘This book is about Homer. He is our Singer of Tales. Yet, in a larger sense, he represents all singers of tales from time immemorial and unrecorded to the present.  .  .  . Our immediate purpose is to comprehend the manner in which they compose, learn, and transmit their epics’. 4 Sequentia. 1999. Edda Myths from Medieval Iceland, CD, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi/ BMG Classics. 5 Sequentia. 2002. The Rheingold Curse: A Germanic Saga of Greed and Revenge from the Medieval Icelandic Edda, CD, Marc Aurel Edition. 6 For complete English translations, see Carolyne Larrington, ed. and trans. 1996. The Poetic Edda, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 7 Reykjavik, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, Gml. kgl. sml. 2365 4to (‘Codex Regius’). 8 For an analysis of the problem, see Joseph Harris. 2000. ‘The performance of Old Norse Eddic Poetry: A Retrospective’, in The Oral Epic: Performance and Music, ed. by Karl Reichl, Intercultural Music Studies 12, Berlin: VWB Verlag für Wiss. und Bildung, 225–32. 9 Jean-­Benjamin de la Borde. 1780–1. Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne, 4 vols., Paris: P.-­D. Pierres and E. Onfroy, II, 403 10 Thanks especially to Rósa Þorsteinsdóttir, Vésteinn Ólasson and Gísli Sigurðsson. 11 See Heimir Pálsson, ‘The Eddic Poems’, liner notes, The Rheingold Curse, 14–18. 12 Christopher Page, ‘Instruments and Instrumental Music Before 1300’, in The Early Middle Ages to 1300, vol. 2 of The New Oxford History of Music, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 455–84. 13 There were no medieval standards of absolute pitch in the tuning of instruments; all tunings shown here simply depict the relation of tones and semitones, and are normalised for clarity of comparison. 14 Page, Instruments, 458 (includes facsimile). 15 Examples of solo fiddle-­playing can be found on Sequentia, ‘Edda Myths’. The eleventh-­century fiddle reconstruction by R. Earle can be heard on The Rheingold Curse. 16 The swan-­bone flute can be heard on the first track of The Rheingold Curse.

Bibliography de la Borde, Jean-­Benjamin. 1780–81. Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne, 4 vols., Paris: P.-­D. Pierres and E. Onfroy Harris, Joseph. 2002. ‘The Performance of Old Norse Eddic Poetry: A Retrospective’, in The Oral Epic: Performance and Music, ed. by Karl Reichl, Intercultural Music Studies 12, Berlin: VWB Verlag für Wiss. und Bildung, 225–32 Larrington, Carolyne, ed. and trans. 1996. The Poetic Edda, Oxford: Oxford University Press Lord, Albert B. 1960. The Singer of Tales, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Page, Christopher. 1990. ‘Instruments and Instrumental Music Before 1300’, in The Early Middle Ages to 1300, Vol. 2 of the New Oxford History of Music, ed. by Richard Crocker and David Hiley, 2nd edn., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 455–84

The Performance of Medieval Epic 281 Sequentia. 1999. Edda Myths from Medieval Iceland, CD, Freiburg, Breisgau: Deutsche harmonia mundi/BMG Classics Sequentia. 2002. The Rheingold Curse: A  Germanic Saga of Greed and Revenge from the Medieval Icelandic Edda, CD, Cologne: Marc Aurel Edition Vitz, Evelyn Birge, Nancy Freeman Regalado and Marilyn Lawrence, eds. 2005. Performing Medieval Narrative Today: A Video Showcase, New York University, 7 January

13 ‘ıð beſta eꝛ quæðeð fm̄ flutt’1 Kveðnar Drápur og Kveðnar Rímur Pétur Húni Björnsson

From the outset I want to make it clear that I am a singer and kvæðamaður – a performer of rímur and traditional Icelandic poetry. I  learnt to sing skaldic poetry decades ago from listening to others sing it2 and later I sang such poetry in four-­part choral arrangements. I also learned a tune for eddic poetry as a child, as a tune transcribed from an oral source in the eighteenth century for the verse Ár vas alda from Völuspá, which was used as a ‘filler’ tune on the Icelandic National Radio. That was years before I became acquainted with Old Norse poetry as a scholarly subject, when I regarded it like any other Icelandic quirk that no one else could possibly care about. But during my studies in folkloristics and medieval Icelandic literature, I came across scholarly writings on skaldic poetry and realised that the concept of Old Norse poetry being performed musically was not as straightforward and clear as I had thought, but appeared to be somewhat muddled and in many ways problematic. The performance of Old Norse poetry is comprehensively reviewed by Kari Ellen Gade in her 1994 article ‘On the Recitation of Old Norse Poetry’, in which she reviews the literature and sources, and the opinions of many of the most prominent scholars in the field. Her article is more than a quarter of a century old but is still the most comprehensive account of the sources and scholarship on this subject. In this chapter, I will examine some of the same sources as Gade but often from the perspective of a performer rather than a scholar.

Background The past 20 years of my life have been heavily influenced by rímur and rímur performance. When I learnt to perform rímur from Steindór Andersen at the turn of the century I totally immersed myself in rímur and folk music. At the time I was a programmer in the midst of the dot-­com bubble and my preferred work music was rímur intoning and Icelandic folk music. When I got the hang of the rímur metres and melodies, Steindór started taking me along to perform rímur publicly, and I have been active as a rímur performer since. I have also taken part in transcribing, notating and publishing rímur melodies for Kvæðamannafélagið Iðunn – the Iðunn society of rímur intoners. DOI: 10.4324/9780367809324-19

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This venture into rímur performance sparked my interest in singing, and soon afterwards I joined a male chorus. That led to me taking singing lessons and, eventually, to my fully fledged study of singing and music, which I completed in 2010 by graduating with a diploma in classical singing and opera. After I had become a serious singer performing serious music, as a member of the Icelandic Opera and various choirs and ensembles, friends of mine from Iðunn and the folk music scene joked about my roots in rímur and folk music. It was more common that established musicians turned to Iðunn and the folk music scene for inspiration and exploration rather than the other way round. Later, this hobby of mine led me to study folkloristics at the University of Iceland, and today I hold two master’s degrees, in Folkloristics and in Medieval Studies. I am currently a doctorand in Icelandic Literature, focussing on late medieval and early modern rímur. My research topic for my MA in Folkloristics was Bjarni Þorsteinsson’s folk music collection Íslenzk þjóðlög, and for my MA in Medieval Studies I produced a close reading of the extant rímur composed before 1600 to look for notions of rímur performance. In the course of this study I identified remnants of the oral origins of the earliest rímur composed.

Rímur The oldest known example of a ríma3 is Óláfs ríma Haraldssonar, preserved in Flateyjarbók (GkS 1005 fol.) from the latter part of the fourteenth century. The next written witness to rímur, about a century later, is the rímur collection Kollsbók (Cod. Guelf. 42.7. Aug, 4to) from the latter part of the fifteenth century. After Kollsbók, rímur are to be found in the rímur compilations Staðarhólsbók (AM 604 4to) and Hólsbók (AM 603 4to) from the middle of the sixteenth century, as well as Krossnesbók (Holm perg 4to nr 22) and Holm perg 4to nr 23 from the latter part of the sixteenth century. These manuscripts contain the bulk of extant rímur composed before 1600 (Björn K. Þórólfsson 1934). Óláfs ríma Haraldssonar is the only ríma of this earliest phase that is explicitly attributed to a named poet, one Einar Gilsson. Einar was probably born around 1320 and became a lawman for the northern and eastern part of Iceland in 1367. Little more is known about Einar’s life, but three skaldic poems by him are known, all on the vita of bishop Guðmundr Arason the Good (Skj. A2, 379–411). Einar was thus a skald who was adept at both forms, and his ríma in Flateyjarbók is so mature and fully formed that it is unlikely this was the first ríma composed, and probably it was not even the first ríma he himself composed (Björn K. Þórólfsson 1934, 298–9). Einar’s ríma appears to be composed in a way that had already become a tradition. It is thought that Einar composed the ríma around the middle of the fourteenth century (Vésteinn Ólason 1983; Bampi 2012) and this is plausible, given that annals claim he died in 1369, about 20 years before Flateyjarbók was written.

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The inclusion of Óláfs ríma in Flateyjarbók is certainly due to its subject matter  – that is, Óláfr Haraldsson’s battle at Stiklastaðir. Flateyjarbók is a compilation of texts about Norwegian kings, mainly the two kings Óláfr Tryggvason and Óláfr Haraldsson, and in the manuscript Óláfs ríma is preceded by Einar Skúlason’s Geisli. The inclusion of Óláfs ríma Haraldssonar is likely due to the compiler’s desire to collect different kinds of poetry composed on the life of Óláfr Haraldsson (Vésteinn Ólason 1983; Bampi 2012; see also Rowe 2005). But then the inclusion of the ríma indicates that rímur were regarded as established enough to be paired with a skaldic poem such as Geisli. Rímur inherited the poetic language of skaldic poetry  – the kenningar (periphrastic expressions) and heiti (poetic synonyms). However, since rímur are epic poems, their diction tends to be much simpler and more straightforward than that of skaldic poetry (Björn K. Þórólfsson 1950; Davíð Erlingsson 1989, 334; Clunies Ross 2005, 206). The purpose of rímur is to relate a story and the rímur poets don’t require their audiences to solve complex kenningar-­r iddles, so in rímur the head word and determinant of the kenningar are kept close together and not scattered around the stanza as in dróttkvætt poetry (Davíð Erlingsson 1989, 334; Lindow 1975). Sverrir Tómasson has shown that the diction and kenningar which rímur employ have their roots in Litla Skálda (Eddica Minora) a text that was frequently copied alongside Snorra Edda from about 1300. Sverrir makes the case that the first rímur may have been composed around the same time and that this is the earliest possible terminus post quem for the origin of rímur (Sverrir Tómasson 1996; Heimir Pálsson 2015). Rímur have been called the most conservative of all literary genres, as they changed relatively little in the more or less 600 years they were composed and performed (Sigurður Nordal 1924, xix–xx). The fourteenth-­century Óláfs ríma Haraldssonar and Völsungsrímur are very much like the supposedly younger rímur in Kollsbók, committed to vellum about a century later, and those rímur are then very much like the rímur found in Staðarhólsbók some decades later. Evidently the genre had more or less taken its form in the fourteenth century and no great changes in the form came about in the next few centuries. Remarkably, sixteenth-­century rímur and nineteenth-­century rímur are also very much alike, without any great shifts or changes having occurred. Through the ages, rímur acquired more metrical variation and new ways to embellish and elaborate, but all strictly within the boundaries of the form, quite like the dróttkvætt form evolving from a relatively simple háttleysa ‘loose metre’ to extremely complex elaborations later on. The performance of rímur is called að kveða, as is the performance of Old Norse poetry. The verb kveða, can be problematic as it is ambiguous. Depending on context it can mean ‘to speak’ or ‘to say something’, ‘to compose poetry’ or ‘to perform poetry’. In both the skaldic and rímur traditions, the performance of poetry is denoted dominantly, almost exclusively, using this verb. In the prosimetric style employed in the sagas, the verb kveða

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is used for casual poetic utterances as well as for extensive performances of long poems in front of kings and courts (Quinn 2020; Würth 2007).

Poetry Performances in the Sources The medieval sources are teeming with instances of poetic performance, but they seldom describe performances in any detail. Quite often such performances involve stock scenes where a skald performs for a king who, in return, gives the skald a reward such as a sword, land, a ship or a sack of silver, but sometimes they describe performances under dramatic circumstances, in some cases under threat of death. These texts were written by scribes, authors and/or editors from the thirteenth through the fifteenth century, describing earlier performances as they imagined they must have happened, even if they are describing something that supposedly happened centuries earlier. We will never know if these descriptions are accurate, but we must assume that the descriptions reflect the compilers’ experience of such performances, and of course the experiences of their audiences, as the scribes were not writing for modern scholars but for contemporary audiences. The Höfuðlausn episode from Egils saga (chapter 62) has been parsed and analysed often, and there is general agreement that the poem constitutes, for the most part, generic praise and hardly seems to be the extraordinary poem one would expect from an extraordinarily gifted poet composing to save his head (Jón Helgason 1969, 160). Egill has been imprisoned in York and is to be executed the next day. His friend Arinbjörn, who is in favour at the court, encourages him to compose a poem about Eiríkr and perform it the next day. Egill does so and when he concludes the performance it is clear that it is not the poem that Eiríkr blóðöx is responding to but rather the performance: Bezta er kvæðit fram flutt ‘The performance of the poem was excellent’ (Sigurður Nordal 1933, 193). The king is evidently moved by the performance – and maybe by Arnibjörn’s begging for Egill’s sake – and lets Egill go free. We have another Höfuðlausn episode in Óttars þáttr svarta that more or less follows this same template (Flateyjarbók IV, 6–7). Óttarr is a prominent skald being held in a dark room for composing a mansöngr ‘courtly love poem’ about Ástríðr, the daughter of King Óláfr of Sweden, and is supposed to perform the mansöngr in front of the king before being beheaded for this ignoble poetry the following day. His friend and uncle, Sighvatr, goes to the dark room where Óttarr is held and advises him to amend his mansöngr somewhat, and to compose praise poetry about king Óláfr and perform that poem when the mansöngr is over, without stopping. Óttarr does so and afterwards Sighvatr praises the quality of the poetry, emphasising that it praised the king, and the king lets Óttarr go. Yet another case of liberation from captivity by means of a performance is to be found in Spesar þáttr in Grettis saga (chapter  87). Here, Þorsteinn

