names. In the Lay of Gudrún, on the other hand, there is no division into sections.
To sections I, II, V, and VI in the Lay of the V?lsungs, but not to the other five, explanatory prose head-notes are added (perhaps in imitation of the prose notes inserted by the compiler of the Codex Regius of the Edda).
The marginal indications of the speakers in both poems are given exactly as they appear in the manuscript, as also are the indications of new ‘moments’ in the narrative.
The second difference in presentation between the two poems concerns the line-divisions. In Upphaf, alone of the sections of the Lay of the V?lsungs, but throughout the Lay of Gudrún, the stanzas are written in eight short lines: that is to say, the unit of the verse, the half-line or vísuore, is written separately:
Of old was an age
when was emptiness
(the opening of Upphaf ). But apart from Upphaf the whole of the Lay of the V?lsungs is written in long lines (without a metrical space between the halves):
Of old was an age when ódin walked
(the opening of Andvara-gull ). At the top of this page, however, my father wrote in pencil: ‘This should all be written in short line form, which looks better – as in Upphaf .’ I have therefore set out the text of the Lay of the V?lsungs in this way.
§4 THE SPELLING OF NORSE NAMES
I have thought it best to follow closely my father’s usage in respect of the writing of Norse names in an English context. The most important features, which appear in his manuscript of the poems with great consistency, are these:
The sound e of voiced ‘th’ as in English ‘then’ is replaced by d: thus Guerún becomes Gudrún, Hreiemarr becomes Hreidmar, Bueli becomes Budli, ásgarer becomes ásgard.
As two of these examples show, the nominative ending -r is omitted: so also Frey, V?lsung, Brynhild, Gunnar for Freyr, V?lsungr, Brynhildr, Gunnarr.
The letter j is retained, as in Sinfj?tli, Gjúki, where it is pronounced like English ‘y’ in ‘you’ (Norse Jórk is ‘York’).
The only case where I have imposed consistency is that of the name of the god who in Norse is óeinn. In his lecture notes my father naturally used the Norse form (which I have retained in the text of his lecture on the ‘Elder Edda’, p.22). In the carefully written manuscript of the ‘New Lays’, on the other hand, he ‘anglicized’ it, changing e to d, but (as generally in all such cases) retaining the acute accent indicating a long vowel. But he used two forms, favouring one or the other in different parts of the Lay of the V?lsungs: ódin and ódinn. But in section VI, Brynhildr, where the name occurs frequently in the form ódinn, he wrote (stanza 8) ódinn bound me, ódin’s chosen. This is because in the Norse genitive nn changes to ns: óeins sonr, ‘son of ódin’.
Seeing that in section VIII, stanza 5, where the name is repeated, ódin dooms it; ódinn hearken!, my father later struck out the second n of ódinn, and since it seems to me that inconsistency in the form of the name serves no purpose, I have settled for ódin. In the case of the name that is in Norse Reginn my father wrote Regin throughout, and I have followed this.
§5 THE VERSE-FORM OF THE POEMS
The metrical form of these Lays was very evidently a primary element in my father’s purpose. As he said in his letters to W.H. Auden, he wrote in ‘the old eight-line fornyreislag stanza’, and I give here an abbreviated account of its nature.
There are three metres found in the Eddaic poems, fornyreislag, malaháttr, and ljóeaháttr (on this last see the note to the Lay of the V?lsungs, section V, lines 42–44, pp.211–13); but here we need only consider the first, in which most of the narrative poems of the Edda are composed. The name fornyreislag is believed to mean ‘Old Story Metre’ or ‘Old Lore Metre’ – a name which, my father observed, cannot have arisen until after later elaborations had been invented and made familiar; he favoured the view that the older name was kvieuháttr, meaning ‘the “manner” for poems named kviea’, since the old poems in fornyreislag, when their names have any metrical import, are usually called ~kviea: hence his names V?lsungakviea and Guerúnarkviea.
