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Introduction

exemplified in the poems need only a brief comment here, however, in order to make clear the method used in this translation. All of these forms group the lines normally in four-line stanzas. In the so-called Fornyrthislag ("Old Verse"), for convenience sometimes referred to in the notes as four-four measure, these lines have all the same structure, each line being sharply divided by a cæsural pause into two half-lines, and each half-line having two accented syllables and two (sometimes three) unaccented ones. The two half-lines forming a complete line are bound together by the alliteration, or more properly initial-rhyme, of three (or two) of the accented syllables. The following is an example of the Fornyrthislag stanza, the accented syllables being in italics:

Vreiþr vas Vingþórr,  es vaknaþiok síns hamars  of saknaþi;skegg nam hrista,  skǫr nam dýja,réþ Jarþar burr  umb at þreifask.

In the second form, the Ljothahattr ("Song Measure"), the first and third line of each stanza are as just described, but the second and fourth are shorter, have no cæsural pause, have three accented syllables, and regularly two initial-rhymed accented syllables, for which reason I have occasionally referred to Ljothahattr as four-three measure. The following is an example:

Ár skal rísa  sás annars vill fé eþa fjǫr hafa;liggjandi ulfr  sjaldan láer of getr né sofandi maþr sigr.

In the third and least commonly used form, the Malahattr ("Speech Measure"), a younger verse-form than

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