Drottkvaett: A Modern, If Freewheeling, Explanation of Viking Poetry

Several years ago I started writing my attempts at Viking poetry, or drottkvaett (pronounced “DROK-vit”) using what I understood of Master Godfrey’s explanation of that style, to wit:

I would love to see someone write a poem in drottkvaett, the "official" poetic form of Norse sagas (and other court poetry). Not necessarily for the Formal Bardic, but the announcement of its theme prompted me to write this "challenge".

If anyone's interested in trying, here is the basic form: Drottkvaett ("three-foot") is written in a very strict trochaic trimeter ("YAD-da YAD-da YAD-da"), with four lines per stanza. Each half-stanza has three alliterating strong syllables, two in the first line and one in the second line (usually on the first syllable), and all vowels are considered to be alliterative with each other. The last syllable of the second and fourth lines of each stanza must rhyme. For example:

Strike with spear and halberd, [Strike, Spear]
Soldiers of Trimaris! [Soldier] {-ris}
Answer taunts with axe-blows; [Answer, Axe]
Overwhelm their fortress! [Overwhelm] {-ress}

Kenning (the use of metaphoric imagery) was very common; for example, "sea-steed" is a ship (something one rides over the sea). There could also be double or triple kennings:

Sea-plow = ship
Sea-plow's furrow = wake of a ship
Earth of sea-plow's furrow = the ocean

I'd love to see some SCA drottkvaett. Unfortunately, the single stanza above pretty much exhausted my limited poetic ability, so I'm obviously not the one to bring it about. If anyone wants to try, I'd enjoy seeing what you come up with!

-- Godfrey
Qui pulchra affectat ardua perferat.
(He who strives after beauty, let him endure the arduous.)

I proceeded, over the next several years, to write several poems that followed this style to a degree. However, having had a chance to look over Master Godfrey’s notes again a few months ago, I realized that I had taken his words somewhat too far to heart.

Below is a sample of my first attempt at drottkvaett:

Worthy warriors struggle
With two foes, yet fight well
Swords to strike one foe down
Sea may yet take its toll.

Technically this is acceptable drottkvaett with the exception of the fact that I made no attempt to use the technique known as kenning, being taxed quite enough to simply find enough words in the English language that fit into the rhyming scheme.

However, let’s look at Godfrey’s example again.

Strike with spear and halberd, [Strike, Spear]
Soldiers of Trimaris! [Soldier] {-ris}
Answer taunts with axe-blows; [Answer, Axe]
Overwhelm their fortress! [Overwhelm] {-ress}

Notice that in Godfrey’s example, he actually does what his instructions say to do, i.e., two words in the first line and one word in the second line start with the same letter, and two words in the third line and one word in the fourth line start with alliterative (vowel) sounds. Also, the last syllable of the second and fourth lines rhyme. As difficult as it was, I even managed to find some kenning to use in rewriting these lines.

With this in mind I have undertaken to rewrite each of my drottkvaett poems, but to do so in a more correct fashion. The old version is displayed on the left side of the page; the new version is displayed on the right.

Enjoy.

Regards,
Ld. Jonathan Blackbow
06/22/2003

"First Drottkvaett"

Worthy warriors struggle
With two foes, yet fight well
Swords to strike one foe down
Sea may yet take its toll.

Fresh-killed men stare sightless
Finally foes are vanquished
Wounded, weary sailors
whisper of their feyness.

Go well, friends lay fallen
Fate does speed you elsewhere
Valhalla lies in store
Comrades, our friends lost here.

Sinking, ship lies silent
Broken, battered, listing
Frightened, fearful of the
Frothy water, waiting.

Morbid moaning wind blows
Mere rags ship's sail now
Carmine pools shine sullen
Snapped spars once strong as yew.

Somewhere sun is shining
Wives come and loves to shore
Wait you days and nights long
Your men come home no more.

“First Drottkvaett Revised”

Wotan’s warriors struggle
Fight two foes, yet fight well
Tyr’s teeth strike down one foe
Aegir yet takes his toll.

Fresh-killed foes stare sightless
Finally they are struck down
Weary, wounded victors
Whisper in the dim dawn.

Go well, friends here fallen
Fate now speeds you elsewhere
Valhőll ope’s its halls wide
True warriors, ours lost here.

Sinking ship lies silent
Broken, battered, listing
Frightened, fearful of the
Frothy water waiting.

Morbid moaning wind blows
Mere rags ship’s sail now
Carmine pools shine sullen
Snapped spars once strong as yew.

