Rattus rattus as a Beast of Battle? Stanza 12 of Ragnars Saga
Rattus rattus as a Beast of Battle? Stanza 12 of Ragnars Saga
Rory McTurk discusses Stanza 12 from Ragnars saga, a late-thirteenth-century saga about a legendary Viking-Age hero. The stanzas in the saga date from a time when the rigid definitions of meters recorded by Snorri Sturluson had fallen by the wayside. The stanzas consist of the standard eight lines, and the lines seem to aim at the required syllable count of six—though it is often not achieved. Some couplets are linked by alliteration, but rhyme is rare and haphazard. The construction of kennings is likewise flexible. This raises the question of whether the stanzas are corrupt and should be emended to make them conform to Snorri’s rules. McTurk argues not, and he offers here a rationale for editing and interpreting this particular stanza without emending the manuscript. His suggestion is unorthodox and ingenious, and points the way to new approaches to this kind of poetry, where traditional methods have reached dead ends or even led scholars astray. His suggestion is valuable as a methodological example: how is an editor to approach a kenning that seems to fall outside the guidelines of the Snorra Edda?
Keywords: Ragnars saga, Snorri Sturluson, Snorra Edda, interpretation of kennings, skaldic poetry, editing, skaldic meters, Rory McTurk
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