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drómundr has been incarcerated in Constantinople for killing Þorbjörn öngull, avenging his brother Grettir, while they were both in the Varangian Guard. Spes, a noblewoman in the city, is passing by the dungeon when she hears Þorsteinn performing inside. She is so taken by his performance that she uses her power and influence to get him released. Here we have three examples of performances that save the performers’ lives. In the head-­ransom episodes it is obvious that the kings do not understand the poetry but respond to the performance itself – along with the egging and begging by friends of the poets. In Óttars þáttr svarta we encounter a word used to describe the vocal aspect of the poetry performance: kveðandi. As mentioned above, the verb kveða is ambiguous, and so too is the noun kveðandi, which seems often to be used in the sagas to refer to a vocal performance akin to singing and which will be discussed later. In all but one redaction of Óttars þáttr svarta, Sighvatr advises Óttarr to keep up the kveðandi after finishing the mansöngr and continue with the drápa. Óttarr keeps up the kveðandi and the courtiers are not able to shut him down when they realise that he is reciting a new poem. In these descriptions the kveðandi seems to be some kind of ‘sustained flow’ which Óttarr employs in his recital and which prevents the courtiers from stopping him when they realise that he is performing a different poem. In Spesar þáttr, Þorsteinn drómundr’s excellent performance is also called kveðandi. Þorsteinn is a poet and all his poetry is skaldic, and when asked if he has other skills besides excellent kveðandi he responds with a skaldic stanza. An episode from Heimskringla involving kveðandi tells of King Sigurðr, Hákon herðibreiðr’s father-­to-­be, going past a house when he hears such beautiful kveðandi that he has to find out who is performing. He finds a woman singing while she works and he is so smitten with the woman and her kveðandi that he lies down with her and begets Hákon (Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson 1951, III, 325). In Laxdœla saga we encounter the kveðandi when the nefarious couple Kotkell and Gríma, along with their sons, work their magic at Hrútr’s farm: Þau fóru á bœ Hrúts ok gerðu þar seið mikinn. En er seiðlætin kómu upp, þá þóttusk þeir eigi skilja, er inni váru, hverju gegna myndi; en fögr var sú kveðandi at heyra. (Einar Ólafur Sveinsson 1934, 105–6) They went to Hrútr’s farm and made great incantations (magic) there, and when the spell-­working began, those within were at a loss to make out what could be the reason for it; but sweet indeed was that kveðandi they heard. In Eiríks saga rauða we find an episode where a sybil – Þorbjörg lítilvölva – is preparing to work her craft. After her stage has been set, she requests that

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someone recite poems, or perhaps songs, called varðlokur for her performance to be proper and perfect. In the end Guðríðr Þorbjarnardóttir agrees to perform the poems, even though she says she is a Christian and knows she should not do such a heathen thing. She performs magnificently and in the saga her mode of recitation is called kveða and the varðlokur are referred to as kvæði: Kvað Guðríðr þá kvæðit svá fagrt ok vel, at engi þóttisk heyrt hafa með fegri rödd kvæði kveðit, sá er þar var hjá ‘Then Guðríðr performed the poem so beautifully and well that no-one thought they had ever heard a more beautiful voice perform’ (Einar Ólafur Sveinsson and Matthías Þórðarson 1935, 208).4 Sturla Þórðarson, in the contemporary Sturlu þáttr, proves himself a competent storyteller and performer when he entertains the crew on King Magnús lagabœtir’s ship with an excellent rendition of a fornaldarsaga. Magnús disapproves of Sturla being onboard the ship, so Sturla has much to gain in earning the crew’s favour. His outstanding performance before them prompts the queen to ask him to entertain her and the king, and she asks him to bring the saga he told the night before. The narrative thus seeks to establish Sturla as a talented and competent performer before he gets to meet the king. When Sturla has his opportunity to entertain the royal couple with his story he pulls out all the stops and the story he told the night before becomes a performance lasting the better part of a day. After the storytelling, the king asks Sturla to perform (kveða) his poetry about the king’s father: Sturla kvað þá kvæðit ‘Then Sturla performed/recited the poem’. The king’s response to Sturla’s performance is telling: Þat ætla ek, at þú kveðir betr en páfinn ‘I’m sure you recite/compose better than the pope’ (Jón Jóhannesson et al. 1946, II, 234). Surely many popes have been poets and it is not entirely impossible that Magnús had read or heard some poetry by popes, but he may as well be referring to incantations at mass (but see also Ciklamini 1984). The preceding examples show that poetry was understood to be performed in a special way, and that this way of performing was recognisable and approved of. Although we lack details about that manner of performance and cannot even know whether the performances were anything alike, these examples show that the performances involved much more than the written text conveys. The performance was the key thing, and it was obviously elevated and differentiated from regular speech.

The Kveðandi The Icelandic Etymological Dictionary, Íslensk orðsifjabók (1995 [1989]) defines kveðandi as derived from the verb kveða, and gives the definition: söngur, hljómfall ‘song/singing, rhythm’. Scholars often translate kveðandi as ‘rhythm’ in the context of prosody or metrics, or as ‘song’ in the context of performance. The Dictionary of Old Norse Prose (ONP) gives two definitions for the word kveðandi: ‘1. performance; performance of poetry; song’ and ‘2.

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prosody; metrics’. The ONP lists 11 instances of kveðandi for ‘performance’ found in the saga corpus and another ten in three texts on prosody and metrics, Snorra Edda, the First Grammatical Treatise and the Third Grammatical Treatise. Three of the five instances are from the kings’ sagas and recount the same episode surrounding King Sigurðr (described previously) and can be found in Heimskringla, Morkinskinna and Hulda-­Hrokkinskinna, respectively. All three instances describe Hákon herðibreiðr’s mother performing, and all use the word kveðandi to do so. Another two instances are from Óttars þáttr svarta in Flateyjarbók, where the word kveðandi is used twice to describe Óttarr’s performance mode. If we ignore these repetitions we thus have seven texts which use the word kveðandi as a description of performance: two from kings’ sagas, two from Íslendingasögur, one from a þáttr, one from a bishop’s saga, and one from a legendary saga: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Heimskringla, Morkinskinna, Hulda-­Hrokkinskinna; Flateyjarbók (Óláfs saga Haraldssonar); Laxdœla saga; Grettis saga (Spesar þáttr); Örvar-­Odds saga; Bergbúa þáttr (in Vatnshyrna and Pseudo-­Vatnshyrna); Þorláks saga Helga.

In the saga of Saint Þorlákr, the kveðandi can be found in a reading from AM 380 4to: Thorlakr byskup liet opt skemta bædi sögum ok kuædum; kuedandi ok horpuslætti ‘Bishop Þorlákr often had entertainment with both stories and poetry; kveðandi and playing of harps’. In the (B)C redaction of the saga this passage is shorter: Heilagur Þorlakur byskup liet optliga skemta sier oc avdrvm oc hendi at þui mikit gaman sem godra manna skemtan er bædi at kuædvm oc harpslatti oc leikum En minst danzi. (Jón Helgason 1938–78, 272) Bishop Þorlákr often had entertainment for himself and others and enjoyed greatly the entertainment of good men, both poetry and playing of harps. But least of all dance. From the first example it is evident that kveðandi and kvæði are not synonymous, though they may both have had musical connotations given that both are paired with harp-­playing in the respective texts. In the legendary Örvar-­Odds saga, the völva Heiðr is introduced and her retinue described as follows: Hon hafði með sér xxx manna. . . . Þat var raddlið mikit, þvíat þar skyldi vera kveðandi mikil, sem hon var ‘She had along with her 30 people. . . . They had good voices as she wanted much kveðandi wherever she went’ (Boer 1892, 11).

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Bergbúa þáttr relates a story of two brothers who get lost in a snowstorm and take refuge in a cave. In the middle of the night they see two glowing eyes deep in the cave and hear a voice: Því næst heyrðu þeir kveðandi harðla ógurliga með mikilli raust. Var þar hafit upp kvæði ok kveðinn tólf vísna flokkr, ok kvað sá ávallt tysvar niðrlagit ‘Next they heard formidable kveðandi in a mighty voice. A poem was started and a twelve stanza flokkr was kveðinn, and the end of each stanza repeated’ (Guðbrandr Vigfússon 1860, 124). In all cases the noun kveðandi is used to describe performances as elevated recitals, some explicitly musical. Evidently there existed certain types of recitals denoted by the verb kveða and the noun kveðandi, and these were certainly not in the form of regular speech. The flow of Óttarr’s kveðandi that he should maintain, the beautiful kveðandi of Þorsteinn drómundr and Hákon herðibreiðr’s mother, the seductive kveðandi of Kotkell and Gríma, the excellent performance of Guríður, and Sturla reciting better than the pope, all show us that the act kveða and the employment of the kveðandi must have been closer to skilful vocalising than to regular speech.

Rímur Performance In the performance of rímur and poetry in rímur metres, að kveða indicates a mode of singing. Most often it lies halfway between talking and singing, as a kind of parlando recitation. It can be loud and forceful, and it can also be more ‘song-­like’, depending on the nature of the stemma being performed. Rímur melodies, traditionally called stemmur (sing. stemma), are of various types and shapes. Most often they employ a fairly limited tonal range, but some are more ‘song-­like’, employing greater tonal range. A  distinction between speech and song can of course be difficult to make, especially when applied to witnesses to medieval performances (Stevens 1986). The European romantic wave of folklore collecting in the nineteenth century sparked some collection efforts in Iceland. Regarding the collection of rímur melodies specifically, we have 17 melodies in Ólafur Davíðsson’s collection Íslenzkar gátur, skemtanir, vikivakar og þulur (1888–1905) and 253 melodies in Bjarni Þorsteinsson’s folk-­music collection Íslenzk þjóðlög (1906–9). In the archives of the Department of Ethnology and Folklore at the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, in Iceland, a great number of field recordings of rímur performances exist, many from sources born in the nineteenth century who grew up with rímur performances. Many of these recordings are accessible on the Íslenskur músík – og menningararfur (Ísmús) web database (ismus.is). In 1936 Kvæðamannafélagið Iðunn recorded 13 of their most prominent and valued kvæðamenn, performing 200 stemmur on lacquer records, and this group has continued to record stemmur to the present day. This stemmur collection has been transcribed and published by Iðunn as Silfurplötur Iðunnar (2004), containing all the recordings from 1936. A further 160 recordings

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from later times were released as Segulbönd Iðunnar in 2018. Silfurplötur and Segulbönd contain CDs with the performances recorded on them, the texts of the poems being performed and musical transcriptions of the stemmur, along with a wealth of information about the kvæðamenn, the poetry and the stemmur. All the earliest recordings are accessible on Kvæðamannafélagið Iðunn’s website (rimur.is).

A Nineteenth-­Century Witness to Rímur Performance Benedikt Jónsson (1846–1939), from Auðnir, in Laxárdalur, northern Iceland, was the most valuable collaborator of Bjarni Þorsteinsson (1861–1938), an Icelandic priest who assembled a collection of nearly 500 Icelandic folk songs published under the title Íslensk Þjóðlög in 1906–9 (briefly mentioned above). Benedikt had been interested in music from a young age and was prompted to start collecting music when he felt that the old music might be under threat from a new kind of music. He had started his collecting effort around 1860 and had been observant of the styles and melodies being used in his youth, and his transcripts and insights were extremely valuable to Bjarni’s collection. In a letter Benedikt wrote to Bjarni (21 December 1899) he describes how the kvæðamenn traditionally used different kinds of melodies and performance modes – a description which is highly relevant to this discussion. He starts by stating that people call the rímur melodies kvæðalög ‘songs for kveða’ – to separate them from the sönglög ‘songs for singing’ – as there is a clear distinction between kveða and syngja in people’s minds. Benedikt divides the rímur performances into two groups: on the one hand, the more melodic and song-­like performances of excerpts from rímur and other material in rímur metres, and on the other hand, the extended performance of rímur. He describes how the kvæðalög used for shorter pieces are loose and flexible as each kvæðamaður performs them as he likes and treats them as they are inspired by the present moment, so each one of the kvæðamenn has his own melodies, which they never perform in quite the same way, but rather inflect as the material being performed, the poetic mode and the mood call for. Benedikt then describes another mode of performance employed when whole rímur are performed: Kvæðalögin í hinum flokknum, hin eiginlegu rímnalög, eru miklu formlausari og óákveðnari svo naumast er hægt að handsama þau, enda eru þau flest ómelodísk og lítið annað en glymjandi eða kveðandi deklamation með löngum „lotum“. Það væri líka ofraun fyrir kvæðamann að kveða rímur heila kvöldvöku með lögum er grípa yfir heila áttund og þó minna væri, enda ekki áheyrilegt. Menn hafa því gripið til þess, sem var hægra og eðlilegra, nefnil. að viðhafa aðeins örfáa tóna (oftast stóra eða litla þríund) en bæta svo aftur fátækt tónanna upp með dynamiskum

