Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2021, Page 17

(odd lines).11 In Haustlǫng, a normal dróttkvætt rhyme is absent in 21% of
the odd lines, as I demonstrate shortly. I shall show, however, that in
Haustlǫng, the rhyme is only absent in clause-lines, while this is not true
for Ragnarsdrápa. Furthermore, I shall show that this applies to all drótt -
kvætt poems of the 10th century; only the percentage of lines with absent
rhyme is different. It is 11% in the poem Vellekla, but only 3%–4% in
three poems at the end of the century. Following are the details for each
poem, and Table 1 gives an overview.
In Haustlǫng, odd lines are without rhyme 12 times (out of 40) at the
beginning of half-stanzas (lines number 1 and 5). Here and elsewhere,
finite main verbs and connectives are bolded. The connectives are also in
italics:12

1.1 Hvé skalk góðs at gjǫldum
2.5 settisk ǫrn, þars æsir
3.1 Tormiðluðr vas tívum
3.5 Margspakr of nam13 mæla
7.5 loddi r við ramman
8.5 þá varð Þórs of-rúni
10.5 gǫrðusk allar áttir14
11.5 þú skalt véltr, nema, vélum
13.5 Þat’s of fátt á fjalla
14.1 Eðr of sér,15 es jǫtna
18.5 þar hné grundar gilja
19.1 Ok hǫrð brotin herju

Haustlǫng 17
11 See Myrvoll (2014:110).
12 The lines without rhyme are the same as listed by Klaus Johan Myrvoll (2014:112),
except I assume line 11.3 leiðiþír ok læva (text as in Faulkes 1998:32) has half-rhyme, see a
discussion in Section 5 on crossing rhyme in Haustlǫng. Like Myrvoll (2014:348), I use
Faulkes’ (1998:32) text for line 10.5 gǫrðusk allar áttir.
I assume, like Myrvoll (2014), that in Haustlǫng words with g vs. gn rhyme. Haustlǫng
has three examples of such rhyme (in lines 2.1, 5.3, and 16.7). Ragnarsdrápa has one such
rhyme with mǫgr vs. Hǫgna in line 2.4. These two poems provide four out of nine in -
stances of such rhyme in the dróttkvætt corpus until 1200. Two of the remaining four are
from the 10th century, see Myrvoll (2014:81).
13 The filler-word of (remains of a prefix) and the following verb are one constituent.
14 Text as in Faulkes (1998:32).
15 The of is a prefix. The finite verb is in the second sentence position.