Old Norse Women's Poetry: The Voices of Female Skalds

Library of Medieval Women

by Sandra Ballif Straubhaar

The rich and compelling corpus of Old Norse poetry is one of the most important and influential areas of medieval European literature, and much of it is attributable to women skalds. This book presents a bilingual edition (Old Norse and English) with commentary and notes of this material, from the ninth to the thirteenth century and beyond. The poems reflect the dramatic and often violent nature of the sagas: they feature Viking Age shipboard adventures and shipwrecks; prophecies; curses; declarations of love and of revenge; duels, feuds and battles; encounters with ghosts; marital and family discord; and religious insults, among many other topics. Their authors fall into four main categories: pre-Christian Norwegian and Icelandic skaldkonur of the Viking Age; Icelandic skaldkonur of the Sturlung Age (thirteenth century); additional early skaldkonur from the Islendingasogur and related material, not as historically verifiable as the first group; and mythical figures cited as reciting verse in the legendary sagas (fornaldarsogur).

Genres: Poetry, History, Womens, Female Authors, Nonfiction, Mythology

158 pages, Hardcover

First published April 21, 2011

About the author

Senior Lecturer — Ph.D. in German Studies and Humanities, Stanford University.

Sandra Ballif Straubhaar’s research has focused on the following areas, among others: The construction of ethnicity and national identity in central and northern Europe, early modern to nineteenth century; Scandinavian medievalism, eighteenth-century to current; European and north American medievalism, eighteenth-century to current; women in the Viking age; Eddic and skaldic poetry; the Nordic ballad tradition, and its interface with the Anglophone one; gendered hags and monsters in the late-medieval legendary sagas, particularly Hrafnistu manna sögur; transgressive women in the Icelandic family saga, particularly Laxdœla saga; and normative trends in northern European children’s literature traditions.

Reviews

[Pilar · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well structured bilingual edition (Old Norse/English) 0f "a selection of notable Old Norse/Old Icelandic poetry in which the voice of the speaking poet (skald, Icelandic) is female" (cf. Introduction). I really like to find women (in this case Sandra Ballif Straubhaar, editor and translator of the book) that write about women who were made invisible surely due to the patriarchal order...
The book also contains a useful glossary of personal names and a good bibliography.

[FabledHeartless · Rating 4 out of 5]

Une anthologie de poèmes, eddiques ou scaldiques, qui ré-attribue aux femmes leur place dans le panorama culturel et artistique nordique. Un recueil exhaustif et bien expliqué, morcelé en fonction des différents types de sources dans lesquelles les poèmes se trouvent (scaldes historiques, fictifs ou légendaires). Le gros plus de ce corpus reste la présence des textes sources, traduits deux fois : l’une « poétique » pour respecter la rythmique et l’esthétique des vers, l’autre plus « prosaïque » destinée à en transcrire le sens. C’est tout bonnement génial. A dévorer de bout en bout !

[Sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

An odd project-- gathering all the poetry spoken by female characters in the Icelandic sagas with the thought that they tell us about female poets of the era-- but really fun to read: fast and fascinating, and I thoroughly enjoyed the poetry and translation.

[Katherine Cowley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating poetry, all written by Old Norse women skalds (in a few cases, they were attributed to women and very likely written by them). The book provided two translations for each poem--one that captured more of the form, and the other that focused more on the literal meanings (and often, layers of literal meanings).

I read about half of this before having to return it to interlibrary loan, but thoroughly enjoyed it. Interesting to note that there were also multiple poems with sexual references and sometimes even what we would now call "dirty jokes."