Forgotten Ground Regained
The Tale of Skorri’s Song
Keep the kettle quick to weep,Cannot care no longer.Woman wills me now to sleep,Smither’s myth not stronger:
Norns adorned now carelessly,The shores of thoughts embraced.You maddened me most merrily,But now here comes my case.
Tragedy, the tale I bringOn mine own humble oar.So you seek a song I’ll sing,A kiss of love and more:
Fast your fire, but for nowReturn, rejoice, I will!Bury you, your bidding brow,Drink Skorri’s tale your fill.
Skorri seemed a kindly skald,Skilled he, in pouring knife.And ne’er was he known to brawl,So gentle, all his life.
Yet gold did green make yellow,His youth it all was lost.And such an able fellow,Learned loving was his cost.
A beauty few did bully,Nor aggravate at home.But Skorri saw that it was she,That made an axe a comb.
She shook the poet’s shadow,Made him see his might.And Skorri’s skerries rowed,To let up all her light.
Her father frowned and furrowed,No sea-flame Skorri famed.Sought seeds another sowed,And offered up her name.
The pained poet’s eyelids thawed,Thought this would be his death.But he kneaded, neighed, and gnawed,And begged her for her breath.
The gift the girl did give him,Kept tender with a kiss.Neither grabbing to the grim,That followed with her mist.
When Svana left like swallow,And Skorri kept alone,He felt his bones turn hollow,His stomach turned to stones.
There felt his hands to feathers,And could not poem keep.All smaller than the heathersChained voice was but a cheep.
He flapped to fly her flagship,Effaced in his efforts.Yet glim and lacking glibness,His forage had no force.
Skorri flew to forest’s king,Sat tender on his arm.Sadly, there, began to sing,Till field became fish farm.
The oak awoke to Skorri,A corrie at its base,His tears glowing new glory,From tree-floor to his face.
So still Skorri stays singing,Valor lost from velvet.His river his new offspring,Help brought to those with helmets.
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 strongly influenced not only by the Norse habit of turning poems into riddles through the use of kennings, but by Icelandic rimur, which like much Middle English alliterative verse married alliteration with regular rhyme schemes. As a result, Marcus Lindenburg’s poem is close kin to alliterative ballads like Ted Charnley’s I Find the Naiad’s Place, and Mine – but with kennings, so you need to read this poem like a riddle. The author has provided glosses for anyone who needs them.
Glosses for the Kennings in “The Tale of Skorri’s Song”:
- Kettle weeping: a reference to the pouring of the “mead of poetry”.
- Here now comes my case: The first two stanzas are meant to be a mansǫngr lead into the poem. The poet has expressed his sorrow about a woman, as is traditional to the form, but he now moves forward with the story he is meant to be describing, rather than lingering on his own woes.
- Smither’s myth: referring to poetry.
- Shores of thoughts: a chest or breast.
- Own oar: Tongue, especially in reference to poetry.
- Pouring knife: rather, pouring tongue.
- Green made yellow: green of youth, yellow of old age.
- Made an axe a comb: to make an axe a comb, meaning to turn a life of war into a life of domesticity.
- Skerries: a reef or rocky island. Also used to refer to teeth, in the context of speech
- Skerries rowed, to let up all her light: sought to make her happy by convincing her father to let him marry her
- Sea-flame: Common reference to gold.
- Eyelids thawed: He wept.
- Grim: tragedy
- Mist: disappearance
- Forest’s king: Tree.
- Corrie: a divot or valley formed by water, often glacial erosion
- Velvet: human treasures (velvets, furs, silks.) Valor no longer gets him such treasures.
- Help brought to those with helmets: warriors passing near Skorri's tree are comforted by his song.
Copyright © Marcus Lindenburg, 2025
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