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kunstum, hljómbreytingum, áherslum, slögum, trillum og öllum þeim tilbreytingum, sem raddfærin leyfa, og væri kvæðamaðurinn góður kvæðamaður breytti hann stöðugt til eftir efni rímnanna, svo heita mátti að hann kvæði sína vísuna með hverju lagi. Þannig voru rímur kveðnar hér, og ég er sannfærður um að sumir kvæðamenn hafa framið talsverða og allt annað en fyrirlitlega íþrótt með þessu. En það er annað en gaman að handsama þessi lög og koma þeim á pappír svo að þeim verði skiljanlegt sem ekki hafa heyrt þau eða eru rímnakveðskap ókunnugir, því aðeins aðaltónarnir er tóm beinagrind þeirra, líflaus og stirðnuð. (Sveinn Skorri Höskuldsson 1993, 539–40) The proper rímur melodies are often mostly formless and vague, so they are hard to grasp, as they are often not very melodic and sometimes little more than long stretches of resounding declamation. It would be impossible for a kvæðamaður to perform rímur for the full extent of an evening using melodies ranging up to an octave, and that would not be pleasing to listen to. Instead they have done what is easier and more natural, that is to use very few tones (usually major or minor thirds) and then compensate for the meagre material by employing various dynamic tricks, timbral variation, accents, staccatos, trills and all the variation the vocal organs are capable of, and if the kvæðamaður was skilful he would constantly change his delivery according to the contents of the ríma, so it was almost as if he had a new song for each stanza. That is how rímur were kveðnar here, and I am certain that some of the kvæðamenn have accomplished great feats, and not at all to be scorned. But it’s no easy task to try and capture these songs and get them onto paper so they are meaningful to those who have never heard them or are unfamiliar with rímnakveðskapur, since the main tones of the songs alone are little more than a skeleton, stiff and lifeless. Evidently the mode of melodic fluidity in performance which Benedikt describes continued into the twentieth century. Hreinn Steingrímsson studied rímur performers around Breiðafjörður from the 1960s through the 1980s and came to the conclusion that the performers from this area predominantly improvised their performances around simple melodic ideas (Hreinn Steingrímsson 2000). Svend Nielsen further studied the performances of one of the kvæðamenn whose practice Hreinn had studied, namely Þórður Guðbjartsson from Patreksfjörður. In the 1960s and 1970s, Svend went to Patreksfjörður with Hallfreður Örn Eiríksson, folklorist and collector at Árnastofnun, to interview Þórður and record his performances, and published a deep and thorough musicological study of Þórður’s performances in Stability in Musical Improvisation (1982). Svend has continued his research and studied the performances of ten more kvæðamenn in the same manner. His findings are that these kvæðamenn all perform in a similar way, improvising on simple melodic structures. He shows that the kvæðamenn use

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a discernible set of riffs or melodic motifs strung together within a set tonal frame (Nielsen forthcoming).

Sveinbjörns þáttr Beinteinssonar A good example of an Icelandic twentieth-­century kvæðamaður for whom we have recordings is Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson (1924–93). Sveinbjörn was a farmer and kvæðamaður in Svínadalur, in Borgarfjörður. In 1972, Sveinbjörn became the head of the Ásatrúarfélag, a society for practising the Old Norse pre-­Christian religions. Sveinbjörn was a prolific scholar of rímur, metrics and heathendom. Helgi Sigurðarson had published a collection of rímur meters, Safn til bragfræði íslenzkra rímna að fornu og nýju, in 1891 and there he showed examples of 23 basic rímur metres with 2267 variations. Sveinbjörn worked methodically through Helgi’s collection, revising and reducing where needed, and in 1953 he published a handbook of rímur metrics where he introduced his reformed categorisation and taxonomy of the rímur metrics, along with his Háttatal. Háttatal is a rímur cycle in 20 fitts, one for each of the basic rímur metres. Within each fitt, Sveinbjörn adds gradually to the metre all kinds of rhyming ornaments and patterns, making the metre more elaborate or dýrari ‘more valuable’. For each addition to the metre Sveinbjörn gives a designation. Sveinbjörn published his own performance of his Háttatal as a cassette tape in 1980. Háttatal consists of 20 fitts, but Sveinbjörn uses fewer than ten stemmur, which he adapts to each metre. This decision was not taken for lack of available stemmur that might correspond to each of the metres. Sveinbjörn was a member of Iðunn, and around the time Sveinbjörn recorded his performance Iðunn had already recorded at least 500 stemmur, first on lacquer discs (Silfurplötur, the ‘Silvery Records’) and then on tape (Segulbönd Iðunnar, the ‘Magnetic Tapes’). Judging from other performances of Sveinbjörn’s, he seems to have preferred the particular stemmur preserved on the Háttatal recording and used them, and variants thereof, often. He employed a similar method in his performance of eddic poems in which he used melodies that he flexed freely throughout the performances. The basic contours of the melodies are easily discernible, but they vary slightly for each stanza (Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson 1994 [1982], 1990).

Anecdotal Evidence Since I started performing rímur I have experimented with performing longer pieces of poetry, often 20 to 40 stanzas at a time. At a meeting of Iðunn in spring 2007 I had decided to perform the nineteenth-­century Draugsríma by Sigurður Breiðfjörð. The ríma is 96 stanzas long and I had estimated that it would take about 30 minutes to perform. For that performance I  had chosen a stemma I liked, but it turned out to be too strenuous, so I had to stop halfway through, after about 20 minutes. I finished the ríma at the next meeting, a month later, and for that performance I chose a melody with less

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ambitus – a major third – and, humbled as I was after my defeat a month earlier, I still finished the last 47 stanzas in less than 15 minutes. Later, inspired by this performance, I decided to experiment with performing for as long as I could at the annual Siglufjörður Folk Music Festival. I decided to do this discreetly and went to the Herring Era Museum, in Siglufjörður, with Sigurður Breiðfjörð’s Númarímur in hand. I sat down in the net maker’s workshop in the museum and started performing for the guests there. The workshop is a hut about twenty square metres in size inside and in the back of the museum, but as it has an open door and windows into the museum I could be heard in the main hall. The museum guests were initially unaware of my performance, but when people heard me they would come into the workshop and listen for a while, then leave, and others would come in their place. In the beginning I performed loudly and rather fast, but after about 20 stanzas I felt that I needed to slow down to be able to breathe properly, and soon after, I slowly settled into a different mode of performing. The pace became slower and more deliberate, and at the same time I could feel how my voice dropped somewhat to accommodate the tonic and ambitus of the melody I was performing. I then changed the tonic slightly, probably moving a semitone higher, even though my voice felt deeper, to be more comfortable. After that, everything just flowed. My point of concentration was fully on the ríma and I did not have to think about my voice or the melody. After a while I felt more as if I was telling a story than intoning a melody as the melody flowed in tandem with the text, pausing, emphasising or embellishing as needed. When the next ríma began I had to change melody as the metre changed, but I found I could easily position that melody, like the previous one, in a similar place in my voice and continue performing. This went on, ríma after ríma, for two and a half hours, and then I had to stop for a comfort break. After I had stopped, I realised how long I had been performing and decided not to continue. When I left the museum I was not tired and was still in good voice. I had something to eat and then went to the Folk Music Museum and took part in a community performance there. After this marathon performance I felt I had gained new insight into the traditional craft of the kvæðamenn. I had realised and experienced that this practice of performing many rímur for a protracted period was not just possible, it was quite easy, at least if done right. Of course, I knew the melodies I used very well and did not have to struggle with them, as I had learnt and internalised them years earlier. I was also aware that during the course of my performance I  had modified the melodies as needed, for example by either adding or dropping embellishments and mordants, moving emphasis around and employing fermatas or pauses where it felt right to do so. Thus, I realised that I had been improvising within the framework of a melody, rather than performing it uniformly, note for note, throughout. I repeated this approach at the festival in each of the following two years. Since I  did my experimenting, Iðunn has organised some group performances of whole rímur cycles, where performers take turns performing

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fitts from a cycle, and I have taken part in these endeavours. Iðunn has also staged a rímur marathon where four performers performed extensively for at least an hour each. There, I performed the older Andra rímur and was able to perform for an hour and a half, and then I had to stop as the library where I was performing was about to close. I did an extended performance of this kind as my opening act at the ‘Old Norse Poetry in Performance’ conference at Christ Church, Oxford, in 2019, where I performed two pieces: Egill Skallagrímsson’s Höfuðlausn and Einar Gilsson’s Óláfs ríma Haraldssonar from Flateyjarbók. Höfuðlausn is 20 and a half stanzas long and Óláfs ríma is 65 stanzas long. I chose to perform Höfuðlausn to a melody by a friend of mine, Eggert Pálsson, a key person in the folk-­music group Voces Thules, of which I am a member. Eggert told me that he had been struggling to come up with a suitable melody to perform Höfuðlausn to, and had tried to approach the poem, often to no avail. Then, one night, he was visited by Egill Skallagrímsson in a dream and the next morning he woke up with the outlines of a melody in his head. He wrote the melody down and has since performed the poem with Voces Thules. He was more than willing to allow me to use the melody in my performance – the melody he deems authentic, as it comes straight from Egill himself. In Höfuðlausn, I decided to work with Egill’s Sámi ancestry and used a hand drum to beat a rhythm. The poem is quite rhythmical in itself, so it was easy to work out a rhythmical pattern to beat on the drum. In the rímur performance, I decided to go and sit among the audience and as I was taking a seat, I explained that traditionally rímur were performed to be heard and the kvæðamaður would not be the centre of attention, at least not visually. I chose a simple stemma, as 65 stanzas are quite the mouthful, and I adjusted the stemma as I saw fit during the performance, finishing in good vocal condition – good enough to do a Q&A afterwards.

But Was It Musical? Kari Ellen Gade shows convincingly that it is highly unlikely that performances of skaldic poetry were accompanied by instruments and her conclusion is that the poetry was not performed musically (Gade 1994). She notes that there are two schools of thought: those who believe that skaldic poetry performance was musical and those who do not, the latter camp consisting mainly of philologists (1994, 128). In her monograph The Structure of Old Norse Dróttkvætt Poetry, she reviews the opinions of those who oppose musical performance of skaldic poetry thus: According to Kuhn dróttkvætt poetry was characterised by emphatic recitation, with changes in intensity, pitch, and sonority; Kreutzer believed that the comprehension of such stanzas was facilitated by articulation, stress, loudness, phrasing, and perhaps also by modulation of pitch, as did

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Finnur Jónsson, Jón Helgason, Lie, Einar Ól. Sveinsson, and Hollander. Some have speculated that parenthetic clauses could have been emphasised by special intonation, either by using a different pitch or a different vocal register . . . and it has been suggested that additional acoustic devices or pauses or a system of pointing could have been used during the recitation of dróttkvætt poems and served as a guide for the audience. (Gade 1994, 25 and references therein) As can be seen from this review, these scholars seem to realise that the performance of skaldic poetry demanded some sort of special vocalisation, but they avoid referring to such vocalisation as music. Nonetheless, these descriptions can easily fit a definition of music: ‘facilitated by articulation, stress, loudness, phrasing, and modulation of pitch’ reads as though it were taken straight out of a modern dictionary entry for music or singing. What is lacking is clarity concerning what these scholars define as music. Gade gives no such definition, neither in the article nor her monograph. It would be most enlightening to know what Heusler and Kuhn would have regarded as musical, as Gade notes that their claims of skaldic poetry being unmusical and unsingable are based on subjective speculations rather than evidence (1994, 127–8). As musicologist Ingrid De Geer points out, ‘there seems to be no reason why skaldic stanzas should not have been sung, as long as ‘singing’ is not understood in a very narrow, 19th-­century, sense’ (De Geer 1985, 219 quoted in Gade 1994, 28). But what can be considered musical? As we are more than a millennium removed from the earliest performances of skaldic poetry, a usable definition of music that can encompass this great timespan needs to be quite open and unbiased, and not rooted exclusively in Western or elitist music of the last few centuries. The definition I have settled on for my own purposes is one I came across on Dictionary.com: Music is ‘an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.’ I believe this definition can fit most music. Using this definition, skaldic poetry might also qualify as music if an audience understood it as such, particularly if we account for the consistent use of kveða and kveðandi in saga descriptions of skaldic performance. Gade’s conclusion that skaldic poetry was neither sung nor chanted (1994, 147) seems to be based mostly on structural evidence, as the last part of her article is on the structure of dróttkvætt and there she doubts that the complex and elaborate detthent and skjálfhent variations of dróttkvætt were fit for musical recitation. In my experience as a performer, there are no rhyming elaborations that prevent one from performing a metrically correct skaldic poem. When I read Gade’s claim, I picked up Faulkes’s edition of Snorri’s Háttatal and performed for my family a selection of stanzas using a variant of a dróttkvætt melody from Bjarni’s collection. The performance was smooth but my family, otherwise totally ignorant of skaldic poetry, felt the complex stanzas were

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more intense and interesting, even though they did not fully understand them. They understood most of the words and sensed the tight and stuttering rhyme (the hendingar) but were unable to make any sense of it.

