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Tips for Poets ~
Norse Alliterative Poetry Workshop
Old Meter - An easy example & some finer points
"We wander the world at wintertime;
white is the landscape, lulled in deep sleep.
The wild hunt now rides high in the sky,
the wild hunt of Wodan, beware of it now!"
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This is a stanza in Old Meter. Read it silent, read it aloud, and you will hear
where the stresses are. Remember or reread the Old Meter rules, and you should
realize where the alliteration lies.
I shall dicuss this stanza line for line, to point out some thoughts which will
deepen your understanding of Old Meter, and will be helpful for your writing.
"We wander the world..."
You hear the first two stresses; they both begin with "w". Both times itīs the
same sound; the first two stresses alliterate with each other already. The third
alliteration of the whole line /has/ to be a "w" also - there is no other
possibility!
That means an advanced reader will at this point be consciously or
subconsciously be expecting a stressed "w" syllable to follow in the second
half-line. This creates a subtle anticipation. If the line is spoken, maybe some
listeners will subliminally try to guess what that "w" word will be. If you know
the poem is to be about winter, "wintertime" might seem an obvious choice.
"We wander the world at wintertime"
You see that the lineīs last two stresses fall within one word, "wintertime".
Thatīs perfectly all right. Just because you have two stresses, you donīt have
to use two separate words.
"We wander the world at wintertime"
This line consists of a whole sentence. In Old Norse poetry, a line end often
ended a sentence, or at least it meant the end of a complete thought, phrase, or
sentence part. And a stanza was a complete unit unto itself. No sentence ran
longer than one stanza.
"white is the landscape, lulled in deep sleep."
When you hear the first half-line, you realize there are two possibilities
ahead:
a) That the alliteration is on "w", and a "w" word will follow in the second
half-line, or
b) that the alliteration is on "l".
As soon as you hear "lulled", you know which it is
.
"The wild hunt now rides high in the sky"
If you read this the very first time, there is a little insecurity: Do you
pronounce the first stress on "wild" or on "hunt" ? Both would be theoretically
be possible. The second stress is on "rides", which isnīt helpful, since it
doesnīt alliterate with either "wild" or "hunt".
The second half-line (the third stress of the whole line) tells you the answer:
"high". The alliteration of the line is on "h"! So you read the sentence, "The
wild *hunt*", not, "The *wild* hunt".
"the wild hunt of Wodan, beware of it now!"
This line starts with the same three words as the previous one. You are clever,
and expect that alliteration will be the same too. No, sir! This time the poet
has decided to alliterate on "wild", not on "hunt". You find that out as soon as
the second stressed word "Wodan" appears. Logically, the third alliteration can
be nothing else than a "w" - "beware".
The point of all this ? On the one hand, Old Meter is basically simple and
straightforward. On the other, there are a lot of possibilities hiding in it, a
lot of choices you can make that determine how your poem will sound, and what
effect it has.