Here is a short poem in the form called runhent. Runhent is a rhyming verse form. My brief notes follows the poem. You can hear the poem here.
The Dragon's Lair
ór gull-hus myr
baug vallar kyr
hanns dogg hanns hodd
af hring un-brót;
Linns blóða frekr
gersemi fékk
ok blása brenn
inn orm leys-dreng.
áls-baeli djúp
at álf-holl tupt
enn her-drengr finn
alvæpni hinn
ok mikill har
með rauði barð
at-rás inn dreng
Faðnis a-steng
In the dark gold-house
the resting meadow-ring <DRAGON>
his pillow his hoard
of unbroken rings
Greedy serpent’s brother <DRAGON>
seizes gems
and breathes flame -
The avaricious worm.
The deep eels-den <CAVE>
in the grassy elf-hill
the warrior found -
well armed
and very tall
with red beard.
The bravo charged
Faðnis <DRAGON> to sting
Notes:
These two verses are my first attempts at writing runhent in Old Icelandic. Not as easy as it looks, if you don’t have a native vocabulary at your disposal. Runhent essentially is a descriptive name for verses with end-rhymes. A line of runhent can vary from three to eight syllables. The stresses can vary, according to the “type” of runhent you’re reading/writing.
These two verses are based on the model found in the Fourth Grammatical Treatise, verse 12:
Vatn kalla mik
vilk efla þik
hoddveitir, frams
hauðrfjǫrnis grams;
ek hreinsa alt,
ek vermi kalt,
ek birti sjón,
ek bæti tjón.
(Anonymous Lausavísur, 2. Stanzas from the Fourth Grammatical Treatise, v. 12 )
What I see in this verse is four-syllable lines, with stresses on the second and fourth syllables. Another example of the same “type” of runhent can be found in Þjóðólfr Arnórsson’s Runhent poem about Harald:
Eykr Áleifs feðr
járnsǫxu veðr
harðræði hvert,
svát hróðrs es vert.
(Þjóðólfr Arnórsson, 3. Runhent poem about Haraldr, v. 2)
Again, four syllables with stresses on second and fourth syllables. There are other "types" which I'll be playing with in the future.
Hope you enjoy.
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