Was Skaldic Poetry Not ‘Sung’? The acts that the verbs syngja and kveða denote have historically been regarded as separate activities. Earlier, this difference seems to be accounted for by a distinction between sacred and secular performances, as syngja is strictly ecclesiastical but all other musical utterances are called kveða. In the nineteenth century, we still encounter this division, but it has changed such that syngja now denotes all vocal music but kveða is used strictly for the performance of poetry in the rímur metres. As is obvious from the recordings accessible at ismus.is and on Silfurplötur and Segulbönd, this seems to reflect a state of mind and attitude towards performance rather than a profound difference between the two modes of performance. In my own practice, I  approach syngja and kveða very differently. Even though I employ more or less the same vocal techniques, my attitude towards the performance is completely different. As I singer, I am fully aware that I am performing and interpreting written, established music, often with a long performance history. Opera, lieder and Icelandic nineteenth- and twentiethcentury songs all have their traditions and exemplary performances. Að kveða, on the other hand, is much looser, not bound to written music and therefore I  am aware that I  am allowed, and even expected, to perform as I  please. While learning to perform I  learnt to scorn those rímur performers who ‘sang’ too much and as a result I try to root my performance in my normal speech voice, somewhat elevated, and I seldom care about the pitch I start on, as that is easily amendable during the performance. I am a kvæðamaður who has now studied singing, but I try as far as I can to approach the rímur performances as I did before, but with much more vocal competence.5 As can be seen in the examples presented above and passim in the medieval sources, poetry could be performed in many different ways, just as is the case today, and probably different modes of performance were used for different occasions. It is unlikely that a single, uniform way of performing Old Norse poetry ever existed. Oral tradition is a tradition of variations, and each performer must have performed in his own way, within the approved boundaries of the performance tradition. When rímur and rímur performance emerged in the fourteenth century, it is hard to imagine that the rímur poets and performers created a totally new and unprecedented mode of performance, unrelated to existing modes. As rímur were composed and performed by poets who also composed and performed skaldic poetry, it is at least possible that they employed the same or a similar performance mode for the new poetry – að kveða. Kuhn claims that the use of the verb kveða to denote the musical recitation of rímur in Iceland appears to be a secondary development (1983, 244–5).

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Given that the verb kveða is the key verb used to denote performances of skaldic poetry, and that it continues to denote performance of poetry today, it is hard to see how the continuing use of the verb for the same act can be viewed in this way. In some of the earliest rímur, the verb kveða can be found denoting the performance of poetry (for example, in Áns rímur and Bjarka rímur) and these rímur were composed when skaldic poetry was still a prominent form in Iceland.

Concluding Remarks Scholarship on Old Norse poetry seldom centres on orality and performance. There are some notable exceptions (e.g., Gunnell 1995, 2008, 2010; Mitchell 1991, 2001, 2013; Harris 2003, 2011, Harris and Reichl 2012) but generally scholars mention orality and performance only in passing. Up until the twelfth century, Old Norse poetry must have been a performance genre, first and foremost, as the poetry composed existed only in the poet’s mind until it was performed. A purely textual analysis of written witnesses to such oral poetry can be extremely valuable, for example in the study of linguistics, metrics and prosody, but such endeavours are of limited worth for evaluating performance modes or the musicality of said texts. What may seem unsingable to a philologist may indeed seem musical to a musicologist, and easily performable by a competent performer. These are different disciplines and they each require and utilise different tools and methodologies. I am of the opinion that the kveðandi in the medieval sources corresponds, mutatis mutandis, to the style of rímur performance described by Benedikt in the nineteenth century. I am tempted to take my cue from Gade, when she states that since ‘dróttkvætt apparently evolved from the eddic meter fornyrðislag and there is no difference in the vocabulary that describes the performance of these two poetic genres, it seems likely that the eddic poems were recited in a similar manner’ (Gade 1994, 147). I  would like to state that, since rímur and skaldic poetry were practised and performed concurrently for an extended period of time, since rímur were composed by poets who also composed skaldic poetry, since rímur inherited the diction of skaldic poetry and since there is no difference in the vocabulary that describes the performance of works belonging to these two poetic genres, it seems likely that skaldic poetry was performed in a manner similar to what is described in nineteenth-­century sources and was practised into the twentieth century. That does not mean that a competent modern kvæðamaður performing rímur precisely resembles Egill performing Höfuðlausn or Bragi Boddason performing Ragnarsdrápa. It means, rather, that this ongoing tradition of performing rímur in a certain way might well be a descendant of the fourteenth-­century way of performing skaldic poetry. Benedikt’s description of the nineteenth-­century rímur performance may well be a description of a tradition that stretches back to the first kvæðamenn performing rímur in the fourteenth century and from them to skaldic poetry performance back to the ninth century.

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If we accept that skaldic poetry was transmitted orally for centuries before being recorded, then we must accept that this oral tradition must have varied and changed along the way. Quite possibly Bragi Boddason would not have approved of Egill’s performance of Höfuðlausn, and Egill in turn might have been anything but happy with Einarr Skúlason’s performance of Geisli in Niðarós Cathedral. Bragi might even have had some objections to how his poetry was recorded when it was committed to parchment. We will never be able to find the ‘true’ way to perform skaldic or eddic poetry, as there is no true, authentic way. The only thing we have is the knowledge that there was an ongoing oral tradition for centuries before the poetry was written down, and it is highly likely that this tradition continued long after. Here, the case has been made that the kveðandi is the link between the traditions and that rímur performance may be the only remnant – a faint echo – of this tradition.

Notes 1 King Eiríkr blóðöx’s response to Egill’s Höfuðlausn from AM 453 4to (60r): ‘The poem was performed excellently’. 2 Recorded and published by Hinn íslenzki þursaflokkur (1978), Engel Lund (1960) and Hamrahlíðarkórinn (1993). 3 A good introduction to rímur is in Shaun Hughes’s chapter ‘Late Secular Poetry’ in A Companion to Old Norse–Icelandic Literature and Culture (2007); cf. Stefán Einarsson’s survey of rímur research published in The Journal of English and Germanic Philology (1955) and Shaun Hughes’s addendum in The Journal of English and Germanic Philology (1980); Ólafur Halldórsson’s entry on rímur in Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middel alder (1966), Shaun Hughes’s entry in the Dictionary of the Middle Ages (1982–9) and Peter Alvin Jorgensen’s in Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia (1993). 4 The ambiguity of the term kveða is evident when different translations of this passage are examined. I choose to translate kveða as ‘perform’ but Gwyn Jones (1960) translates the passage thus: ‘Gudrid recited the chant so beautifully and well that no one who was present could say he had heard a chant recited by a lovelier voice’ (1960, 136), and J. Sephton’s translation reads ‘Then sang Gudrid the weird-­song in so beautiful and excellent a manner, that to no one there did it seem that he had ever before heard the song in voice so beautiful as now’ (1880, 12). 5 John Potter (2018) observes that the vocal production employed by classically trained singers must be far removed from the vocal production of earlier singers who had never had a singing lesson in their lives, and I totally agree with him. My mentors in rímur performance were not schooled singers, but of course they were informed by all kinds of singing they had heard and experienced.

Bibliography Manuscripts Copenhagen, Den Arnamagnæanske Samling, AM 453 4to Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, AM 380 4to Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, AM 603 4to, Hólsbók Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, AM 604 4to, Staðarhólsbók Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, GkS 1005 fol., Flateyjarbók

‘ıð beſta eꝛ quæðeð fm̄ flutt’  299 Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket, Holm perg 4 nr 22, Krossnesbók Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket, Holm perg 4to nr 23 Wölfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 42.7. Aug, 4to, Kollsbók to

Primary Sources Ármann Jakobsson and Þórður Ingi Guðjónsson, eds. 2011. Morkinskinna, 2 vols., Íslenzk fornrit 23–4, Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon. 1995. Íslensk orðsifjabók, rev. edn. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans [originally published 1989] Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, ed. 1941–51. ‘Snorri Sturluson’, in Heimskringla, Íslenzk fornrit 26–8, Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag Boer, Richard Constant, ed. 1892. Ǫrvar-­Odds saga, Halle a S: M. Niemeyer Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, ed. 1934. Laxdœla saga, Íslenzk fornrit 5, Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1–248 Einar Ólafur Sveinsson and Matthías Þórðarson, eds. 1935. Eríks saga rauða, Íslenzk fornrit 4, Reykjavík: Hið Íslenzka Fornritafélag Faulkes, Anthony, ed. 2007. ‘Snorri Sturluson’, in Edda: Háttatal, London: Viking Society for Northern Research Guðbrandr Vigfússon, ed. 1860. ‘Bergbúa þáttr’, in Barðarsaga Snæfellsass; Viglundarsaga; Þórðarsaga; Draumavitranir; Völsaþáttr, Copenhagen: Berlingske bogtrykkeri ved N.H. Stenderup, 123–8 Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1933. Grettis saga, Íslenzk fornrit 7, Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1–290 Jones, Gwyn, trans. 1986. ‘Eirik the Red’s Saga’, in The Norse Atlantic Saga: Being the Norse Voyages of Discovery and Settlement to Iceland, Greenland, and North America, new edn., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 207–35 Jón Helgason, ed. 1938–78. ‘Þorláks saga Helga’, in Byskupa sǫgur, 2 vols., Copenhagen: E. Munksgaard Jón Jóhannesson, Magnús Finnbogason and Kristján Eldjárn, eds. 1946. Sturlunga saga, 2 vols., Reykjavík: Sturlunguútgáfan Ólafur Davíðsson. 1888–1905. Íslenzkar gátur, skemtanir, vikivakar og þulur, Copenhagen: Hið íslenzka bókmenntafjelag Örnólfur Thorsson and Bergljót Kristjánsdóttir, eds. 2010. ‘Sturlunga saga’, in Sturlunga saga; Árna saga biskups; Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar hin sérstaka, 2nd edn., 3 vols., Reykjavík: Mál og menning Sephton, J., trans. 1880. Eirik the Red’s Saga: A Translation Read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, January 12, 1880, Liverpool: Marples Sigurður Nordal, ed. 1933. Egils saga Skalla-­Grímssonar, Íslenzk fornrit 2, Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag Sigurður Nordal, ed. 1944–5. Flateyjarbók, 4 vols., Akranes: Flateyjarútgáfan Skj.: Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912–15. Den norsk-­islandske skjaldedigtning, Copenhagen and Oslo: Gyldendal

Recordings Engel Lund. 1960. Íslensk þjóðlög, Parlophone Odeon, CPMA 4 [LP] Hamrahlíðarkórinn. 1993. Íslensk þjóðlög/Icelandic Folk Songs, Íslensk tónverkamiðstöð, ITM 8–05 [CD]

300  Pétur Húni Björnsson Hinn íslenzki þursaflokkur. 1978. Hinn íslenzki þursaflokkur, Fálkinn, FA 006 [LP] Segulbönd Iðunnar. 2016. Kvæðamannafélagið Iðunn and Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, KFI 01 [CD] Silfurplötur Iðunnar. 2004. Kvæðamannafélagið Iðunn and Smekkleysa, SMK30 [CD] Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson. 1980. Bragfræði og háttatal, Letur s/f. [Cassette] Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson. 1994. Edda, Smekkleysa, SM 40 CD [CD reissue of LP Eddukvæði. 1982. Gramm, GRAMM 40] Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson. 1990. Current 93 present Sveinbjorn Beinteinsson Edda, People Who Can’t distribution, DURTRO 005 [LP/CD]

Secondary Sources Árni Heimir Ingólfsson. 2019. Tónlist liðinna alda. Íslensk handrit 1100–1800, Reykjavík: Crymogea Bampi, Massimiliano. 2012. ‘The king in rhyme: Some observations on Ólafs ríma Haraldssonar as a reworking of Snorri’s Ólafs saga helga’, Filologia Germanica 4, 49–66 Bauman, Richard. 1977. Verbal Art as Performance, Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press Bauman, Richard. 1986. ‘Performance and Honor in 13th-­Century Iceland’, The Journal of American Folklore 99:392, 131–50 Bauman, Richard. 2004. A World of Others’ Words: Cross-­Cultural Perspectives on Intertextuality, Malden, MA: Blackwell Bjarni Þorsteinsson. 1906–9. Íslenzk þjóðlög, Kaupmannahöfn: Prentuðhja S.L. Møller Björn K. Þórólfsson. 1934. Rímur fyrir 1600, Safn fræðafélagsins um Ísland og Íslendinga 9, Kaupmannahöfn: S.L. Möller Björn K. Þórólfsson. 1950. ‘Dróttkvæði og rímur’, Skírnir 124, 175–209 de la Borde, Jean-­Benjamin. 1780–81. Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne, 4 vols., Paris: P.-­D. Pierres and E. Onfroy Ciklamini, Marlene. 1984. ‘Veiled Meaning and Narrative Modes in Sturlu þáttr’, Arkiv för nordisk filologi 99, 139–50 Clunies Ross, Margaret. 2005. A History of Old Norse Poetry and Poetics, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer Craigie, William A. 1949. Nokkrar athuganir um rímur, Aukarit Rímnafélagsins 1, Reykjavík: Rímnafélagið Craigie, William A. 1952. Sýnisbók íslenzkra rímna, 3 vols., London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Davíð Erlingsson. 1987. ‘Prose and Verse in Icelandic Legendary Fiction’, in The Heroic Process: Form, Function and Fantasy in Folk Epic, ed. by Bo Almqvist, Dublin: Glendale Press, 371–93 Davíð Erlingsson. 1989. ‘Rímur’, in Íslensk þjóðmenning VI: Munnmenntir og bókmenning, ed. by Frosti F. Jóhannsson, Reykjavík: Bókaútgáfan Þjóðsaga Finnegan, Ruth. 1992 [1977], Oral poetry. Its Nature, Significance and Social Context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Finnur Jónsson. 1904–5. Bókmenntasaga Íslendinga fram undir siðabót, Copenhagen: Hið íslenska bókmenntafjelag Finnur Jónsson. 1913–22. Rímnasafn – Samling af de ældste islandske rimer, 2 vols., Copenhagen: S.L. Møllers bogtrykkeri Finnur Sigmundsson. 1966. Rímnatal I – II, Reykjavík: Rímnafélagið Foley, John Miles. 1991. Immanent Art: From Structure to Meaning in Traditional Oral Epic, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press