The ancient Germanic metre depended, in my father’s words, on ‘the utilization of the main factors of Germanic speech, length and stress’; and the same rhythmical structure as is found in Old English verse is found also in fornyreislag. That structure was expounded by my father in a preface to the revised edition (1940) of the translation of Beowulf by J.R. Clark-Hall, and reprinted in J.R.R. Tolkien, The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays (1983). In that account he defined the nature of the Old English verse-structure in these words.
The Old English line was composed of two opposed word-groups or ‘halves’. Each half was an example, or variation, of one of six basic patterns.
The patterns were made of strong and weak elements, which may be called ‘lifts’ and ‘dips’. The standard lift was a long stressed syllable, (usually with a relatively high tone). The standard dip was an unstressed syllable, long or short, with a low tone.
The following are examples in modern English of normal forms of the six patterns:
A, B, C have equal feet, each containing a lift and dip. D and E have unequal feet: one consists of a single lift, the other has a subordinate stress (marked `) inserted.
These are the normal patterns of four elements into which Old English words naturally fell, and into which modern English words still fall. They can be found in any passage of prose, ancient or modern. Verse of this kind differs from prose, not in re-arranging words to fit a special rhythm, repeated or varied in successive lines, but in choosing the simpler and more compact word-patterns and clearing away extraneous matter, so that these patterns stand opposed to one another.
The selected patterns were all of approximately equal metrical weight* : the effect of loudness (combined with length and voice-pitch), as judged by the ear in conjunction with emotional and logical significance?. The line was thus essentially a balance of two equivalent blocks. These blocks might be, and usually were, of different pattern and rhythm. There was in consequence no common tune or rhythm shared by lines in virtue of being ‘in the same metre’. The ear should not listen for any such thing, but should attend to the shape and balance of the halves. Thus the róaring séa rólling lándward is not metrical because it contains an ‘iambic’ or a ‘trochaic’ rhythm, but because it is a balance of B + A.
These patterns are found also in fornyreislag, and can be readily identified in my father’s Norse lays: as for example in stanza 45 of the Lay of Gudrún (p.268), lines 2–6:
A rúnes of héaling
D (a ) wórds wéll-gràven
B on wóod to réad
E fást bìds us fáre
C to féast gládly
In the variations on the ‘basic patterns’ (‘overweighting’, ‘extension’, etc.) described in my father’s account there are indeed differences in Old Norse from Old English, tending to greater brevity; but I will enter only into the most radical and important difference between the verse-forms, namely, that all Norse poetry is ‘strophic’, or ‘stanzaic’, that is, composed in strophes or stanzas. This is in the most marked contrast to Old English, where any such arrangements were altogether avoided; and my father wrote of it (see p.7): ‘In Old English breadth, fullness, reflection, elegiac effect, were aimed at. Old Norse aims at seizing a situation, striking a blow that will be remembered, illuminating a moment with a flash of lightning – and tends to concision, weighty packing of the language in sense and form, and gradually to greater regularity of form of verse.’
‘The norm of the strophe (for fornyreislag),’ he said, ‘is four lines (eight half-lines) with a complete pause at the end, and also a pause (not necessarily so marked) at the end of the fourth half-line. But, at least as preserved, the texts in the manuscripts do not work out regularly on this plan, and great shufflement and lacuna-making has gone on among editors (so that one can never tell to a strophe or two what references refer to in different editions).’
Noting that this variability in the length of the strophes occurs in some of the earlier and least corrupt texts, and that ‘V?lundarkviea, undoubtedly an ancient poem, is particularly irregular and particularly plagued by editors (who are much more daring and wilful in Old Norse than in Old English)’, he accepted the view that, in the main, this freedom should be seen as an archaic feature. ‘The strict strophe had not fully developed, any more than the strict line limited syllabically’; in other words, the strophic form was a Norse innovation, and developed only gradually.
In my father’s Lays the strophic form is entirely regular, and the