Kormákr Ögmundarson (

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

: ;

Modern Icelandic Icelandic (; is, íslenska, link=no ) is a North Germanic language spoken by about 314,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland, where it is the national language. Due to being a West Scandinavian language, it is most closely re ...

: ) was a 10th-century

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

skald A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: , later ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry, the other being Eddic poetry, which is anonymous. Skaldic poems were traditionally ...

. He is the protagonist of ''

Kormáks saga ''Kormáks saga'' () is one of the Icelanders' sagas. The saga was probably written during the first part of the 13th century. Though the saga is believed to have been among the earliest sagas composed it is well preserved. The unknown author cle ...

'' which preserves a significant amount of poetry attributed to him. According to ''

Skáldatal ''Skáldatal'' (''Catalogue of Poets'') is a short prose work in Old Norse. It is preserved in two manuscripts: DG 11, or ''Codex Uppsaliensis'', which is one of the four main manuscripts of the ''Prose Edda'' (first quarter of the 14th century), an ...

'' he was also the court poet of Sigurðr Hlaðajarl and fragments of a ''

drápa A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: , later ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry, the other being Eddic poetry, which is anonymous. Skaldic poems were traditionally ...

'' to the jarl are preserved in ''

Skáldskaparmál ''Skáldskaparmál'' (Old Norse: 'The Language of Poetry'; c. 50,000 words; ; ) is the second part of the ''Prose Edda''. The section consists of a dialogue between Ægir, the divine personification of the sea, and Bragi, the god of poetry, in ...

''. The following stanzas represent some of Kormákr's love poetry. He tells of the first time he met Steingerðr, the love of his life
Read aloud with modern Icelandic pronunciation.

References

Einar Ól. Sveinsson Einar is a Scandinavian given name deriving from the Old Norse name Einarr, which according to Guðbrandur Vigfússon is directly connected with the concept of the einherjar, warriors who died in battle and ascended to Valhalla in Norse mytholo ...

(Ed.) (1939). ''Íslenzk fornrit VIII - Vatnsdœla saga''. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag. * Hollander, Lee M. (Ed.) (1949). ''The Sagas of Kormák and The Sworn Brothers''. Princeton: Princeton University Press. * Viðar Hreinsson (Ed.) (1997). ''The Complete Sagas of Icelanders'', Volume 1. Reykjavík: Leifur Eiríksson Publishing. .

External links

All of Kormákr's poems in the original language
* Russell Poole
"Composition Transmission Performance: The First Ten ''lausavísur'' in ''Kormáks saga''"
''Alvíssmál'' 7 (1997): 37–60. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kormakr Ogmundarson Icelandic male poets 10th-century Icelandic poets