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380
Craigie: Skaldic Metre.
more opportunity to give stress to the verb; and (2) this is
especially the case when the word in the fourth place is a
substantive, e. g.
5 svd skyldi god: gjdlda
23 ef nceSak sif sltectd
29 peir’s gdtu see slita
35 ver unnum gny Ounnar
peir kniSum bid bdSir
41 pat gercti vin virSa
This makes it fairly clear that the verb in these lines is to
be credited, if not with full stress, at least with something very
near it, so far as recitation is concerned, but the fact that the
verb never has the alliterative letter indicates that technically
these lines were not equivalent to par’s gollin sjydr guUu. The
probability therefore seems to be that we have here a
compromise between technical correctness and elocutionary effect. In
any case the comparatively small number of these lines
would be no strong argument against the view that a
hen-ding must, as a rule, stand in a full-stressed syllable.
The second point which seems to me to favour the theory
of Old Northern metres which I have advanced above, is that
the essentially trochaic nature of these metres is better
preserved by it than by the system presently in favour. If
we accept Prof. Siever’s views, two types of lines (B and C)
begin with an absolutely unstressed syllable, so that the line
opens with an iambus instead of a trochee. Here again I
may appeal to the ear of anyone who attempts to recite a
dr6ttkvaett verse: such a complete change from a trochaic to
an iambic system in successive lines seems to me in
itself highly improbable. On the view I have suggested, the
first syllable of a line always has some stress, the
lightening from ^ to ^ being no more than is regularly done in
modern poetry, where the actual line does not always
correspond to the metrical scheme which forms its basis. When
Shakespeare wrote
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