Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series B - 01.10.1968, Blaðsíða 179

CLXXVII
that this ríma consists of 83 stanzas and there
would probably have been considerably more in-
accuracies than those quoted above, if the poet had
been completely ignorant of the old vowel quantities.
It is also worth mentioning that metrical feet such
as I 54 faðirinn, 68 föðurnum, II 13 staðurinn,
42 dögunum, 57 dagana, where the article is super-
fluous, suggest that tlie poet was not altogether
ignorant of the fact that in older versification two
short syllables could replace one long one. This is
a little uncertain, however, since a similar use is
made of the article in, e.g. III 46 floJckurinn, 52
krafturinn. In addition, the use of the article varies
in the different MSS (cf. the variants to the instances
quoted) so that the form taken by the original text
cannot be definitively established.
In the works of the older rímur-poets, words of
two syllables, one of which is a svarabhakti vowel,
count as one syllable when they stand at the end
of a line. This is also tlie case in KrR, where such
words can appear as masculine rhymes in the first
and third lines of the ferskeytt verse-form, e.g. 117
klœdd(u)r-mædd(u)r. They can also, however, be
used as words of two syllables at the end of the
second and fourth lines in the same verse-form, e.g.
I 37 fyrstur-Kristur. Both usages can sometimes be
found in the same stanza: I 42 fróð(u)r-góð(u)r and
pjáður-háður.
As might be expected, no distinction is made
between i, í, ei and y, ý, ey, cf. the rhymes I 26
mildi-skyldi, III 5 líðnr-tíð-lýði-stríði, III 18 meina-
reyna.
There are numerous examples showing that in
compound words whose first element consists of a
word of one syllable, the older secondary stress on
the second syllable has been weakened. The rhythmic
B 26. — XII