Old Icelandic Poetry - A New Beginning

This was originally posted at Academia.edu.  My additional notes are boldfaced:


Having set myself the challenge of writing a poem in Old Icelandic this year, I kick-started myself this weekend.  Last week, I wrote an 8-line verse inspired by the passing of Kadlin Sigvaldaskona’s father (Kadlin is my third protégé).  This is the verse:

1  Hold their spirit heart-strong
2  Hard the times of parting.
3  Keep their dreams' full calling
4  Clearly we still hear them.
5  Til the days of doomsfall
6  Dry your tears and sigh not.
7  Sweet flow words of silver
8  Songs of angels thronging.

In moving this to Old Icelandic, I consciously did not attempt a translation because of the rules for drottkvætt which are based on alliteration internal rhyme, and syllable count and accent.  Rather, I looked to mirror the emotions as closely as I could.  I took the verse and broke it down into half-verses (helmingar) and then couplets (vísufjórðungar).  Then I worked each couplet into Old Icelandic.

The technique I used quickly evolved into a four-step process.  At first I followed these steps:

•  Take the main words (in line 1, hold, spirit, heart-strong)
•   Search for the words in the Cleasby-Vigfusson Old Icelandic Dictionary <http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/texts/oi_cleasbyvigfusson_about.html>  
•  Rework the lines using the results of the search.
•  Edit the Old Icelandic lines based on the Introduction to Old Norse v. 2.1.1, by Tarin Wills, which I downloaded from <http://skaldic.arts.usyd.edu.au/db.php?table=files&pos=0&id=806>.  

[As a note, the skaldic arts website is a marvelous compendium of Old Icelandic verse, and contains a great list of kennings by their referents.  You should check it out!]

So, the first vísufjórðungr of the verse went from:

1  Hold their spirit heart-strong
2  Hard the times of parting.
to:

1 hald andí dyggt-hjartað
2 harma-tölur herfi-ligr

and the second vísufjórðungr goes from

3  Keep their dreams' full calling
4  Clearly we still hear them.

to:

3  dragjum ok samnað dreifta
4  draumar sæt aumhjartað.

Together this helmingr reads:

1 hald andí dyggt-hjartað
2 harma-tölur herfi-ligr
3  dragjum ok samnað dreifta
4  draumar sæt aumhjartað

which roughly translates as “Hold the bold-hearted spirit / sorrowful the lamentation / Gather and keep scattered / sweet tender-hearted dreams.”

The third vísufjórðungr:

5  Til the days of doomsfall
6  Dry your tears and sigh not.

becomes:

5  úrighylra ekki
6  aldrlȯk koma aldrfremd

“do not weep - death brings eternal honor.”  Literally, úrighylra means “wet-cheeked, weeping” and aldrlȯk  means close of life or death.

I have also transformed the last vísufjórðungr, which began as:

7  Sweet flow words of silver
8  Songs of angels thronging.
to:

7  Sætr straumma silfra
8  sannleiks sækir bænum

which translates to “sweet silver streams of angels prayers.”  The kenning sækir sannleiks means truth-seekers and stands for angels.

Thus the entire lausaversr is:

1 hald andí dyggt-hjartað
2 harma-tölur herfi-ligr
3  dragjum ok samnað dreifta
4  draumar sæt aumhjartað
5  úrighylra ekki
6  aldrlȯk koma aldrfremd
7  Sætr straumma silfra
8  sannleiks sækir bænum

“Hold the bold-hearted spirit / sorrowful the lamentation / Gather and keep scattered / sweet tender-hearted dreams / do not weep (for) / death brings eternal honor / (and) sweet silver streams of angels’ prayers”.

In conclusion to this short post, I would note that the major problem I am encountering in this effort is getting the grammar correct.  If I achieve that even 75% of the time, I feel pretty good for now. [And as a note, that remains my chief bug-a-boo.  If I ever get the grammar right.......]

Thanks for reading.

Fridrikr