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The Near Marriage of Thrym; The
Groom's Prospective by Lord Dunstan LeHeryngmongere (Keith Nealson) |
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ABOUT THIS STYLE: This poem is done in the style of Fornyrðislag (pronounced FORT-near-this-lahg) It is the immediate descendant of the older stichic poetry found in the poetic eddas and has enjoyed use in Iceland for a thousand years, from the days of the Scandinavian settlement in the ninth century until the late nineteenth century, when its practice more or less lapsed. This style usually consisted of 8 line verses. Each line had two stressed syllables and between 2 and 5 unstressed syllables. The lines came in pairs that practiced alliteration (consonant rhyming) so that the same consonant sound was heard usually three and sometimes four and five times in a pair of lines. Usually, though not always, the stressed syllables were part of the first three alliterative words. It is based on very well known story from the same eddas in which Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, is stolen by the giant Thyrm, who refuses to give it back unless he can be wed to the goddess Freja. It is of course Loki’s idea to dress up Thor in Bridal gown and get him close enough to Thyrm to get his hammer back. This poem is written from Thyrm’s perspective as he is being confronted by the cross-dressing deity. |
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