Somewhere sun is shining
Wives come and loves to shore
Wait you days and nights long
Your men come home no more.

The drottkvaett you have just read is the result of quite a bit of entertaining discussion that took place post-presentation. Some of the language did not flow through the trochaic trimeter as it should have; the basic English iambic pentameter reads as “yaDA yaDA yaDA yaDA yaDA” as in the following section from Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare:

Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?
What tributaries follow him to Rome
To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?

If you place the emphasis in the poem by using CAPITAL letters for emphasis of syllables, the meter becomes obvious:

WhereFORE reJOICE? What CONquest BRINGS he HOME?
What TRIbuTARies FOLlow HIM to ROME
To GRACE in CAPtive BONDS his CHARiot WHEELS?

Since English poetry is about all I’d ever read or written, it became quite difficult to switch from reading and writing iambic pentameter to writing acceptable trochaic trimeter without instinctively falling into “yaDA” instead of the correct “Yada”; it was also discovered that many, many English words do not fit Viking poetical requirements, being emphasized on the second syllable rather than the first. As I stated in a previous paragraph, and as Master Godfrey pointed out in a later discussion, it is extremely difficult to write grammatically correct Viking poetry in English. Not impossible…but difficult.

As Gulf Wars came and went, it was requested by some enthusiasts on the mailing list that I do another drottkvaett. After some wangling on the subject of what to write about, I staggered back from Gulf Wars and decided that the war itself, and the things that surrounded it, was a proper subject.

The following drottkvaett resulted. (Comments in [brackets] were included after writing the poem to explain the verse to those people lucky/unlucky enough not to be there…)

"Gulf War Drottkvaett"

Bitter wind is freezing
wailing through the marshes
warriors guard their women
women ward their charges.
[it was cold. 'nuff said.]

Troll-booth tied up Wednesday
Tolls are slowly taken
line to no one's liking
look, new friends we're makin'!

[didn't know much of anybody in the line when I started walking up it; by the time I went back for the third time, I knew just about everybody, by face at least! Hi, Jonathan of Trimaris! Sorry I never got to your pavilion...]

Pushed too near its boundaries
Patience, perfect virtue!
"let us in, gate keeper!
Let us in, we beg you!"

[no explanation necessary.]

Icy grip of winter
wearing out its welcome
"here too long" we grumble
huddled in our hotel.

[at least we had a hotel room - it was COLD. see next verse-]

Luckless campers cluster
look through windows, gathered
begging, pleading, bribing
"see them! They have showered!"

[Well, they didn't, and we wouldn't have turned anybody away. But the sentiment was there among anybody in a tent. ;>]

Bytor's brought a longboat!
Brakes don't work, but dandy.
Guess we should have told him
Get a Ford, not Chevy.

[Sir Bytor, a man with WAY too much time on his hands ;>, built and brought a rather nice-looking viking longboat built on a Chevy S-10 chassis. The brakes didn't work for a day or two after it got there.]

Merchants whine at weather
"who wants summer clothing?
fans we brought to sell here
fans look just like kindling!"

Food for sale from vendors
hot food briskly selling
steaming, smoking, spitting
sausage, rolls, good-smelling!

Castle breach is finished!
Catches soldiers off-guard
Sucks them in and spits out
sausage meat in courtyard.

[The people in charge of adding on to the castle finally finished the breach, and it was a dandy...]

Weather warms as days pass
'ware high pressure system!
Warming weather should bring
women back - we missed 'em.

[again, not really...but sort of! It's hard to tell what's huddled under the cloak next to you...;>]

Resurrection battle
brings a close to Gulf Wars
weary people watching
vict'ry for Trimaris.

[grump, grump, grump...well, they won the war point, anyway. IIRC, the war ended in a tie, which is the way all wars should end, IMO. But there was no such thing as an easy battle for either side, from what I saw. I know my back looked like ...well, like people had been hitting it a lot!... After the resurrection battle; had to do with the tactics I tend to use when I'm outnumbered. ;>]

Jonathan adds:."rattan" isn't really a topic; it's a thing. Writing drottkvaett, even as sloppy as this, takes more material than just "rattan" could provide, without becoming an extremely boring critter. "Gulf Wars" is a good topic. ;>

In short, after writing these two attempts at drottkvaett, I was prepared to back up Master Godfrey’s contention that writing drottkvaett isn’t as easy as it seems to be at first glance. After writing the following for TRM Anton & Luned’s Coronation, it seems that these things get easier with practice…

Viking Drottkvaett:

"The Hunt"