Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2021, Síða 16

I metrisk henseende står digtet på et alderdomligt standpunkt. Vel har de
lige linjer — eller har haft — helrim, og det sidste rim står altid i linjens næst-
sidste stavelse; men rimfrie ulige linjer er i et sådant antal tilstede, at det må
antages, at skjalden har ment, at han kunde indrette dem som han vilde, med
eller uden rim. Enkelte af de ulige linjer, der nu intet rim har, turde dog mulig
være forvanskede. (Finnur Jónsson 1920:441)

Ragnarsdrápa by Bragi Boddason is the only extant dróttkvætt poem older
than Haustlǫng. Both poems are shield poems, in which the poet tells
mythological stories depicted on a shield. Haustlǫng is not as archaic as
Ragnarsdrápa, but both poems lack rhyme in many of their odd lines, and
because of this, scholars see Haustlǫng as standing in-between the 9th
century proto-dróttkvætt of Bragi and early dróttkvætt in poems of the
10th century. However, I shall show that different from Ragnarsdrápa,
Haustlǫng only allows odd lines to be without rhyme that are clause-
lines. This also applies to younger poems of the 10th century. The revela-
tion of this conditional license is the main novelty of this article. One of
its consequences is that the distinction between Haustlǫng and older
poetry (proto-dróttkvætt) becomes sharper.
The Old Norse text presented here is always that of Finnur Jónsson’s
1912–1915 edition of dróttkvætt poetry, except where I note otherwise. I
use Finnur’s dating of poems and his numbering of stanzas. Line number
5 of a stanza is the first line of the second half-stanza. The notation 3.7
means: the third line of the second half-stanza of stanza number 3. By
referring to Finnur, I do not side with him on all issues with his edition,
but I make it clear that my work was not enabled by any new or improved
edition of the source material. I have, however, benefitted greatly from
Klaus Johan Myrvoll’s doctoral dissertation in 2014 and from his JEGP
2020 article, as is apparent from my quotations. Professor Myrvoll is cur-
rently one of the editors of a new collaborative edition, SkP. It started in
year 2007 and is still in the making. This edition has in almost all cases
the same rhymes as I present here. It provides an English translation and
background material for all the poems and poets that I mention.

3. The missing rhyme
A noticeable deviation in both Haustlǫng and Ragnarsdrápa from Snorri’s
description of dróttkvætt is a frequent absence of rhyme in odd lines. In
Ragnarsdrápa, rhyme is missing in some 50% of the odd-numbered lines
Þorgeir Sigurðsson16