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contain two stressed syllables that alliterate with one another and with the
first syllable of the following line.
as Vésteinn Ólason points out, although the majority of vikivakakvæði
are love poems, a number also deal with religious and moral themes.36 The
early Icelandic Lutheran church was opposed to secular poetry, as is reflect-
ed in the clear disapproval articulated by Bishop Guðbrandur Þorláksson of
Hólar (ca. 1542–1627) in the preface to his Ein nij Psalma Bok (1589):
[...] af mætte leggiast þeir onytsamligu Kuedlingar / trỏlla og
Fornmanna rijmur / Mannsaunguar / afmors Vijsur / Bruna
Kuæde / Hꜳdz og Hugmodz Vijsur / og annar vondur og liotur
Kuedskapur / Klꜳm / nijd / og Keskne / sem hier hia Alþydu
folke framar meir er elskad og idkad / Gude og hanns Einglum til
Stygdar / Diỏflenum og hanns aarum til Gledskapar og Þionustu /
enn i nockru Kristnu Lande ỏdru / og meir epter Plagsid Heidinna
Manna enn Kristinna / ꜳ Vỏkunottum og ỏdrum Manna Motum /
et ct. Sỏmuleidis i Veislum og Gestabodum / heyrist valla annad til
skemtanar haft og Gledskapar / enn þesse Hiegomlige Kuædahꜳttur
/ Sem Gud nꜳde.37
[[…] men might be able to put away unprofitable songs of ogres and
of the Heathens of old, Rímur, naughty love-songs, amorous verses,
sonnets of lust, verses of mockery and malice, and other foul and
evil poesy ribaldry, wantonness, and lampoonery and satire, such as
are loved and used by the commonalty of this land to the dis pleasure
of God and his angels, and to the delight and service of the devil
and his messengers, more than in any other country, and more after
the fashion of pagan men than Christian folk, for on Wake-nights
or Vigils and other gatherings of men, and likewise at feasts and
banquets, hardly anything else is heard by way of entertainment and
merry-making than such vain poesy, – God a’mercy!].38
36 Vésteinn ólason, The Traditional Ballads of Iceland, 44.
37 Guðbrandur Þorláksson, ed., Ein nij Psalma Bok (Hólar, 1589), [17].
38 Guðbrandur Vigfússon and f. York Powell, eds. Corpus poeticum boreale. The Poetry of
the Old Northern Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century, 2 vols. (oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1883) 2: 388.
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