‘ıð beſta eꝛ quæðeð fm̄ flutt’  301 Foley, John Miles. 2002. How to Read an Oral Poem, Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press Gade, Kari Ellen. 1994. ‘On the Recitation of Old Norse Poetry’, in Studien zum Altgermanischen: Festschrift für Heinrich Beck, ed. by Heiko Uecker, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 126–51 Gade, Kari Ellen. 1995. The Structure of Old Norse Dróttkvætt Poetry, Islandica 49, Ithaca: Cornell University Press Glauser, Jürg. 1990. ‘Romances, rímur, Chapbooks. Problems of Popular Literature in Late Medieval and Early Modern Scandinavia’, Parergon 8:2, 37–52 Glauser, Jürg. 2010. ‘Staging the Text: On the Development of a Consciousness of Writing in the Norwegian and Icelandic Literature of the Middle Ages’, in Along the Oral-­Written Continuum: Types of Texts, Relations, and Their Implications, ed. by Leidulf Melve, Slavica Rankovic and Else Mundal, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 20, Turnhout: Brepols Guðrún Nordal. 2001. Tools of Literacy: The Role of Skaldic Verse in Icelandic Textual Culture of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, Toronto: University of Toronto Press Gunnell, Terry. 1995. The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer Gunnell, Terry. 2008. ‘The Performance of the Poetic Edda’, in The Viking World, ed. by Stefan Brink in collaboration with Neil Price, London: Routledge, 299–303 Gunnell, Terry. 2010. ‘Introduction: The Performative Stages of the Nordic World’, Ethnologia Europaea – Journal of European Ethnology 40:2, 5–13 Gunnsteinn Ólafsson, ed. 2004. Silfurplötur Iðunnar, Reykjavík: Kvæðamannafélagið Iðunn and Smekkleysa Hallgrímur Helgason. 1980. Íslenzkar tónmenntir: kvæðalög, forsaga þeirra, bygging og flutningsháttur, Reykjavík: Örn og Örlygur Hallfreður Örn Eiríksson. 1975. ‘On Icelandic Rimur: An Orientation’, Arv 31, 139–50 Harris, Joseph. 2003. ‘Ethnopaleography and Recovered Performance: The Problematic Witnesses to Eddic Song’, Western Folklore, Models of Performance in Oral Epic, Ballad, and Song 62:1/2, 97–117 Harris, Joseph. 2011. ‘Older Germanic Poetry, with a Note on the Icelandic Sagas’, in Medieval Oral Literature, ed. by Karl Reichl, Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Harris, Joseph and Karl Reichl. 2012. ‘Performance and Performers’, in Medieval Oral Literature, ed. by Karl Reichl, Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Heimir Pálsson. 2015. ‘Hugsað um Litlu Skáldu: Kennslubækur og kennsla á miðöldum’, Netla – Veftímarit um uppeldi og menntun, Reykjavík: Menntavísindasvið Háskóla Íslands Helgi Sigurðsson. 1891. Safn til bragfræði íslenzkra rímna að fornu og nýju, Reykjavík: Íslafoldarprentsmiðja Heusler, Andreas. 1941. Die altgermanische Dichtung, 2nd edn., Potsdam: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion Hreinn Steingrímsson. 2000. Kvæðaskapur: Icelandic Epic Song, ed. by Dorothy Stone and Stephen L. Mosko, Reykjavík: Mál og mynd Hughes, Shaun F. D. 1980. ‘Report on “Rímur” ’, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 79:4, 477–98 Hughes, Shaun F. D. 1982–9. ‘Rímur’, in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. by Joseph R. Strayer et al, 13 vols., New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons Hughes, Shaun F. D. 2007. ‘Late Secular Poetry’, in A Companion to Old Norse-­Icelandic Literature and Culture, ed. by Rory McTurk, Oxford: Blackwell, 205–22 Jón Helgason. 1969. ‘Höfuðlausnarhjal’, in Einarsbók: Afmæliskveðja til Einar Ól. Sveinssonar, 12. desember 1969, Reykjavík: Nokkrir vinir

302  Pétur Húni Björnsson Jón Helgason. 1972. ‘Eddasång’, Gardar 3, 15–49 Jón Þórarinsson. 2012. Íslensk tónlistarsaga 1000–1800, Kópavogur: Tónlistarsafn Íslands Kuhn, Hans. 1983. Das Dróttkvætt, Heidelberg: C. Winter Lindow, John. 1975. ‘Riddles, Kennings, and the Complexity of Skaldic Poetry’, Scandinavian Studies 47:3, 311–27 Nielsen, Svend. 1982. Stability in Musical Improvisation: A Repertoire of Icelandic Epic Songs, trans. by Kate Mahaffy, Copenhagen: Forlaget Kragen Nielsen, Svend. Forthcoming. 10 íslenskir kvæðamenn, ed. by Rósa Þorsteinsdóttir and Pétur Húni Björnsson, Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum Mitchell, Stephen A. 1991. Heroic Sagas and Ballads, Ithaca: Cornell University Press Mitchell, Stephen A. 2001. ‘Performance and Norse Poetry: The Hydromel of Praise and the Effluvia of Scorn. The Albert Lord and Milman Parry Lecture for 2001’, Oral Tradition 16:1, 168–202 Mitchell, Stephen A. 2013. ‘Memory, Mediality, and the “Performative Turn”: Recontextualizing Remembering in Medieval Scandinavia’, Scandinavian Studies 85:3, 282–305 Ólafur Davíðsson. 1887–1903. Íslenzkar gátur, skemtanir, vikivakar og þulur, 4 vols., Copenhagen: Hið íslenzka bókmenntafjelag Ólafur Halldórsson. 1966. ‘Rímur’, in Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder fra vikingetid til reformationstid, Vol. 10, Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger Peter Alvin Jorgensen. 1993. ‘Rímur’, in Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, ed. by Phillip Pulsiano and Kirsten Woolf, New York and London: Garland Pétur Húni Björnsson. 2020. ‘Rímur um rímur – Hvað má lesa úr elstu rímum um rímnahefðina?’ unpublished masters thesis, University of Iceland, hdl.handle.net/1946/34657 Potter, John. 2018. ‘Issues in the Modern Performance of Medieval Music’, in The Cambridge History of Medieval Music, ed by Mark Everist and Thomas Forrest Kelly, 2. vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Quinn, Judy. 2020. ‘Orality, Textuality and Performance’, in  A Critical Companion to Old Norse Literary Genre,  ed. by Massimiliano Bampi, Carolyne Larrington and Sif Rikhardsdottir, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer Rowe, Elizabeth Ashman. 2005. The Development of Flateyjarbók. Iceland and the Norwegian Dynastic Crisis of 1389, The Viking Collection: Studies in Northern Civilization 15, Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark Rósa Þorsteinsdóttir, ed. 2018. Segulbönd Iðunnar, Reykjavík: Kvæðamannafélagið Iðunn and Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum Sigurður Nordal. 1924. ‘Samhengið í íslenzkum bókmenntum’, in Íslenzk lestrarbók 1400–1900, ed. by Sigurður Nordal, Reykjavík: Bókaverzlun Sigfúsar Eymundssonar, ix–xxxii Stefán Einarsson. 1955. ‘Report on Rímur’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 54:2, 255–61 Stevens, John. 1986. Words and Music in the Middle Ages: Song, Narrative, Dance and Drama, 1050–1350, Cambridge Studies in Music, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson. 1953. Bragfræði og Háttatal, Reykjavík: Leiftur Sveinn Skorri Höskuldsson. 1993. Benedikt á Auðnum, íslenskur endurreisnarmaður, Reykjavík: Mál og menning Sverrir Tómasson. 1996. ‘ “Suptungs mjöðurinn sjaldan verður sætur fundinn.” Laufás Edda og áhrif hennar’, in Guðamjöður og arnarleir, ed. by Sverrir Tómasson, Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan Sverrir Tómasson. 2005. ‘Hlutverk rímna í íslensku samfélagi’, Ritið 5:3, 77–94 Vésteinn Ólason. 1976. ‘Nýmæli í íslenskum bókmenntum á miðöld’, Skírnir 150, 68–87

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Index

Note: Page numbers in italics indicate a figure and page numbers in bold indicate a table on the corresponding page. abbreviation practices 192 – 3, 197 – 8, 201 – 5, 207, 210n3 ’Abd al-Rahmān II 159 ’Abd al-Rahmān III 163 accretive quotation 9, 134 – 53 að kveða 284 – 5, 289, 296 Æsir 96 – 7, 234 Africa 278; see also North Africa Agorander, Daniel Lindman 251 al-Andalus 159 – 60, 163, 182 al-Baghdadi, Said 167 al-Ghazāl 159 – 60, 182 al-Hakkam II 163 Allah 166, 183n5 alliteration 8, 66 – 75, 78 – 9, 80n17, 115 – 16, 118, 120 – 2, 125n15, 125n18, 131, 200 al-Mansur 163, 167 al-Mughīra 163, 164, 165, 167 Alþingi 225 Alvíssmál 58, 208 AM 748 I 4to 85, 104n24 AM 748 I a 197, 207 AM 748 I a 4to 192 amalgamation 172 ambitus 293 amplification 89, 95 Andra rímur 294 Andre VIII 175 animal imagery 9 anonymity 8, 111 – 24, 228 Áns rímur 297 answers 32, 86, 124, 232; echo answers 8, 86, 89 – 91, 101; echoing (‘repetitiontype’) 91; ‘interjection-type’ 91 Aquitaine 176

archaeologists 5; performance 228 – 9; post-processual 4; musical 275 archaeology 21, 36n13, 37n20, 80n7; experimental 257; Old Norse 4; see also ‘performance archaeology’; ‘performance archaeology’ approach Ardre VIII picture stone 174, 174, 185 Aristophanes 247 Aristotle 55 artefacts 160 – 2, 166 – 8, 171, 173, 176, 178, 181 – 2, 184, 206; cast bronze 168; decorated 166, 182; Islamic 160 – 2; ivory 163; material 179; religious 178; Scandinavian 160 – 2; Viking Age 161, 171 – 2, 182 Ásatrúarfélag 292 Ásgarðr 112 Atlakviða 116, 120 – 2, 124n4, 125n17, 132 – 3, 224 Atlamál 73, 120 – 1, 125n7, 127n50, 130 – 2 Atli (Attila the Hun) 116, 120, 122 – 3, 124n8, 125n17, 126n25, 127n50, 131, 269 – 70 Auden, W. H. 261 audience 1 – 4, 6 – 7, 10, 23, 29 – 30, 48 – 9, 52 – 3, 57 – 9, 66, 73, 94 – 6, 103n5, 103n11, 115, 120, 124, 137 – 8, 142, 146 – 7, 150 – 1, 173, 197, 207, 221, 223 – 5, 228 – 9, 231 – 5, 240, 242 – 3, 246 – 51, 254 – 6, 258, 261 – 2, 284 – 5, 294 – 5; contemporary 245, 285; listening 95, 147; medieval 9, 175, 226, 228, 232, 275; medievalist 268; modern 10, 220, 226, 242, 248; postmedieval 228; reading 147

Index  305 auralisation 66 aural sense impressions 8, 63 – 79, 80n15; in fornyrðislag poetry 73 – 9; in ljóðaháttr and málaháttr poetry 67 – 73 Bakhtin, Mikhail 86 Baldr 69, 114, 245 Baldrsdraumar 104n19, 224 ballads 8, 21, 30, 35n8, 57 – 8, 60n20, 113, 195 – 6, 205, 274; medieval 53; Scandinavian 56, 60n20; see also names of ballads Bamberg casket 175, 177 – 8 baptism 177 bard 270, 276, 279 Barthes, Roland 8, 48 – 50 Bauman, Richard 23, 63 – 4, 66 – 7, 79 Bede 117 Begleitprosa 137, 153n4 Benedikt Jónsson 290; Íslensk Þjóðlög 290 Beowulf 4, 10, 117, 127n44, 268 – 79, 279 – 80n2 Bergbúa þáttr 288 – 9 beyond-literal meaning 64, 66 – 7, 72 – 4, 79 Bible 208 Bjarka rímur 297 Boethius 153n1, 276 Book of Kells 178, 184 Bósa saga ok Herrauðs 194 Bourdieu 2 Bragi 69, 112, 125n15 Bragi Boddason 172 – 3, 297 – 8 Bjarni Þorsteinsson 283, 289 – 90; Íslenzk þjóðlög 283, 289 broadsides 195 Bronze Age 4 Brot af Sigurðarkviðu (Brot) 104n19, 119 – 20, 126n24, 130 – 1, 133 Brynhildr (Brynhild) 118 – 20, 122 – 4, 126n24, 126n26, 127n50, 130, 224, 269 bull 164, 165, 165, 173 Byggvir 223 call-and-response pattern/structure 93, 235 Cambridge myth-and-ritual-school 65, 80n4 Cammin casket 175, 177 Campbell, Joseph 242 Cassiodorus 177, 179; Exposition of the Psalms 177 chanting 196, 259, 260 Chartres 176

