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a makeshift expedient for inserting metrically recalcitrant proper names.167
It should be noted that not all such names are actually recalcitrant – indeed
the Carolingian poets occasionally use tmetic and non-tmetic forms in
the same poem, as if to further display the device: thus ermoldus writes
Ebo sacer dudum Nortmannica regna peragrans ‘Bishop ebbo traversing the
nordic kingdoms just previously’ in Book IV line 147, as if to vary the
tmetic form in line 13.168 Also, although the requirements of Latin quantita-
tive verse and skaldic dróttkvætt are alike very strict, in practice the poets
could avail themselves of a wide variety of expedients towards correctness
of metre – among them in both traditions a plenitude of poetic synonyms
and considerable freedom of word and phrase order.
Carolingian Influence on skaldic Poetry:
Possible Conduits
ekphrasis and tmesis: through what agency could these artistic features
have been adopted into native scandinavian poetry from imperial exem-
plars? It is highly probable that the danes, as the people that most sustain-
edly consorted with empire, would have functioned as the intermediary
for any scandinavian adoption and adaptation of current european artistic
fashions. norway, particularly Vestfold, Vest-Agder and other areas con-
trolled partially or wholly by danish kings and their norwegian agents,
may have experienced similar cultural influences during the ninth century.169
We see hints of a parallel development in the plastic arts, whereby plant
ornamentation was adapted from Carolingian sources into scandinavian
artifacts towards the end of the ninth century.170 Carolingian coins were
emulated, either for local coinage or for brooches and pendants,171 the lat-
ter evidently as a fashion statement.172
167 though cf. Gade, The Structure, 215.
168 Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini, 2:62.
169 Clunies Ross, ‘stylistic and Generic definers’, 163–4; cf. fuglesang, ‘ekphrasis and
surviving Imagery’, 211–12.
170 david Wilson and ole klindt-jensen, Viking Art, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: university of
Minnesota Press, 1980), 93.
171 james Graham-Campbell, The Viking World, 3rd ed. (London: frances Lincoln, 2001),
116.
172 Ildar H. Garipzanov, ‘Carolingian Coins in ninth-Century scandinavia: A norwegian
Perspective’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 1 (2005): 55–6.
sCHoLARs And skALds