The mythological lays
Mythological lays about the Norse gods make up the first half of the Poetic Edda. It is unlikely that any of these originated outside Norway, Iceland, and the Norse colonies in the British Isles. The Vǫluspá (“Sibyl’s Prophecy”) is a striking poem on the history of the world of gods, men, and monsters, from the beginning until the “twilight of the gods.” Many passages in the poem are obscure, but most modern scholars agree that it was composed in Iceland about the year 1000, when the people were turning from the old religion to Christianity. The Skírnismál (“Words of Skírnir”) tells the story of the god Freyr, lord of the world: sitting in “Gate Tower,” the throne of Odin, he gazes into the world of giants and falls in love with a giant maiden; to win her, he sends his messenger Skírnir, who first offers gifts and then threatens the maiden until she agrees to make a tryst with Freyr. Scholars have seen an ancient fertility myth in this story, and it is certainly one of the older mythological poems in the Poetic Edda and probably originated in Norway before Iceland was settled by Norwegians.
The mythological poems so far mentioned are all narrative, but many of those in the Poetic Edda are didactic. The Hávamál (“Words of the High One”; i.e., Odin) consists of fragments of at least six poems. In the first section, the god speaks of relations between humans and lays down rules of social conduct; in other sections he discourses on relations between men and women and tells how the love of women may be lost or won; the last two sections are about runes and magic power. Most of the poems were probably composed in Norway in the 9th and 10th centuries. Another didactic poem, the Vafþrúðnir (“Words of Vafþrúðnir”), relates a contest between Odin and a giant.
Some important mythological lays appear in other manuscripts. Baldrs draumar (“Balder’s Dreams”) describes how the god Balder dreamed that his life was threatened and how his father, Odin, rode to the grave of a prophet to force her to reveal the fate in store for Balder.
The Eddaic verse forms
Three metres are commonly distinguished in Eddaic poetry: the epic measure, the speech measure, and the song measure. Most narrative poems are in the first measure, which consists of short lines of two beats joined in pairs by alliteration. The number of weakly stressed syllables might vary, but the total number of syllables in the line is rarely fewer than four. In these respects it resembles the measure used by Anglo-Saxon and early Germanic poets. The speech measure used in the Atlamál (“Words of Atli”) differs little from the epic measure, though its lines usually have a greater number of weakly stressed syllables. The song measure is the most irregular of the Eddaic verse forms. It is chiefly in didactic poems and generally consists of strophes of six lines divided into half strophes of three lines.
Norwegians and Icelanders of the 9th to the 13th century also composed skaldic poetry (from the Icelandic word skáld, “poet”). It was not composed in the free variable metres of the Poetic Edda but was strictly syllabic: every syllable had to be counted, and every line had to end in a given form. Like Eddaic lines, the skaldic lines were joined in pairs by alliteration, often using internal rhyme or consonance, but this poetry differed in syntax and choice of expression. Word order is freer than in Eddaic poetry. A highly specialized poetic vocabulary employed periphrases, or kennings, of such complexity that the poetry resembles riddles: the phrase sword liquid, for example, might stand in for blood, while the horse of the land of Haki refers to a ship (the “land” of Haki, a sea king, being the ocean). Little is known about skaldic verse forms, but they are thought to have been developed in Norway during the 9th century and could have been influenced by the forms and diction of Irish poets of the period. The earliest known poet was Bragi the Old, who probably wrote in Norway in the latter half of the 9th century. Harald I (died c. 940) of Norway was eulogized by several poets, among them Þórbjǫrn Hornklofi, whose poem the Haraldskvæði (“Lay of Harald”) was partly Eddaic and partly skaldic in style.
The distinction between Icelandic and Norwegian literature at this period can be difficult to make. Skaldic verse seems to have originated in Norway and to have been developed by Icelandic poets who, like Egill Skallagrímsson, spent much time in Norway or who wrote in praise of Norwegian kings, as did Sigvatr, counselor and court poet of Olaf II of Norway. Although the complexity of skaldic poetry has limited its modern readership, the orally transmitted poems of the 10th and 11th centuries became valuable sources for Icelandic historians in the following centuries.