Chomsky, Noam 34n5 chorus 243, 249, 283 Christ 37n25, 114 Christianisation process 1 Christianity 10 – 11n2, 115, 161, 176, 195, 211n9, 271 cithara 275, 277 – 8 climate change 241 Codex Regius (R) 75, 85, 95, 100, 102n2, 115, 122 – 3, 191 – 2, 197, 201 – 3, 205, 208 – 9, 211 – 12n14, 212n15, 228, 271; see also Konungsbók (K) Codex Wormianus 212n15 codicology 227 collocations 8, 117 – 18, 122, 124, 125 – 6n23, 126n31, 221 Cologne 176 comedy 229 – 30, 232 ‘communicative competence’ 34n5 competence: ‘communicative’ 34n5; ‘cultural’ 20, 195; ‘linguistic’ 20, 34n5; ‘narrative’ 34n5 conjuring tricks 245 Consolatio Philosophiae 153n1 consonance, concepts of 276, 279 Constantinople 2, 10 – 11n2, 243, 286 conversational turn-taking 99 Conversion, the 117, 124 Córdoba, Caliphate of 162 – 7; Emirate of 159 cosmogony 74 – 5 cross-speaker echo 86, 88, 94, 96, 101 cross-speaker repetition 86 – 7, 89, 91 – 4, 99 cue-scripts 222, 235 ‘cultural competence’ 20, 195 Darraðarljóð 259 David (King) 183n4, 278 declamation 53, 59, 291 deixis see person deixis; space deixis de la Borde, Jean-Benjamin 271 – 2 Denmark 35n8, 176 – 7, 184 – 5 Derrida, Jacques 8, 48, 51, 53, 55 – 6 de Saussure, Ferdinand 34n5, 35n6 ‘diagraph’ 89 – 90, 100, 197 dialogic syntax 8, 86, 89 – 91 Disticha Catonis 115 ‘double scene’ 3; double-scene phenomenon 37n19, 229 drápa 148, 286 Dronke, Ursula 85 – 8, 90, 95, 97, 100 – 1, 102n2, 103n6, 104n23, 114, 125n11, 225

306 Index dróttkvætt poetry 284, 294 – 5, 297; detthent variation 295; skjálfhent variation 295 Du Bois, John 8, 86, 89 – 90, 100 – 1, 103n14 echo answers 8, 86, 89 – 91, 101 echoed speech 85 – 102 echo patterns 92 echo questions 91 Edda 4, 10, 70, 81n18, 135, 138, 172, 207, 224, 240, 242, 268 – 79; see also Eddan; Poetic Edda; Snorra Edda Eddan 240, 242, 245 – 6, 248 eddic dialogues 10, 85 – 7 eddic dramas 2 eddic orality 9, 191 – 210 eddic poems 2, 4, 8, 10, 57 – 8, 65, 71, 76, 103n11, 111 – 16, 124n3, 124 – 5n9, 181, 191 – 7, 205 – 10, 211n8, 211n10, 219, 223 – 4, 227 – 8, 237n5, 240, 242, 247, 259, 269 – 71, 274 – 5, 277, 292, 297 eddic poetry 8, 10, 56 – 8, 60n20, 65, 86, 90, 111 – 24, 125n17, 153n1, 173 – 4, 191 – 2, 194 – 5, 197, 205 – 7, 210, 237n2, 271, 282, 298 Edmund (Saint) 121 – 2, 133 Egill Skallagrímsson 125n15, 126n29, 256, 259, 285, 294, 297 – 8, 298n1; Höfuðlausn 259 – 60, 285, 294, 297 – 8, 298n1 Egils saga 285; Höfuðlausn episode 285 Eikþyrnir 179 – 81 Einar Gilsson 283, 294; Óláfs ríma Haraldssonar 283 – 4, 294 Einar Skúlason 148, 284, 298 Eiríkr (King Eiríkr blóðøx) 24, 68 – 9, 142, 285, 298n1 Eiríksmál 8, 68 – 70, 72 – 3, 80n10, 111 – 12, 116, 124n6, 125n17, 125n19 Eiríks saga rauða 224 – 5, 243, 286 – 7 ekphrasis 162, 173, 182 Eliot, T. S. 125n14 epics 205, 279, 280n3; Finno-Karelian kalevalaic 205; heroic 277; Homeric 205; medieval 268 – 79; North Russian bylina- 205; oral 22, 269, 273; South Slavic 23, 205 eschatology 74 – 6 ethnolinguistics 22 euhemerism 210 – 11n6 Europe 20, 22 – 3, 159 – 61, 177, 271, 279 European Romantic Nationalism 193 – 4

evidence stanzas 9, 134 – 52; complex 9, 135, 139, 143 – 52, 148, 149; simple 9, 139 – 43, 142 exclusivity, ideology of 193 Eyvindr skáldaspillir Finnsson 67 Fafnir 120, 269 Fáfnismál 113, 115, 197, 203, 224 Fáfnismál-Sigrdrífumál 197 Fagrskinna 9, 80n10, 134 – 53, 151, 153n2, 153n3, 153n8 farce 229 Fenrir 116; Fenrisúlfr 68 ferhenda 262 ferskeytla 262 fertility myth 85 fiddle 275, 279, 280n15 Finnegan, Ruth 2, 66, 79, 80n3, 225 Finn Fragment 117 Finnur Magnússon 2 Fitjar, Battle of 67 Flateyjarbók 36 – 7n18, 283 – 5, 288, 294 flute 264, 275, 279; see also swanbone flute flyting 27, 87 – 8, 103n9, 229 – 30, 234 – 5; exchanges 86; matches 87; over-water 230; pantomime 229; Scottish 36 – 7n18 Foley, John Miles 2, 20, 23, 63 – 7, 79, 80n1, 80n3, 262 folklore 21 – 3, 34n2, 35n8, 35n9, 35n10, 211n12, 289 folkloristics 5, 20 – 2, 35n9, 282 – 3 folklorists 3, 20, 22, 35n10 folk music 282 – 3, 293 fornaldarsögur (sing. fornaldarsaga) 27, 112, 124n2, 135, 287 fornyrðislag poetry 63, 73 – 9, 196, 297 Fosse, Jon 4, 10, 240, 242, 245, 247 Frake, Charles O. 19, 25, 27, 33, 36n15 Freud, Sigmund 60n10 Freyja 76 – 7, 132 – 3, 199 Freyr 85 – 6, 89 – 97, 100 – 2, 102n2, 102 – 3n4, 103n6, 104n18, 104n22, 253 fricatives 66, 74 – 5, 77 Frigg 253 functional anonymity 113 funeral pyre 118 galdralag metre 8, 92, 99, 262 gammelstev 262 Geisli 284, 298 Gemini (constellation) 164 Gerðr 8, 85, 87 – 9, 91 – 101, 102 – 3n4, 104n18, 104n22, 104n23 Germanic harp 275 – 6, 276

Index  307 Germanic peoples 117, 270 Germany 175, 184, 275, 276; Bamberg 161, 184 Globe Theatre 246 gnomic 58, 111; poem 71 gothikon dance 2, 243 Gotlandic picture stones 9, 168 – 9, 174 Grágás 123, 126n34, 132 – 3 Gräter, Friedrich David 2 Great Mosque of Damascus 166 Greek drama 65, 220, 243, 250 Grettis saga 285, 288 Grímnismál 8, 65 – 6, 70 – 3, 113, 125n17, 132, 171, 179, 207 – 9, 210n5, 224, 231, 259 Grípisspá 119, 126n24, 127n50, 130 – 3 Grógaldr 124n2, 126n37, 133, 211n13 Grötta söngr (Grottasöngr) 212n15. 227 Guðmundr Arason, the Good (bishop) 283 Guðrún 24 – 5, 118 – 20, 126n25, 126n26, 127n50, 130, 269 Guðrúnarhvöt 119, 131, 203 Guðrúnarkviða: I 203; II 120, 125n17, 126n25, 127n38, 130 – 1, 133; III 120, 124 – 5n9, 131 Guðrúnarkviða in annarr 224 Gundestrup Cauldron 177 Gunnarr 116, 119 – 23, 124n8, 126n24, 127n50, 131, 175, 183n3, 269 Gunnell, Terry 1 – 10, 10 – 11n2, 11n3, 47, 58, 63, 65 – 7, 70, 74, 77, 79, 80n2, 80n7, 80n17, 86, 103n5, 103n11, 104n20, 181 – 2, 191, 196, 219, 221 – 9, 236 – 7n1, 237n8, 243, 249, 262 Gylfaginning 102n3, 114, 135, 180, 195, 209 – 10, 234 Hafrsfjördr, Battle of 69 – 70, 80n11 Haga, Paul-Ottar 252 Hákon (King Hákon góði) 67, 69, 134 – 5, 153n3, 286, 288 – 9 Hákonarmál 8, 67 – 8, 70, 72 – 3, 75, 80n10, 116, 125n17 Hákonar saga 134 – 5 Håkonshallen (King Håkon’s Hall), Bergen, Norway 266 Hamðismál 119, 122, 133, 203, 224 Haraldr Gormsson (Harald Bluetooth) 176 Haraldr hárfagri Hálfdanarson 69, 80n11, 141, 143 – 7, 149 Haraldskvæði (Hrafnsmál) 8, 68 – 70, 72 – 3, 79, 143, 150 Hárbarðr 228 – 35 Hárbarðsljóð 10, 58, 87 – 8, 125n17, 126n27, 222, 228 – 36

hardingfele tradition 279 harp 268, 275 – 8, 288; see also Germanic harp Harris, Joseph 47 – 8, 56 – 8, 60n20, 103n10, 103n11, 138, 201 – 2, 204, 280n8 Háttatal 37n26, 208, 292, 295 háttleysa 284 Hauksbók (H) 80n16, 81n18, 113, 115, 209 Haustlöng 125n15, 171, 173 Hávamál 8, 71 – 3, 80n14, 113 – 15, 121, 124n3, 124n7, 127n38, 131 – 3, 197 – 9, 209, 211n13, 244, 259, 262; Rúnatal 262 Heggen 177, 186 Heidegger, Martin 51 Heimir Pálsson 4, 80n2, 272 – 3 Heimskringla 134, 137, 153n8, 286, 288 heiti (poetic synonyms) 284 Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar (Helgakviða Hjörvarzsonar) 121, 132, 203 Helgakviða Hundingsbana I (HH I) 202 – 3, 211 – 12n14 Helgakviða Hundingsbana II (HH II) 125n17, 126n30, 202 – 4, 209, 211 – 12n14 Helgi poems 118, 204 Helreið Brynhildar 120, 125n17, 126n25, 130, 132, 224 Henry V 246 heroic legend 111 Hildebrandslied 117 Historia Ecclesiastica 117 hjástæltr 172 Höfuðlausn 259 – 60, 285, 294, 297 – 8, 298n1 Hólsbók 283 Hrafnsmál see Haraldskvæði (Hrafnsmál) Hugsvinnsmál 115, 124n5 Huizinga, Johan 2 Hulda-Hrokkinskinna 288 Húsdrápa 24, 173 Husserl, Edmund 51 Hymiskviða 121 – 2, 127n40, 132 – 3 hymns 205 – 6 Hyndluljóð 113, 125n17 Iberian Peninsula 9, 160 – 2, 176 Iceland 11, 10 – 11n2, 24 – 6, 29, 33, 60n16, 222, 244, 262, 269 – 1, 272, 274, 279, 283, 289 – 90, 296 – 7 Icelandic rímur 9 – 10, 195 – 6, 273 iconography 161, 163, 166 – 8, 175, 177 – 9, 181 – 2, 249

308 Index intercalary phrases/clauses 171 – 2 inter-speaker echo 86 – 7 intonation 51, 64, 87, 90 – 1, 93, 101, 103n16, 104n24, 230, 233 – 4, 295 Ireland 160, 184 Iron Age 4, 263; Late 171 Isidore of Seville, Saint 177, 179; Etymologies 177 Islam 161, 167 Islamic art 161, 164 Islamic artefacts 160 – 2 Islamic world 9, 160 – 1 Íslendingasögur 288 Jelling Stone II 176 – 7 Jerome, Saint 177; Homilies 177 Jingju 241 – 2 joik 4, 263 Jörmungandr 173 jötnar 78, 241 – 2 Jötunheimr 78, 94, 232 kalevalaic: epics 205; poetry 211n12 Kalīla wa-Dimna 165, 165 Källunge 177, 186 kenningar (periphrastic expressions) 284 kennings 111, 122, 127n40, 168, 171 – 2, 176 Knútr inn ríki (Cnut the Great) 176 Kollsbók 283 – 4 konungasögur 135 – 6 Konungsbók (K) 80n16, 111, 113 Krossnesbók 283 Kulle, Hanna 252 kvæðalög ‘songs for kveða’ 290 kvæðamaður 282, 290 – 2, 294, 296 – 7 Kvæðamannafélagið Iðunn 282 – 3, 289 – 90; Segulbönd Iðunnar 290, 292; Silfurplötur Iðunnar 289 – 90 kvæðamenn 289 – 1, 293, 297 kvæði 24, 142, 144, 151 – 2, 285, 287 – 9, 291 kveða 224, 233, 284, 286 – 7, 289 – 90, 295 – 7, 298n4 kveðandi 286 – 90, 295, 297 – 8 Kveðnar Drápur 10, 282 – 98 Kveðnar Rímur 10, 282 – 98 Lacan, Jacques 8, 48, 50 – 1, 59n7, 59 – 60n8, 60n9, 60n10 Language Analysis for the Determination of Origin (LADO) 91 Late Antiquity 177 Latin (language) 53, 115, 117, 134 – 5, 138, 271

law rock 225 Laxdæla saga 24, 286 leitmotif 91 Leo (constellation) 165 lieder 296 linguistic anthropology 22, 34n4, 34n5 ‘linguistic competence’ 20, 34n5 lion 159, 163, 164, 165, 165, 167 literacy 54, 59n2, 60n16, 192 – 4 literature 21, 35n8, 36n13, 36 – 7n18, 103n15, 168, 210n4, 223, 225 – 6, 244, 282; continental 210 – 11n6; Icelandic 283; medieval 48, 52 – 3; medieval Icelandic 282; Muslim adventure 160; post-medieval 226; saga 194, 209; Scandinavian 53; see also Old Norse literature; oral literature Litla Skálda (Eddica Minora) 284 ljóðaháttr 8, 58, 63, 67 – 70, 72, 89, 92, 116, 196, 223, 225, 262 ljóðaháttr poems 8, 70 ljóðaháttr poetry 67 – 73, 76, 79 logocentrism 55 – 6 logos 55 Lokasenna 2 – 3, 58, 87, 104n19, 113, 125n16, 126n37, 133, 209, 222 – 3 Loki 77, 104n19, 113 – 14, 133, 223, 234, 237n7, 269 Lönnroth, Lars 3, 22, 34n2, 36n13, 37n19, 37n20, 88, 244, 249 Lord, Albert 2, 6, 8, 22 – 3, 57, 280n3; The Singer of Tales 22, 280n3 loudness 90, 103n16, 294 – 5 lygisögur ‘lying sagas’ 26 lyre 264, 275 Mahler, Gustav 253 Mammen style 9, 161, 175 – 8, 183n7 mannjafnaðr 27, 58, 87, 228 – 9 mansöngr ‘courtly love poem’ 285 – 6 manuscript-based performance 192; see also manuscript performance manuscript performance 9, 192 – 3, 195 – 200, 204 – 10, 210n2 masking traditions 3, 10 – 11n2 material culture 5, 167 McMahon, Brian 3 – 4, 7, 10, 93, 102m 102n1, 104n18, 104n22, 219 – 36, 240 – 53, 254 – 66 mediality 53 – 6 medieval instruments 4, 10, 255 medievalists 19, 21 – 2, 51, 226, 268 medieval music 4, 258 medieval re-enactment 262 – 3 medieval texts 10, 53, 59, 177, 193, 219, 221

