''Ferskeytt'' (literally 'four-cornered') is an Icelandic stanzaic poetic form. It is a kind of

quatrain A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines. Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Persia, Ancient India, Ancient Gre ...

, and probably first attested in fourteenth-century ''

rímur In Icelandic literature, a ''ríma'' (, literally "a rhyme", pl. ''rímur'', ) is an epic poem written in any of the so-called ''rímnahættir'' (, "rímur meters"). They are rhymed, they alliterate and consist of two to four lines per stanza. Th ...

'' such as ''

Ólafs ríma Haraldssonar ''Ólafs ríma Haraldssonar'' is a 14th-century '' ríma'' by the Icelandic poet and official Einarr Gilsson on the career of Saint Óláfr Haraldsson (King Olaf II) of Norway. The work is preserved in Iceland's ''Flateyjarbók'', from around 139 ...

''. It remains one of the dominant metrical forms in Icelandic versifying to this day. ''Ferskeytt'' comprises odd-numbered, basically

trochaic In English poetic metre and modern linguistics, a trochee () is a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one. But in Latin and Ancient Greek poetic metre, a trochee is a heavy syllable followed by a light on ...

lines with four stresses in the pattern / x / x / x /, alternating with even-numbered trochaic lines with three stresses in the pattern / x / x / x. In each line, one unstressed syllable may be replaced with two unstressed syllables. Stanzas are normally of four lines, and rhyme aBaB. In the first line, two heavily-stressed syllables alliterate with the first heavily-stressed syllable of the second line, and so on in the usual alliterative pattern of Germanic

alliterative verse In meter (poetry), prosody, alliterative verse is a form of poetry, verse that uses alliteration as the principal ornamental device to help indicate the underlying Metre (poetry), metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The ...

. An example of the form is this verse by

Jónas Hallgrímsson Jónas Hallgrímsson (16 November 1807 – 26 May 1845) was an Icelandic poet, author and naturalist. He was one of the founders of the Icelandic journal ''Fjölnir'', which was first published in Copenhagen in 1835. The magazine was used by ...

, with a translation into the same metre by

Dick Ringler Dick Ringler is an emeritus Professor of English and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, and is one of the world's foremost authorities on Icelandic literature. Ringler's book ''Bard of Iceland: Jónas Hallgrimsson: Poe ...

. Alliteration is emboldened and rhyme is ''italicised'': There are many variations on ''ferskeytt'', whose common principle is that they are quatrains with some kind of alternate rhyme. A poem in this metre is called a ''ferskeytla'' ('four-cornered oem). Metres which share these properties belong to the ''ferskeytluætt'' ('ferskeytla-family').Richard Ringler, ''Bard of Iceland : Jónas Hallgrímsson, poet and scientist'' (Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), §III.2, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/Jonas/Prosody/Prosody-II.html.

References

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External links

Hólmfríður Pétursdóttir singing in ''ferskeytt'': 'Þegar vetrar þokan grá'

Ingibjörg Friðriksdóttir singing in ''ferskeytt'': 'Ferskeytlan er lítið ljóð'

Gunnar Helgmundur Alexandersson singing in ''ferskeytt'': 'Ferskeytlan er Frónbúans'
Poetic devices Medieval poetry Old Norse poetry Icelandic literature Icelandic music Rímur