Drottkvaett: Viking Poetry

                            Drottkvaett : Viking Poetry
                           by Jeff Lee (shipbrk@gate.net)
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I would love to see someone write a poem in drottkvaett, the "official" poetic form of Norse 
sagas (and other court poetry).  Not necessarily for the Formal Bardic, but the announcement 
of its theme prompted me to write this "challenge".

If anyone's interested in trying, here is the basic form:

Drottkvaett ("three-foot") is written in a very strict trochaic trimeter
("YAD-da YAD-da YAD-da"), with four lines per stanza.  Each half-stanza
has three alliterating strong syllables, two in the first line and one
in the second line (usually on the first syllable), and all vowels are
considered to be alliterative with each other.  The last syllable of the
second and fourth lines of each stanza must rhyme.  For example:

     Strike with spear and halberd,       [Strike, Spear]
     Soldiers of Trimaris!                [Soldier] {-ris}
     Answer taunts with axe-blows;        [Answer, Axe]
     Overwhelm their fortress!            [Overwhelm] {-ress}

Kenning (the use of metaphoric imagery) was very common; for example,
"sea-steed" is a ship (something one rides over the sea).  There could
also be double or triple kennings:

                             Sea-plow = ship
                    Sea-plow's furrow = wake of a ship
           Earth of sea-plow's furrow = the ocean

I'd love to see some SCA drottkvaett.  Unfortunately, the single stanza
above pretty much exhausted my limited poetic ability, so I'm obviously
not the one to bring it about.  If anyone wants to try, I'd enjoy seeing
what you come up with!
                                                        -- Godfrey