Index  309 mental texts 66 Merseburg Charms 117 metrical text 194 – 5 Middle Ages 21, 33, 52 – 4, 177, 243, 269 – 70, 272, 279 Milton, John 125n14 Mindanao Island 25, 27, 33, 34n3 minni ‘memory’ toasts 29 – 30 ‘mirror and surpass’ function 86 – 7 mirroring effect 87, 228 modal language 272 modal song 273 modern dramaturgical approach 232 – 6 Morkinskinna 288 motifs 113, 115, 161 – 3, 167 – 73, 176, 178 – 9; anaphoric 86; animal 178; aristocratic 161; Christian 168; courtly poetic 163; epistrophic 86; hybrid 168 – 72; melodic 292; mythological 174; pagan 178; secular 178; stock 166, 168 – 72; vegetal 163, 166, 177; verbal 167; verbal poetic 162; visual 173; see also leitmotif mound-sitting 225 mythology 172, 193 – 5, 210 – 11n6, 242, 270; heathen 112; Irish 210 – 11n6; non-Christian 194, 210 – 11n6; Nordic 70; pagan 111; pre-Christian 117; vernacular 194 – 5, 206 myths 65, 113, 116, 173, 175, 183n3, 219, 240 – 2, 245, 247 – 8, 259, 269 – 70; fertility 85; North European 241 narrative(s) 20, 23, 25 – 6, 58, 76, 102, 134 – 9, 142 – 8, 150 – 3, 160 – 1, 173 – 4, 211n7, 224, 240, 243, 245, 248, 268 – 70, 273, 279, 287; action 168; content 63 – 4, 67, 70, 73, 116; contexts 194; dramatised 85; eddic 173; energy 270; flow 140; medieval 19, 37n19; meta- 34; monologue 73; mythological 76, 175; prose 134 – 5, 137, 139; prosimetric 135; role 134; saga 135, 138, 144, 146, 150, 152 – 3, 194; situation 117; stanzas 76; third-person 79; tradition 113, 124 – 5n9; travel 160; verbal 163; voice 144; written 134; see also ‘narrative competence’; narrator ‘narrative competence’ 34n5 narrator 26, 29 – 30, 32, 74, 79, 120, 134, 138 – 9, 141, 143 – 4, 147 – 9, 151 – 3 nationalism 261; see also European Romantic Nationalism; Romantic Nationalism

Nesjavísur 151 – 2, 151 Nibelungenlied 119, 124n8 Nine Herbs Charm 117 Njáls saga 123 Nordic countries 1, 11 Nordic masking traditions 3, 11 Norns, the 252 Norse: East 115; West 115; see also Old Norse North Africa 160 North Sea 176 Norway 9, 24, 29, 67 – 9, 80n11, 135, 153n3, 160, 169, 176 – 7, 183n7, 185 – 6, 263, 266, 270, 274, 279, 284 Norwegian (language) 90, 240, 260, 262 Nūd 159 Oddrúnargrátr 113, 120, 127n50, 131 Odin see Óðinn Óðinn 69 – 73, 78, 87 – 8, 98, 112, 114, 116, 132, 171 – 2, 182n1, 208 – 9, 223 – 4, 228, 234, 237n7, 241, 245, 249, 252, 260 Óláfr Haraldsson, 141, 284 Óláfr [skautkonungr], 285 Óláfr Tryggvason, 284 Ólafur Davíðsson, 289; Íslenzkar gátur, skemtanir, vikivakar og þulur 289 Óláfs ríma Haraldssonar 283 – 4, 294 Old English (OE) (language): poetry 53, 117, 194; texts 2; verse 122, 126n32, 195 Old High German (language) 117 Old Icelandic (language) 102 – 3n4, 270, 274 Old Norse (ON) (language) 19, 80n2, 80n9, 90, 117, 135, 172, 260 Old Norse archaeology 4 Old Norse gods 182n1, 240 Old Norse literature 53, 172, 182n1, 204 Old Norse poems 7, 56, 223, 226, 251, 260, 264 Old Norse poetry 1, 5 – 10, 37n20, 47, 117, 121, 162, 168, 179, 197, 240, 243, 256 – 8, 260, 262, 282, 284, 296 – 7; aural sense impressions in 63 – 79; in performance 10, 19, 34n1, 34n2, 48, 59n3, 102n1, 191, 219 – 36, 254, 257; performance of 37n20, 59, 243, 256, 282; performing, in visual art 9, 159 – 82, 221; vocality in 56 – 9 Old Norse studies 3, 47 – 8, 53, 56, 65, 153n1, 226 Old Norse texts 2, 8, 53, 153n1 Old Norse traditions 65, 125 – 6n23

310 Index Old Norse verse 111, 118, 122 – 3 Old Norse world 1, 3, 9, 27, 34n2 Ong, Walter 23, 56 onomatopoetic expressions 64 opera 241, 263, 283, 296 oralité 51 – 2, 60n21; see also orality orality 2 – 3, 7, 9, 47 – 50, 52, 54, 56 – 9, 60n16, 60n21, 63 – 5, 192 – 3, 262, 297; see also eddic orality oral literature 22, 47, 57, 225, 227; South Slavic 22 oral performance 2, 5, 7 – 8, 10, 26, 59, 63 – 6, 72 – 3, 79, 102n2, 138, 143, 192 – 3, 196, 205 – 7, 212n16, 226 oral performance practices 192 – 3, 210 oral poetry 1 – 2, 5, 10 – 11n2, 48, 57 – 8, 63 – 5, 77, 80n3, 195 – 6, 198, 205, 272, 279, 280n3, 297; and performance theory 63 – 5 oral texts 2, 10 – 11n2, 23 oral theory 22 – 3 oral tradition 2, 9, 52, 54, 114, 124, 138, 143, 147 – 8, 192 – 3, 195, 197, 206 – 8, 210n1, 210n4, 248, 262, 264, 270, 272, 279, 296, 298 oral transmission 52, 221 oral-written debate 53, 56, 80n3 orthography 192, 205 Örvar-Odds saga 37n19, 225, 288 Other/Otherness 50 – 2, 56, 59 – 60n8, 60n10, 160 Óttars þáttr svarta 285 – 6; Höfuðlausn episode 285 paganism 111, 159 – 61, 178, 194 – 5, 210 – 11n6, 211n8, 247, 259, 269 – 72, 277 Paradise Lost 115, 125n14 parallelism 55, 87, 89 – 90, 99 – 100, 103n15, 235; multimedial 103n13, 103n14 Parry, Milman 2, 6, 8, 22 – 3, 56 – 7 patter song 235 performance: acoustic 255; aftermath 6; arena 233; artefactual 162; community 293; composition-in- 205; contemporary 90, 220, 226, 248; contexts 7, 19 – 34, 63 – 5, 80n1, 102n2, 260; dramatic 3 – 4, 10 – 11n2, 89, 101; eddic 271, 275; epic 23, 268; experimental 4, 7; group 293; live 7; masked 2; medieval performance 231, 251, 264; modern 2, 90, 221,

226 – 8, 234, 236, 243, 256; musical 167, 269, 294; oral 2, 5, 7 – 8, 10, 26, 59, 63 – 6, 72 – 3, 79, 102n2, 138, 143, 192 – 3, 196, 205 – 7, 210, 212n16, 226; poetic 4 – 5, 9, 49, 52, 196, 260, 285; poetical 56, 59; poetry 160, 162, 285 – 7, 297; practice-as-research 221, 223; proto- 6; ritual 4 – 5, 103n14, 197; saga 60n19; satirical 243; seiðr 243; semi-dramatic 4; skaldic 10, 63, 139, 143, 146, 211n11, 263, 295; song-like 290; space 37n20, 79, 246; sung 271; three-dimensional 221, 225; verbal 33; of verse 9, 134 – 53; visual 162, 178 – 82; vocal 273, 286; see also manuscript performance; manuscript-based performance; ‘performance archaeology’; performance markers; Performance Studies; performance theory; rímur ‘performance archaeology’ 7, 10, 221, 223 – 6, 236; approach 3, 228 – 32 performance markers 8, 63 – 5, 67, 72, 79 Performance Studies 3, 5, 7, 22 – 3, 34n4, 47, 56, 219 – 20, 227, 236 performance theory 10 – 11n2, 21 – 3; in Old Norse context 65 – 7; and oral poetry 63 – 5 performatives 72 – 3 performative storytelling ‘event’ 3 performative turn 56, 60n18 performer(s) 2 – 3, 5 – 6, 10 – 11n2, 58, 63, 66, 72 – 3, 79, 86 – 9, 91, 93, 97, 101, 113, 115, 197, 205, 207 – 9, 212n16, 220 – 4, 227 – 33, 243, 247 – 9, 255 – 7, 260, 268 – 9, 273 – 5, 282, 286 – 7, 291, 293 – 7 performing manuscript 210n2 pergament 1, 7 periphrastic style 168, 171, 284 person deixis 72 – 3, 79 phenomenology 51, 56 Phillpotts, Bertha 2 – 3, 7, 65, 80n4, 85, 103n11 phonocentrism 55, 57 Physiologus 177, 183n4 Pirminius 117 pitch 90, 94, 103n16, 280n13, 294 – 6 pitch accent languages 90 plays 6, 10 – 11n2, 220 – 3, 240 – 2, 225, 247 – 50 Pliny the Elder 177, 183n6; Historia Naturalis 177, 183n6

Index  311 poems: Anglo-Saxon 274; Christian religious 112; dialogic 4, 58; dialogue 85; dróttkvætt 295; epic 284; fornyrðislag 73, 76; gnomic 71; heroic 111, 113, 201 – 5; medieval 220 – 1; monologic 4; mythological 194, 197 – 201, 203, 205 – 6; oral 63, 192, 207, 270; oralderived 65; pagan 195; pictorial 162; picture 173; praise 67 – 70, 76, 116; written 5, 196 – 7, 219, 221; see also eddic poems; epics; Helgi poems; ljóðaháttr poems; mansöngr ‘courtly love poem’; Old Norse poems; skaldic poems Poetic Edda 9, 10 – 11n2, 87, 103n11, 104n19, 111 – 12, 191, 224, 226, 240, 242 – 5, 248 – 9 poetic metres 8, 63, 65 poetry: alliterative 68, 274; aural/oral 205 – 6; battle 259; court 162; courtly praise 173; dialogic 6; dialogue 90; dróttkvætt 284, 294; epic 268, 270, 272; Finno-Karelian kalevalaic 211n12; folk 210 – 11n6; Germanic 274; fornyrðislag 63, 73 – 4, 79; Homeric 220; Icelandic 282; love 166; málaháttr 67, 73, 79; medieval 47, 52, 57, 268, 270; metrical 257; monologic 6; oral 1 – 2, 5, 10 – 11n2, 48, 57 – 8, 63 – 5, 80n3, 195 – 6, 198, 272, 279, 280n3, 297; oral-derived 63 – 5; panegyric 167; praise 285; ‘sung’ 167, 196, 279; vernacular 196; see also eddic poetry; fornyrðislag poetry; ljóðaháttr poetry; Old English poetry; Old Norse poetry; oral poetry; skaldic poetry; slam poetry Poland 161, 175, 184; Cammin 161, 176, 184 polyptoton 95 practice-as-research 221 – 3, 236, 262; and performance archaeology 223 – 6 prayers 206 promptbooks 222, 226 prose 1, 4, 9, 20, 37n26, 102, 102n2, 104n19, 114, 117 – 18, 123, 125n14, 126n28, 133, 134 – 53, 142, 148, 149, 151, 153n1, 153n4, 204, 211 – 12n14, 224 – 5, 228, 232 – 3; explanatory 138; introductory 230, 232; legal 121, 132; Old Norse 37n20; saga 134 – 5, 147, 204; vernacular 117 prosimetra 9, 135, 146, 153n4 ‘prosimetrum’ 139, 147, 153n1, 153n4

