Ball's Pyramid is a volcanic stack located off the coast of Australia. I have tried to imagine how it might have appeared to a Norseman, had he, not Lt. Ball, discovered it.
****************************************************
| Old Norse Verse | Word-by-Word Translation | Prose-Order Translation |
|---|---|---|
| Ǫndru rísa unnheims eldast at aesirs veldi sævar-haukar skræktan settisk á viðu kletta. Sunds-mist kald-ráðs sókngífrs sníða egg-skarp hríðrot stapi-dreka stǫpla stormar yfir mjǫrkva. |
Ski rises wave-world ancient to gods realm sea-hawks shrieking perch on mast rocky. Sound-mist evil-minded battle-witch slices edge-sharp stormy steeple-dragon dashes storms over murky. |
The ski of the wave-home rises to the ancient gods' realm shrieking sea-hawks perch on rocky mast. Evil-minded battle-witch´s sharp-edge slices stormy sound's mist the murky storm dashes over the dragon's-steeple. |
*****************************************************
Notes
This poem is pretty kenning-heavy, so a brief reminder about kennings would seem to be appropriate. A kenning is a circuitous metaphor, a re-naming of a thing. kennings can range from simple, with an adjective added to a noun to form a heiti (a single noun that renames without an adjective) or a sankenningar (an adjective plus the referent noun) to a rekit (chased or driven ... three or more kennings strung
together). For the most part, the kennings you find in my poetry are sankenningar or kenningar (simple two words, a noun distantly related to the
subject plus a descriptive).
Other sources for learning about kennings are:
Frank, Roberta. Old Norse Court
Poetry: the Dróttkvætt Stanza. Cornell: 1978.
Gade, Kari Ellen. The Structure of Old Norse Drottkvætt Poetry. Cornell: 1995.
Guðrun Nordal. Tools of Literacy. The Role of Skaldic Verse
in Icelandic Textual Culture of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. University
of Toronto Press: 2001.
Lee, Alvin A. Gold-hall and Earth-dragon: Beowulf as a
Metaphor. University of Toronto: 1998.
Snorri Sturulson. Edda. Everyman Press: 1995.
Any way, here are the kennings I used in this poem:
Ǫndru unnheims > ski of the wave-home > boat > ROCK (a tvikent - combining 2 kennings:
Ǫndru - ski - BOARD and unnheims - of wave-world - SEA, thus a BOAT)
Ǫndru - ski - BOARD and unnheims - of wave-world - SEA, thus a BOAT)
aesirs veldi > gods' realm > SKY (a kenningr)
sævar-haukar > sea-hawks > BIRD (a sankenningr)
viðu kletta > mast rocky > RIDGE (a kenningr)
Sunds-mist > mist of the sound > FOG (a sankenningr)
sókngífrs > battle-witch > axe > ROCK FACE (a kenningr)
egg-skarp > edge-sharp > AXE BLADE (a sankenningr)
stapi-dreka > dragon's steeple > ROCK (a kenningr)
mjǫrkva stormar > murky storms > STORMS (a sankenningr)
viðu kletta > mast rocky > RIDGE (a kenningr)
Sunds-mist > mist of the sound > FOG (a sankenningr)
sókngífrs > battle-witch > axe > ROCK FACE (a kenningr)
egg-skarp > edge-sharp > AXE BLADE (a sankenningr)
stapi-dreka > dragon's steeple > ROCK (a kenningr)
mjǫrkva stormar > murky storms > STORMS (a sankenningr)
****************************************************
COMMENTS? PUT THEM DOWN IN THE BOX, OKAY?
No comments:
Post a Comment