Forgotten Ground Regained

The Opening of the Háttatal

paraphrased in fornyrðislag
WIn reference to the original text, to Anthony Faulkes’ translation, & some decades writing in alliterative form, omitting the requirement for vidrhending, ‘cause – modern English.
  • “Håkon is he, taking
  • The host along the coast,
  • Forbids abuse of peace;
  • Bands to protect the land.
  • A young & useful king,
  • Gathering yields from fields
  • All the way to Elba,
  • Out from sands of Gandvik.”
What’re the skills, the skull-craft, the skald shall need?I can think of three. And they are what?First, one must know the form as it is set.Then, the line that is allowable, & the line that is forbidden.
What numbers are notable in the knotting of words?Three, I can think of – and this is the first:the variedness of verse-forms of the very-great poets,tallied & told of in my treatise below.
Next is to notice the number of lines,(like strings to be strummed), in each stanza of verse;and lastly, each line, in the listing of styles,has a certain set-limit of syllables allowed.
What must we manage in the making of verse?There’re two things to tell of: our intended meaning& the discernment of sound. The sense of each wordis what makes up our meaning, marked in our language,
but such is sound that syllables vary:long ones lengthen, little ones are shorter.Some of them are soft, certain ones are hard –these specialties of speech come spilling out as ‘rhyme’.
So then, to the setting of sounds in a verse:Twelve head-rhymes are held in a stanza,three of them required in each quarter pair of lines.Six syllables only, to make a single line.
The stresses in a stanza are ‘Staves’; and the firstin the second line is ‘Chief’. It sets the requirementthat the staves in the first line must follow that soundin both their stresses; bearing them as ‘Props’.
If the Chief is a consonant, it is copied by the Props:
  • “Håkon is he, taking
  • the host along the coast,
  • forbids abuse of peace;
  • bands to protect the land.”
But less than this, or more, is not allowed in a quarter.
If the Chief is a vowel, then vowels must be props,and elegant it is deemed if each one is different. But there’s license, (not a rule), to allow for more:such as a, am, an, as, at, if, in, of, on, or, up, & us.
A second consideration With sound is this,(Putting them in place For poetry’s effect):In the form named Dróttkvæt, the finer ‘Court-measure’,Each quarter-verse Requires these same.
Here, in the odd line, “Håkon is he, taking”showing Håk- & tak- both share the same end,(though not the same vowel nor the beginning),And this kind of ending We call ‘shot-rhyme’.
And in the half that follows: “the host along the coast”,shows ‘host’ & ‘coast’ coming togetherwith all the same sounds except for the first,and this is known as ‘Noble-rhyme’, true.
This, in every quarter, is required by Dróttkvæt,most often used in the making of poetry,and from this verse-form, all variants are made,as speech-runes uttered will spark other runes.
Part of Forgotten Ground Regained: A Journal of Alliterative Verse, Issue 8, Fall, 2025: Norse and Icelandic Forms
Note from the Editor:
This poem is based upon the opening of the Háttatal, one of the major sections of the Prose Edda – which means that in the original Old Norse, this description of Old Norse poetry is presented as prose, not verse.
Math Jones has chosen to recast Snori Sturluson’s presentation in the most common Old Norse Eddic meter, fornyrðislag – 8-line stanzas, where every pair of lines corresponds to a single line of Old-English alliterative verse. However, the italicized poem about Håkon, quoted by Snorri Sturluson in the original Prose Edda, is dróttkvætt in the original Old Norse and translated into a dróttkvætt-like form in the text (but relaxing certain requirements, such ending all lines on a dip, that are hard to accomplish in modern English.)
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