prosodics 228 proxemics 228 Pseudo-Vatnshyrna 288 public reading 192, 196, 204, 208 – 9 Pythagoras 276 pyxis of al-Mughira 163 – 5, 164, 167 quotation 100, 113, 125n14, 137, 143, 151, 195, 204, 206 – 8, 226; evidence-based 136; see also accretive quotation Ragnarök 68, 75, 114, 116, 245, 262 Ragnarsdrápa 125n15, 173, 297 Ragnars saga loðbrókar ok sona hans 259 Ramsund stone carvings 183n3 rapping 196 reading 1, 8, 11n3, 30, 48 – 9, 52 – 3, 65 – 6, 73, 147, 160, 167, 172, 178 – 9, 182, 191 – 3, 195 – 7, 200, 204 – 5, 208, 219, 221, 224, 230 – 1, 233 – 4, 241, 257, 274 – 5, 283, 288; aloud 48 – 9, 53, 59n4, 227, 231; as comic 229; oral performance 206; private 204, 233; social 192; see also public reading Reginsmál 120 – 1, 131 – 2 register 51, 56, 59, 99, 169, 170, 174, 174, 196, 295 register theory 59 – 60n8 ‘reoralization’ 220 repetition 52, 58, 74 – 5, 81n18, 86 – 94, 100, 103n15, 113 – 14, 149 – 50, 169, 198 – 201, 203 – 4, 235, 288; crossspeaker 86 – 7, 89, 91, 99; dialogic 87; formal 89 – 90, 97; incremental 58; selective 92, 94; self- 99; structural 89 – 90; verbal 101; verbatim 86, 90, 97, 101 resonance 95 – 6, 224, 226, 228 reverberation 89 reverberative mode 94 – 6 rhyme 111, 124n3, 196, 273, 296 rhythm 4 – 5, 69, 74, 77, 89 – 90, 148, 151, 192, 195 – 6, 198, 211n11, 244, 255, 262, 287, 294 – 5 Richard III 236 Rígsþula 212n15 rímnakveðskapur 291 rímur 10, 262, 272, 274, 282 – 5, 292 – 4, 296 – 7, 298n3; Icelandic 10, 195, 273; melodies 282, 289 – 91; metres 282, 289 – 90, 292, 296; performance 10, 283, 289 – 92, 294, 296 – 8, 298n5;

312 Index performer 282, 291, 296; poetry 10; singer 273 Ringerike style 9, 161, 175 – 8, 183n7 ritual 6, 10 – 11n2, 11n3, 20, 24, 27, 65, 72, 194, 211n7, 242, 245, 247, 249, 259, 262; abuse 36 – 7n18; authorities 73; insults 87; language 76; leader 254; Old Norse 5; pagan 211n8; performances 4 – 5, 103n14, 197; processions 5; religious 2; seasonal vegetation 65; shamanic 5; spaces 5; speaking 196; specialist 76; speech 194, 211n7; see also Cambridge myth-andritual-school; ritual drama ritual drama 2, 85 Romanticism 56, 195, 210 – 11n6 Romantic Nationalism 194 Runaljod trilogy 258 runes 99, 111, 114, 261 rune stones 169, 177, 185 – 6; Vg181 177 sagas 9, 24 – 7, 37n25, 56, 134 – 5, 138, 147, 194, 204, 209, 224 – 5, 244, 258, 284, 286; Icelandic 244; kings’ 9, 134, 147, 288; Old Norse 224; prosimetric(al) 26, 137 – 8; see also names of specific sagas Saint Paul’s Cathedral 176 – 7 Saint Stephen Sword 175 Sámi 130, 247, 294 samtíðarsögur ‘contemporary sagas’ 25 San Isidoro de León 160, 162, 175 satirical dances 10 – 11n2 Scandinavia 10 – 11n2, 22, 25, 80n2, 160 – 2, 167 – 8, 173, 176, 182, 193, 244, 271 Scarapsus 117 Schaefer, Ursula 8, 47 – 8, 53 – 8, 60n19 Schechner, Richard 3, 5 – 6, 219 seeress 73, 224 – 5; see also völva seiðr 234, 243 selective repetition 92, 94 Selvik, Einar 4, 7, 10, 227, 254 – 65, 265, 266 sennur (sing. senna) 27, 58, 87, 228 – 9 Sequentia 4, 7, 10, 269, 272 – 3, 279, 280n15 Sexstefja 147 Shakespeare, William 6, 10, 10 – 11n2, 220, 223, 226, 236, 246 shaman 254 shamanic chant 4 shamanism 5, 247, 249, 279

shapeshifting 172 Sicily 160 Sif 231, 234, 253 Sigmundr 112, 120 Sigrdrífumál 120, 125n16, 127n38, 131, 133, 197, 203, 211n13, 255, 262 Sigurd 269, 274 Sigurðarkviða in skamma 8, 117 – 22, 124, 125n17, 126n24, 126n25, 126n33, 130 – 1 Sigurðr 118 – 20, 122, 126n24, 126n26, 126n30, 127n50, 130 – 3, 174 – 5, 224, 286, 288 Sigurðr (King), 286, 288 Sigurður Breiðfjörð 292 – 3; Draugsríma 292; Númarímur 293 singer of tales 10, 268 – 79, 273, 275, 280n3 Singer of Tales, The 2, 22, 280n3 singing 37n23, 196, 256, 259 – 60, 262 – 3, 269, 272, 283, 286 – 7, 289 – 90, 295 – 6, 298n5 Skaði 85 – 6, 90, 92, 94, 101, 102n2, 103n6 skaldic poems 10 – 11n2, 111 – 12, 204, 209, 284, 295 skaldic poetry 4, 8 – 10, 90, 111, 125n15, 134, 138 – 9, 143, 171 – 2, 195, 207, 210 – 11n6, 248, 282, 284, 294 – 8 skálds 27 – 8, 67, 69, 143, 149, 150, 171 – 2, 176, 264, 283, 285 Skáldskaparmál 170 – 1, 207 – 8 Skírnir 8, 85, 87, 89, 91 – 101, 102n2, 104n18, 104n22, 224 Skírnismál 8, 58, 85 – 102, 102n3, 103n5, 103n10, 104n20, 113, 126n31, 132, 180, 222, 224 – 5, 237n9, 262 Skuld 252 slam poetry 1, 20 snake 168 – 9, 171 – 2, 175 – 7, 178, 179 – 81, 183n3, 183n4, 183n6, 259 Snorra Edda 24, 80n16, 114, 193 – 5, 206 – 7, 210n5, 210 – 11n6, 284, 288; Gylfaginning section of 195 Snorri Sturluson 70, 81n18, 102n3, 113 – 14, 134, 137 – 8, 172 – 3, 209, 210 – 11n6, 295 social reading practice 192 – 3 sociolinguistics 34n4, 34 – 5n5 Sólarljóð 112, 124n2 Sonatorrek 24, 256, 259 sönglög ‘songs for singing’ 290 ‘sounding’/‘playing the dozens’ 87

Index  313 South Slavic: epics 23, 205; oral literature 22 space deixis 79 Spain 9, 160 – 1, 184; see also al-Andalus speaking: ethnography of 19, 34n2; formalised 196; ritual 196 Spesar þáttr 285 – 6, 288 Staðarhólsbók 283 – 4 stælt 172 stag 177, 179 – 81, 183n4 Stanislavski, Konstantin 228, 244, 249 stanzas: complex evidence 9, 135, 139, 143 – 52, 148, 149; evidence 134 – 6, 138 – 9; fornyrðislag 66, 74; ljóðaháttr 68, 70, 72; málaháttr 67, 70, 72; mixed metre 72; narrative 76; poetic 64; simple evidence 9, 139 – 43, 142; skaldic 121, 134 – 5, 137 – 8, 295; speech 136; story/situational 134 – 6, 139, 143, 147, 153; types of 135 – 9 Steindór Andersen 282 stemmur (sing. stemma) 289 – 90, 292, 294 Stiklastaðir, battle at 284 Stinnerbom, Leif 4, 10, 227, 240 – 53 Stone Age 249 storytellers 240, 242, 246, 249, 251, 270, 273, 275, 287 storytelling 3 – 4, 20, 27, 33, 137, 242 – 3, 245 – 6, 250, 270, 287 Strömbäck, Dag 21 structuralism 51 Sturlu þáttr 287 Sturlunga saga 25, 243 Subanun 19, 25, 27, 33 suicide 118 – 20, 122 – 3 suspensions 198, 210n3 Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson 292 swanbone flute 277, 278, 279, 280n16 Sweden 3 – 4, 10, 21, 35n8, 169, 176 – 7, 179, 184 – 6, 242, 279 – 80n2, 285 Swedish (language) 35n10, 90, 104n17 syngja 290, 296 syntax 99; dialogic 8, 86, 89 – 90 Tacitus 117 Taurus (constellation) 165 texts see medieval texts; mental texts; metrical text; Old English; Old Norse texts; oral texts; written texts textual criticism 21, 227 therapeutic discourse 97, 104n21 Þingeyrar monastery 123 Thor see Þórr

timbre 51, 56, 59, 87, 90 Tjängvide picture stone 169, 170, 185 Tjurkö bracteate 1 111, 112, 116 transformational grammar 35n6 Tuan, Yi-Fu 3 tuning 276 – 9, 280n13; centered 277; diatonic 277; open 276 – 7; tetrachordal 277 Turner, Victor 2, 22, 38n35 tvisöngur 274 Two Lamentable Tragedies 222 Umayyad caliphate 184 Umayyad dynasty 162 Upplönd 147 Urd 252 Úlfr Uggason, 24, 173 Vafþrúðnir 132, 201, 223, 234 Vafþrúðnismál 58, 113, 116, 132, 200, 201, 207, 210n5, 211n13, 223 – 4, 234 valhöll 116, 125n17 Valhöll 70, 259 Váli 114 van Huene, Friedrich 278, 279 Varangians 243, 286 varðlokur 287 Västanå Teater, Sunne, Värmland 4, 10, 240, 245, 250 Vatnshyrna 288 Vellekla 148 Venus (constellation) 164 verbal duel/duelling 36 – 7n18, 228 – 30 Verdandi 252 verse-drama 225, 237n5 Víðarr 116 Víga-Glúms saga 123, 133 Viking Age 4 – 5, 9, 37n20, 63, 80n2, 80n11, 160 – 1, 167 – 8, 171 – 2, 176 – 7, 179, 181 – 2 Viking period 171, 260 Vikings 27, 274 Vikings (TV series) 254, 258 – 9 visual art: performing Old Norse Poetry in 9, 159 – 82 visual music 263 vocalité 47 – 8, 51 – 3, 55, 59n1; definition 52; see also vocality vocality 7, 47 – 59, 59n4; see also Zumthorian vocality vocal register 51, 59, 295 voice 30, 47 – 8, 52 – 9, 59n2, 59n5, 59 – 60n8, 60n10, 60n12, 60n21, 69,

314 Index 86, 89 – 90, 97, 103n11, 117 – 18, 123, 192, 196, 220, 222, 227, 243, 264, 270, 272 – 3, 275, 287 – 9, 293, 296, 298n4; narrative 144; as object of study 48 – 52; from the past 63 – 4 Vokalität 48, 53 – 6, 58, 60n19; see also vocality Vollzeilen (sing. Vollzeile) 196, 197 – 8, 200 Völsa þáttr 211n7 Völsunga saga 126n26, 183n3 Völsungakviða inni fornu (The Old Völsungakviða) 204, 209 Völsungsrímur 284 volume 5, 51, 56, 59, 87, 233 Völundarkviða 120, 126n29, 131 – 2, 203, 207 Völundr 126n29, 174; legend of 174 Völuspá 7 – 8, 65 – 6, 73 – 6, 79, 80n17, 113 – 15, 120, 122, 124n4, 125n11, 125n17, 131 – 3, 181, 199, 204 – 5, 209, 210n5, 224 – 5, 245, 247, 259, 262, 282; ‘Prophecy of the Seeress’ 271 Völu-Steinn 113 völva 224, 241, 243, 245, 249, 252, 288 Wardruna 4, 10, 254 – 5, 257 – 8, 266 Waste Land, The 115, 125n14

Wedding at Reykjahólar, The 7, 19 – 34 Wilgus, D. K. 21, 35n10 wordplay 27, 30, 37n26 written texts 9, 30, 48 – 9, 57, 192 – 7, 204 – 8, 212n16, 219 – 20, 223, 225, 227 – 8, 231 – 2, 243 – 4, 287; sacred 197 Yggdrasill 180, 252 Ymir 74, 271 Yugoslavia 2, 22, 280n3 Zealand 160, 173 Zumthor, Paul 8, 23, 47 – 8, 50 – 9, 59n1, 59 – 60n8, 60n12, 60n21 Zumthorian vocality 7, 47 – 59 Þjóðólfr Arnórsson 147 – 8, 149; Þjóðólfr ór Hvinir 150, 171, 173 Þorgils saga ok Hafliða 7, 23 – 33, 36n16 Þorláks saga Helga 288 Þórður Guðbjartsson, 291 Þórr 76 – 9, 87 – 8, 114, 122, 173 – 4, 179, 185, 199, 228 – 35, 251 Þrymskviða 8, 65 – 6, 76 – 9, 113, 124n3, 124 – 5n9, 199 – 200, 203