Hallvarðr Háreksblesi was one of the skalds of Canute the Great. Nothing is known about his life or family but eight fragments of his poetry on Canute have been preserved. While Hallvarðr's poetry resembles that of Canute's other poets in many respects it is unusual in its heavy use of pagan imagery.

Extant fragments

Six fragments of poetry by Hallvarðr are quoted in the

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, ...

section of Snorri Sturluson's

Prose Edda The ''Prose Edda'', also known as the ''Younger Edda'', ''Snorri's Edda'' ( is, Snorra Edda) or, historically, simply as ''Edda'', is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often assumed to have been t ...

. One additional fragment is quoted in

Knýtlinga saga ''Knýtlinga saga'' (''The Saga of Cnut's Descendants'') is an Icelandic kings' saga written in the 1250s, which deals with the kings who ruled Denmark since the early 10th century.Ármann Jakobsson, "Royal biography", p. 397-8 There are good rea ...

and one in

Heimskringla ''Heimskringla'' () is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland by the poet and historian Snorre Sturlason (1178/79–1241) 1230. The name ''Heimskringla'' was first used in the 17th century, derive ...

and

kings' sagas Kings' sagas ( is, konungasögur, nn, kongesoger, -sogor, nb, kongesagaer) are Old Norse sagas which principally tell of the lives of semi-legendary and legendary (mythological, fictional) Nordic kings, also known as saga kings. They were comp ...

derived from it. In

Finnur Jónsson Finnur Jónsson (May 29, 1858 – March 30, 1934) was an Icelandic-Danish philologist and Professor of Nordic Philology at the University of Copenhagen. He made extensive contributions to the study of Old Norse literature. Finnur Jónsson was b ...

's complete edition of

skaldic poetry 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 traditional ...

the fragments are conjectured to be all from the same poem, a ''Knútsdrápa'' ("Lay of Canute"), and arranged in a suggested order. The first complete English translation was published by

Roberta Frank Roberta Frank (born 1941) is an American philologist specializing in Old English and Old Norse language and literature. She is Marie Borroff Professor Emeritus of English at Yale University. Career Frank received a B.A. in comparative literatur ...

in 1994. The extant fragments are mainly about Canute's expedition to England and his becoming king there in 1015-1016. Apart from what little can be conjectured from this, nothing is known about the poet's life or origin. Finnur Jónsson believed he became one of Canute's court poets after the king's conquest of Norway in 1028.Finnur Jónsson 1920:601; Hallvarðr Háreksblese. Om denne digters herkomst og liv vides intet. Han har opholdt sig hos kong Knud i England, efter at denne havde erobret Norge i 1028, han tiltaler kongen i versene. Af hans Knútsdrápa (navnet findes i Fms. XI, 187), er endel vers bevarede (Skj. digtn. B I, 293-94). De handler om Knuds tog til England i 1016, om hans store magt, krigerske færd og lykke i temmelig stærke, men egenlig ikke originale udtryk: "Knud værger sit land, som alverdens herre bjærgenes herlige sal" er omkvædet; det minder om Gunnlaugs stef i Aðalsteins dr. Der er ikke meget karakteristisk ved disse vers; de er i formel henseende ret gode. Særlig kan vi lægge mærke til, at vi hos Hallvarðr finder en - ny - omskrivning for brystet, hæntet fra den nye tro. Han kalder nemlig brynjen for en "bönnens skibs (brystets) bark". Dette er åbenbart en nýgjörving.

Hallvarðr and other poets

The refrain of Hallvarðr's ''Knútsdrápa'' compares Knútr's role on earth to that of the Christian God in Heaven. :Knútr verr jörð sem ítran :alls dróttinn sal fjalla. :''Cnut protects the land as the Lord of all

oes Oes or owes were metallic "O" shaped rings or eyelets sewn on to clothes and furnishing textiles for decorative effect in England and at the Elizabethan and Jacobean court. They were smaller than modern sequins. Making and metals Robert Sharp obta ...

the splendid hall of the mountains eaven'' Hallvarðr's refrain is very similar to that composed by his fellow poet, Þórarinn loftunga, who also compared the roles of Canute and God in his ''Höfuðlausn''. It is also reminiscent of the refrain of Gunnlaugr Wormtongue's poem about king Ethelred and, to a lesser extent, to those in Þórarinn loftunga's ''Tøgdrápa'' and Sighvatr Þórðarson's ''Knútsdrápa'', both about King Canute. Like Canute's other skalds, Hallvarðr emphasizes Canute's Danish ancestry and how his rule benefits Danish interests. He, however, differs somewhat from the other poets in describing Canute with imagery derived from Norse mythology, including references to

valkyries In Norse mythology, a valkyrie ("chooser of the slain") is one of a host of female figures who guide souls of the dead to the god Odin's hall Valhalla. There, the deceased warriors become (Old Norse "single (or once) fighters"Orchard (1997:3 ...

giants A giant is a being of human appearance, sometimes of prodigious size and strength, common in folklore. Giant(s) or The Giant(s) may also refer to: Mythology and religion *Giants (Greek mythology) *Jötunn, a Germanic term often translated as 'gi ...

, the

Midgard Serpent In Germanic cosmology, Midgard (an anglicised form of Old Norse ; Old English , Old Saxon , Old High German , and Gothic ''Midjun-gards''; "middle yard", "middle enclosure") is the name for Earth (equivalent in meaning to the Greek term , "inhab ...

and the World Tree. In his kennings, he even refers to Canute with the names of pagan gods.

Critical reception

Finnur Jónsson described Hallvarðr's poetic expressions as strong but not very original and the surviving verses as formally quite good but not very individual in character. Despite this, he noted that one of Hallvarðr's poems has an apparently new

kenning A kenning ( Icelandic: ) is a figure of speech in the type of circumlocution, a compound that employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun. Kennings are strongly associated with Old Norse-Icelandic and Old English ...

for the breast (as seat of emotion and thought), based on the new religion; "the ship of prayer".

is more positive, describing Hallvarðr's poetry as "skaldic verse at its richest and most allusive, a startling blend of Christian and pagan imagery like that carved on the

Gosforth cross The Gosforth Cross is a large stone monument in St Mary's churchyard at Gosforth in the English county of Cumbria, dating to the first half of the 10th century AD. Formerly part of the kingdom of Northumbria, the area was settled by Scandinavia ...

."Frank 1994:121.

Notes

References

*Hallvarðr háreksblesi, ''Knútsdrápa'':
ed. Matthew Townend
Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages.

Jörmungrund. * Faulkes, Anthony (1998). ''Snorri Sturluson : Edda : Skáldskaparmál''. 1. Introduction, Text and Notes. Viking Society for Northern Research, London. * Finnur Jónsson (1920). ''Den oldnorske og oldislandske litteraturs historie''. Anden udgave. Første bind. G. E. C. Gads forlag, København. * Frank, Roberta (1994). "King Cnut in the verse of his skalds" in ''The Reign of Cnut'', pp. 106-124. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hallvardr Hareksblesi Viking Age poets 11th-century poets Danish poets