So reads the scroll appointing Runa Duchess and Arch Duke:
All ye honor-eager1,
Odin’s wine2 now offer
forest dweller’s3 daughter,
Daring war-dís4 Runa.
Name her highest noble,
Nourisher of wisdom5,
She who bears on brow-front6
Band of brightest sea-flame7.
Arch who wears arm-gravel8,
Arrow-god9 his father–
Black battle-swan10 bearer,
Breaker of soul-boxes11.
Call him and acclaim him
Commander of wave-steed12,
Blood-taster13 his blazon,
of blade-lovers14 ruler.
Young kin are their escort,
Admirable children.
The rare rope-limbed15 Kraken
Rises from her sea-bed
And Leif the long-running16
Lopes doughtily onward.
They stint not, these selfless,
Service freely giving.
Now from this day forward
Famed as Duke and Duchess
Chalice-holders17 cherish
Charter in your honour.
To tree-wyrm18 be trothful–
Tribe-loyalty treasure.
So the sea-light sleeper19
Signs by seal and sigil.
Dag and Anne Marie ordered these words set down at their Coronation on the 24th September A.S. LXVI in honor of Duke Arch and Duchess Runa;
Process Notes
(Kennings are footnoted at bottom.)
When Matildis la Libraire asked me to collaborate again, I said yes right away. Then I learned that the project was a ducal scroll for the then reigning Crown, Runa and Arch. We discussed various ways to adapt the text and art to their personae, a discussion that ranged over a period of weeks as Matildis determined what she wanted to do. She settled on a design in the Mammen style and based upon the Cammin casket. You can read about Matildis’s artistic process here.
Because of the choice of design and because Arch’s persona was a Jorvik Northman, I decided to use the highest-end of the skaldic poetic forms, the drottkvæt. I had only learned to write in this form a few months previously in the reign of Ullr and AnneLyse. Drottkvæt is a demanding form with stringent requirements of accent, alliteration, and syllabic count. In Old Norse, most drottkvæt also use an internal rhyme scheme, but that is almost impossible to accomplish in English because of the differing characteristics of the two languages. So my drottkvæt are unrhymed or “formless,” a recognized period option.
Drottkvæt come in eight-line stanzas. Based on my earlier discussions with Matildis, I planned to write two stanzas. However, when she had her page laid out, she asked me if I could make the text longer. I ended up writing four stanzas: one about Runa, one about Arch, one about their children, and one referring to the process of the Crown conferring the duchy.
The shiny bit of the skaldic art, the way a skald shows off to other skalds, is the kenning–a metaphorical phrase, often very obscure, used to replace a simple word such as “woman” or “gold.” The simpler, more obvious kennings, such as “honor-eager” for “warriors” or “Odin’s son” for Thor, are referred to as heiti (pl). In my previous works, I had managed only a few kennings. In this piece, I wanted to achieve an Old Norse density of figurative language in the verse.
The central imagery was based around the animals associated with each person named on the scroll: the bear for Runa, the raven for Arch, the kraken for Kraken, and the wolf for Leif. In the final stanza, I used kennings to refer to the Crown and, as a figure for the Crown, the Midrealm Dragon. All but those noted are period kennings (see below).
The prose portion of the text is modeled on the Jelling stone raised by Harald Bluetooth.
My thanks to Master Grim the Skald for his teaching and book-sharing. Sine qua non.
1 An original heiti: those eager for honor, i.e., Midrealm populace.
2 poetry
3 the bear’s daughter
4 woman warrior
5 woman
6 woman
7 gold
8 gems
9 Ullr
10 the raven
11 an original compound kenning meaning warrior, “soul-boxes” referring to the skull or ribcage which enclose the mortal soul
12 ship captain
13 raven again
14 warriors
15 “the rope-limbed” is the Kraken; I included the name both for metrical reasons and so the young lady would be sure to know she was acknowledged.
16 wolf
17 a variant on “cup-keeper,” i.e. dragon, and therefore a reference to the new King and Queen
18 dragon again
19 dragon; “sea-light” is gold, and the one who sleeps on a bed of gold is the dragon. “Sea-light” is period; the compound is original.