Poetry
The Lay of Harold
Haraldskvæði
Þorbjörn hornklofi · 900
Opening lines
Hlýði hringberendr,
meðan frá Haraldi
segik odda íþróttir
hinum afarauðga;
Listen, ring-bearers,
while I tell
of the feats of arms
of Harald the exceedingly rich;
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from heimskringla.no
Synopsis
The poet calls on the warriors to listen to him: he has overheard the conversation of a valkyrie and a raven. She asks where these blood-beaked birds come from; the raven answers that it follows Harald, son of Halfdan, and describes the naval battle of Hafrsfjord against Kjǫtvi the Rich, where Haklangr falls, then the Danish wife the king has taken. The valkyrie then questions it about the warriors of the royal hall, about the skalds, the berserkers and the jugglers of the court.
Context
The poem, also called Hrafnsmál, the lay of the raven, survives only in fragments quoted in the chronicles of the kings, from which editors have reconstructed it. It is mostly in málaháttr, with passages in ljóðaháttr and in fornyrðislag, and its style brings it closer to the Eddic poems than to court praise poetry. The attribution is disputed: the Fagrskinna and the Flateyjarbók give the stanzas on Hafrsfjord to Þjóðólfr ór Hvini, Finnur Jónsson counted twenty-three of them, and Jón Helgason saw in it the work of several authors; it is not known whether its parts form a single poem. R. D. Fulk edited it in 2012.
Who it is for
A brief, fragmentary poem, to be read in an annotated edition that explains the names and allusions.
Prizes and reception
One of the oldest Norwegian court poems, and a witness to the image that Harald's court wished to give of itself.