Old Norse
Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...
: ‘
Drápa
A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry in alliterative verse, the other being Eddic poetry. Skaldic poems were traditionally comp ...
about Ragnarr’)Clunies Ross, p. 27. https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1130&v=intro. is a
skaldic poem
A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry in alliterative verse, the other being Eddic poetry. Skaldic poems were traditionally compo ...
attributed to the oldest known
skald
A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry in alliterative verse, the other being Eddic poetry. Skaldic poems were traditionally compo ...
, Bragi inn gamli (‘the old’) Boddason, who lived in the 9th century. Bragi describes the myths depicted on a decorated shield given to him by a certain Ragnar.
The poem is often compared with other early Skaldic examples of ekphrasis, especially ''
Haustlöng
''Haustlǫng'' (Old Norse: 'Autumn-long'; anglicized as ''Haustlöng'') is a skaldic poem composed around the beginning of the 10th century by the Norwegian skald Þjóðólfr of Hvinir.
The poem has been preserved in the 13th-century '' Prose ...
'' and '' Húsdrápa'', which also describe artworks depicting mythological scenes. Like Haustlöng, it uses archaic and complex kennings in a manner that strains the syntax.
The identity of Ragnar
The poem is entitled Ragnar’s drápa, but the identity of Ragnar is unclear. According to the refrain,
: Ræs gǫfumk reiðar mána
: Ragnarr ok fjǫl sagna.
: ‘Ragnarr gave me a moon of the chariot of Rær HIP > SHIELDand a multitude of stories.’
The poem affords a single clue about his identity; in stanza 2 we learn that he was the son of Sigurðr.
Snorri Sturluson
Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of th ...
considered him to be the Scandinavian king
Ragnar Lodbrok
Ragnar Lodbrok (Old Norse: ''Ragnarr loðbrók'', ), according to legends, was a Viking hero and a Legendary Kings of Sweden, Swedish and Legendary kings of Denmark, Danish king.Sigurd Ring), and even calls the poem ''Ragnars drápa loðbrókar'' (‘the ''drápa'' of Ragnar Lodbrok’), but Vésteinn Ólason argues that it was likely addressed to a later Ragnar. Some earlier scholars thought that it was instead composed for the Swedish king Björn at Haugi, at whose court Bragi was a skald.
Text
The poem describes two myths depicted on the shield,
* the attack of Hamdir and Sorli against king Jörmunrekkr, and
* the never-ending battle between Heðinn and Hǫgni.
Additional fragments of Bragi’s poetry sometimes thought to belong to the ''Ragnarsdrápa'' include
*
Thor
Thor (from ) is a prominent list of thunder gods, god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred g ...
's fishing for
Jörmungandr
In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr (, see Etymology), also known as the Midgard Serpent or World Serpent (, "worm of Midgard"), is an unfathomably large and monstrous sea serpent or worm who dwells in the world sea, encircling the Earth ( Midga ...
Zealand
Zealand ( ) is the largest and most populous islands of Denmark, island in Denmark proper (thus excluding Greenland and Disko Island, which are larger in size) at 7,031 km2 (2715 sq. mi.). Zealand had a population of 2,319,705 on 1 Januar ...
from the soil of Sweden
The extant fragments of ''Ragnarsdrápa'' are preserved in
Snorri Sturluson
Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of th ...
's ''
Prose Edda
The ''Prose Edda'', also known as the ''Younger Edda'', ''Snorri's Edda'' () or, historically, simply as ''Edda'', is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often considered to have been to some exten ...
''.Lee M. Hollander, ''The Skalds: A Selection of Their Poems, With Introduction and Notes'', The American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1945, repr. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University, 1947, , pp. 25–26. The episodes of Hamdir and Sorli and Heðinn and Hǫgni are explicitly ascribed to ''Ragnarsdrápa'' while the other parts have traditionally been inferred by scholars to belong to the same poem. In its complete state the poem would then have described four quarters of the shield, in four stanzas each with, presumably, a lost refrain.
Style and metre
Although the ''
dróttkvætt
Old Norse poetry encompasses a range of verse forms written in the Old Norse language, during the period from the 8th century to as late as the far end of the 13th century. Old Norse poetry is associated with the area now referred to as Scandinav ...
'' metre violates some of the rules developed later, it is well executed; this and the complexity of language demonstrate that there had already been considerable development of skaldic verse. More specifically, the consistent system of '' hendingar'' (rhymes between syllables) seen in later ''dróttkvætt'' poetry was not fully established in Bragi’s time. In later dróttkvætt odd lines generally have ''skothending'', and even lines always have ''aðalhending'', but in the ''Ragnarsdrápa'' odd lines frequently have no hending at all, while many even lines merely have a ''skothending''. These rare features are, to a lesser extent, present in ''
Haustlöng
''Haustlǫng'' (Old Norse: 'Autumn-long'; anglicized as ''Haustlöng'') is a skaldic poem composed around the beginning of the 10th century by the Norwegian skald Þjóðólfr of Hvinir.
The poem has been preserved in the 13th-century '' Prose ...
'', another archaic ''dróttkvætt'' poem.Myrvoll 2016.
* Margaret Clunies Ross 2017, ‘Bragi inn gamli Boddason, Ragnarsdrápa '’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), ''Poetry from Treatises on Poetics.'' Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 27–46.
* Myrvoll, K. J., et al. (2016). The constitutive features of the dróttkvætt meter '. In K. Árnason (Ed.), Approaches to Nordic and Germanic poetry (pp. 229–256). Institute of Iceland Press.
* Vésteinn Ólason, "Old Icelandic Poetry", in ''A History of Icelandic Literature'', ed. Daisy Neijmann, Histories of Scandinavian Literature 5,
The American-Scandinavian Foundation
The American-Scandinavian Foundation (ASF) is an American non-profit foundation dedicated to promoting international understanding through educational and cultural exchange between the United States and Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Swe ...
, Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska, 2006, , pp. 1–63.
Finnur Jónsson
Finnur Jónsson (May 29, 1858 – March 30, 1934) was an Icelandic philologist and Professor of Nordic Philology at the University of Copenhagen. He made extensive contributions to the study of Old Norse literature.
Finnur Jónsson was born a ...
Wayback Machine
The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by Internet Archive, an American nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California. Launched for public access in 2001, the service allows users to go "back in ...