Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2021, Page 29

In early dróttkvætt, as noted earlier, the compensatory rhyme always
involves clause-lines. If this was not true, odd lines that were not clause-
lines would have shown up in Table 1. The disappearance of the compen-
satory rhyme in the 11th century is as expected, because clause-lines with-
out rhyme were phased out in that century.39 Both the retained rhyme
and the adhesive rhyme were, however, legitimate after year 1000. As
seen from the table, retained rhyme did not disappear even if its frequen-
cy was reduced while adhesive rhyme disappeared along with the com-
pensatory rhyme. The retained rhyme involves a rhyme of penults in an
odd and an even line, while the adhesive rhyme does not. The continued
popularity of the retained rhyme, may be due to a general appreciation
for rhyme at line endings.40
The discussion on crossing rhymes is not the only one that is affected
by the conditional license on rhyme, but I discussed crossing rhymes
specifically because of their relevance to the distinction between proto-
and early dróttkvætt. In Section 4, I listed four features of early dróttkvætt
that made its meter more demanding than the meter of proto-dróttkvætt,
and I noted that Haustlǫng had all of them. In this section, I argued that
crossing rhymes were not among these features, and that they did not
legitimize odd lines without rhyme.

6. Concluding remarks
I do not discuss the relationship between clause-lines and stanza divisions
in the dróttkvætt meter, or a V2 word order in Old Norse, otherwise than
by noting the following: Clause-lines were, probably, already subjected to
strict constraints in proto-dróttkvætt. Early dróttkvætt did not burden them
further, or only optionally, when it introduced more demanding rules for
rhyme in the dróttkvætt meter. What is certain, is that a poetic license
came into being that made rhyming in dróttkvætt a little easier, while it
also related stanza structure, syntax, and rhyme. This license was a fea-
ture of the poem Haustlǫng and all poems of the 10th century. Haustlǫng
shared all other features of rhyme and alliteration with these poems,
which means that Haustlǫng could have been their model.
Haustlǫng 29
39 After year 1100 the percentage of odd lines without rhyme is less than 1% (Myrvoll
2014:129).
40 Some support for this comes from noting that the runhent meter originated in the
10th century and had an end rhyme between odd and even lines. Several varieties of it are
preserved from the 11th, 12th, and the 13th centuries.