Scandinavian history in the Viking age - Department of Anglo-Saxon ...

Scandinavian History in the Viking Age
[B511] E.A. Kock, Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen, 2 vols (1946-49) [UL 752:2.b.90.10-11]; a
famous attack on (or antidote to) Finnur Jónsson’s corpus; the edition lacks any notes or critical
apparatus, and is founded on a huge series of scattered articles by Kock called the Notationes Norrœnæ:
anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning, Lunds universitets årsskrift n.f. avd. 1, 19:2-39:3 (1923-43)
[UL P500.b.76.17 ff.]
[B512] K. E. Gade, ‘Skaldic poetry of the Scandinavian middle ages – a new edition’, Skandinavistik
32:1 (2002), 3-18.
[B513] The expanding database of the new corpus edition, Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle
Ages, is accessible online at skaldic.arts.usyd.edu.au. The site currently incorporates electronic texts of
the skaldic corpus in Finnur Jónsson’s edition (B510), together with a full concordance, and links to
thousands of digital images of the manuscripts in which the verses are preserved.
Translations
[B515] G. Vigfússon and F. York Powell, Corpus poeticum boreale: the poetry of the old northern
tongue from the earliest times to the thirteenth century. II: Court poetry (1883) [UL 752:2.c.85.3];
contains both texts and translations, although often outdated
[B516] L.M. Hollander, The skalds: a selection of their poems (1945) [UL 752:2.d.90.2]
Individual poets or poems
[B520] Aside from attributions in literary sources, the text Skáldatal purports to provide a list of known
court poets and the historical contexts in which they worked; for text, see (B515): II,442-46. For the most
part, only major court poets are listed, with loose stanzas taking a distant back seat. For the huge
problems involved with compiling long poems out of scattered stanzas, which are often in a highly
uncertain order or state of preservation, see (B490) and (B493).
Tenth-century verse
[B521] Þjóðólf of Hvinir is said to have composed for kings Rognvald of Vestfold and Harald fairhair in
the late ninth and early tenth centuries; see B. Fidjestøl, ‘The king’s skald from Kvinesdal and his
poetry’, (O10):68-92. Text: (B510):7-21. [a] Ynglinga tal traces the descent of the kings of Vestfold
back to the Yngling dynasty of Sweden and so to a divine origin; it is preserved with the accompanying
prose Ynglinga saga only in Heimskringla (B322). Text and Swedish transl.: A. Noreen, Ynglingatal,
KVHAA handlingar 28 (1925) [UL Ub.8.382]. Commentary: J.E. Turville-Petre, ‘On Ynglingatal’, MS
11 (1978-79), 48-67; A. Faulkes, ‘Descent from the Gods’, MS 11 (1978-79), 92-125; J.E. Turville-Petre,
‘The genealogist and history: Ari to Snorri’, SBVS 20 (1978-81), 7-23; C. Krag, Ynglingatal og
Ynglingasaga: en studie i historiske kilder, Studia humaniora 2 (1991) [UL 752:16.c.95.36] (E.s.); see
also (E30 ff.) and (K75 ff., K81). [b] Haustl²ng on the other hand contains various mythological tales,
and is more Eddaic in content. Text: V. Kiil, ‘Tjodolvs Haustl²ng’, ANF 74 (1959), 1-104. Text and
transl.: R. North, The Haustl²ng of Þjóðólfr of Hvinir (1997) [UL 752:2.c.95.14], with commentary; also
transl.: (B516):42-48.
[B522] Þorbj²rn hornklofi is said to have been one of Harald fairhair’s poets, and is widely held to
have been responsible for Hrafnsmál, also known as Haraldskvæði, although some manuscripts
attribute these verses to Þjóðólf (B521). Text: (B510):22-29. Transl. (B515): I,254-59; (B593):56-62;
(B1):106-09. See K. von See, ‘Studien zum Haraldskvæði’, ANF 76 (1961), 96-111
[B523] Egil Skallagrímsson is often considered to be the greatest of the Viking-age Icelandic poets,
although largely on the basis of his loose stanzas. Text: (B510):34-60; J. Kristjánsson, Kvæðakver Egils
Skallagrímssonar (1964) [UL 9752.d.583]. Egil’s work is naturally contained in his saga (B413). [a]
H²fuðlausn is said to have been composed at the court of Erik bloodaxe, Egil’s bitterest enemy, in York
as a ransom for his life; see J. Hines, ‘Egill’s H²fuðlausn in time and place’, SBVS 24 (1994-97), 83-104.
Text and transl.: R. Poole ‘Variants and variability in the text of Egill’s H²fuðlausn’, The politics of
editing medieval texts: papers given at the twenty-seventh annual conference on editorial problems,
University of Toronto, 1-2 November 1991, ed. R. Frank (1993), 65-105. Transl.: (B516):68-73. [b]
Sonatorrek details the relationship of Egil with his patron god Odin; although now partially corrupted, it
is (possibly) of immense interest as an insight into the pagan mentality. Text and transl.: E.O.G. Turville-
Petre, ‘The Sonatorrek’, Iceland and the mediaeval world: studies in honour of Ian Maxwell, edd. E.O.G.
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