Lady Teleri the Well-Prepared
September 12, 2009
Poem available.
Summary
For
Storvik's thirtieth birthday, I wanted to write a poem about "the old
days." In honor of the barony's Norse theme, it is in Norse eddic
meter, fairly suitable to telling the mythic deeds of heroes of long
ago. The story is based on a kernel of truth, gotten from Baroness
Janina Krakowska z Cambion, about how the first baroness was chosen.
Introduction
In
the late 1970s, the collection of Eastern territories in central
Maryland, Washington DC, and northern Virginia came together to form
the shire of Seagate. But Seagate was born to die, as Rorik
Fredericsson, its keeper, very much preferred that the shire become a
barony. And so it was that in the fall of 1979, the King of the East
traveled south to create a new barony, called "Great Bay," or Storvik,
on the banks of the Chesapeake.
In late 2008, those with long memories reminded the rest of us that our barony was celebrating its thirtieth birthday. I resolved to write something for the occasion, and began asking members of Clan Cambion (a local household older than the SCA in this region) for possible events of interest to commemorate. Baroness Janina Krakowska z Cambion provided me with the material: Duchess Ysabeau Cameron and Viscount Rangar Torvaldson were both candidates for the job of baron/ess, both well-respected and skilled. The king of the East, rather than show unseemly favoritism, flipped a coin to select between them.
Armed with this amusing anecdote, which lent itself to a tale of struggle and contest and victory, I went to work. I wanted to use one of the Norse meters, in keeping with Storvik's generally Nordic theme. I decided that I hoped to present the poem at court at Baronial Birthday, which meant limiting it to a two minute or briefer recitation, capping the number of line-pairs at 30-40.
Background
I was content to embroider the basic
kernel of tale I had from the baroness without too much worry over
getting every detail correct. The conceit, after all, was to create a
sort of "mythic history" for the barony, rather than a strictly
historical account. I did consult the roll of the kings and queens of
the East to determine that the king in September 1979 was Seanan1.
I am accustomed to working in Old English meter and, in a rush, came to rely primarily on Internet-based sources for Old Norse poetic forms. There are many, ranging from the simpler forms used in the eddas to the more intricate ones used in skaldic poetry. I chose fornyrðislag, the "way of ancient words" used in some of the eddas. I admit that the fact that fornyrðislag is most like Old English meter was a primary factor - I did not want to use a totally new-to-me, complex form for a poem I hoped to craft well enough to present to the court. I wanted something I had some skill and practice in using.
Whether or not an eddic, rather than a skaldic, form is most appropriate isn't yet clear to me. The eddas do deal with ancient and legendary history, but frequently feature the doings of gods. The poem contains no gods, although there is a greedy monster that Storvik must defend the East from. ("Tithe-taking monster / Marauder in April" - a random reference to the IRS, an agency located in the heart of the lands that form Storvik. So Storvik can perhaps take credit for the SCA's tax-free status?) The skaldic forms are often eulogistic2, praising the skald's king or otherwise chronicling his deeds. This wasn't a praise-poem, although it would deal with real people. What is needed to determine the proper form to use is for me to read a lot more Old Norse poetry, rather than relying on generalizations about it.
Icelandic sagas (prose histories) refer fairly frequently to arbitration of disputes3. While Seanan's settlement of the question of the baronage looks nothing like the tit-for-tat logic used in those arbitrations, it is not unreasonable to find such a conflict settled by negotiation rather than bloodshed.
Fornyrðislag
Rightly or wrongly, I proceeded with fornyrðislag.
Like Old English verse, each line is composed of two half-lines. Each
half-line contains two stressed syllables and a flexible number of
unstressed syllables. The two half-lines are connected using
alliteration. Unlike Old English verse, modern editors typically
display each half-line on its own, rather than as two phrases separated
by a space or caesura on the page. Also unlike Old English verse,
which typically has no stanzas, the lines are grouped into stanzas of
four lines (eight half-lines) each.
I will quote from the Wikipedia entry for fornyrðislag:
This corresponds very well to the general form of Old English poetry, where either the first or second stress must alliterate
with the third (here, called the "main stave"). This correspondence,
for me, gives weight to this description, as opposed to Karkur's
prosody guide for Norse poetry5. He reports that the second
stress must alliterate with either the third or fourth - but even the
examples he provides do not support this.
Wikipedia further adds that word order is usually fairly straightforward and that kennings - small word-riddles - are used sparingly, and "opaque" ones are rare. Skaldic kennings can run several layers deep, requiring fairly in-depth knowledge of Nordic legend and poetic convention to unravel. A "simple" kenning might be something like "whale road" (the sea). I used two simple kennings, "battle-servants" for "warriors" and "ale of ravens" for "blood," both found in Nordic poetry and cataloged on the Internet6.
Results
The poem largely follows
the eddic conventions as I understand them. Most lines have four or
five syllables total; a few have three, and a few have six.
The couplet "But how to choose wisely / Between well-matched peers" skirts good alliteration. The main stave is TWEEN, which doesn't exactly alliterate with "wisely." It does have a strong "w" sound, but the "t" is also definitely heard.
I maintain a simple word order and mainly keep ideas within couplets; any pair of half-lines is syntactically complete. There is something of an awkward break between the final two stanzas: the penultimate ends with the king opening his hand to catch the coin, and the final one finishes the catch. From a modern perspective, this is an almost Hollywood slow-motion moment in which the coin toss's uncertainty is prolonged by the break between the stanzas. However, I'm not at all certain that it's good Nordic versification.
Conclusions and Future Work
I
had originally envisioned a much longer, more ambitious piece. The
monster would have had its own section, and the duchess and viscount
would have striven in several contests before Seanan resorted to the
coin toss. However, I am not displeased with a shorter, more
performance-appropriate version.
I am not nearly as well-read in Old Nordic poetry as I am in Old English poetry. Since they are closely related, and since so much Nordic material survives, it would behoove me to become more familiar with the eddas, skalds and sagas.
It would be interesting to pair this piece with harp or lyre accompaniment for recitation.
References
1. East Kingdom. "Roll of Kings and Queens of the East." http://www.eastkingdom.org/kings.html, accessed 08 Sept 2009.
2. Wikipedia. "Skaldic Poetry." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skaldic_poetry, accessed 08 Sept 2009.
3. Diana Whaley, ed. Sagas of the Warrior-Poets. Leifur Eiriksson, trans. Penguin Classics, 2002.
4. Wikipedia. "Alliterative verse." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fornyr%C3%B0islag#Old_Norse_poetic_forms, accessed 08 Sept 2009.
5. Karkur. "Nordic Prosody." http://www.trobar.org/prosody/pnort.php, accessed 08 Sept 2009.
6. [email protected]. "Lexicon of Kennings." http://www3.hi.is/~eybjorn/ugm/kennings/kennings.html, accessed 08 Sept 2009.
Comments