Hi, I'm Old Norse specialist Dr. Jackson Crawford. I teach at the University of Colorado Boulder previously, UC Berkeley and UCLA .
one of the great genres of Old Norse poetry besides
poems about the Gods is
Death poetry. The poems by men who are about to die.
One of the most famous of course
is Ragnar Lothbrok who has in a sense two famous death poems because there's the
short couple stanzas he speaks in the saga of Ragnar Lothbrok which I've translated
as well as the long Krákumál which I've made another video about
But there are many others
In the saga of Ragnar Lothbrok one of Ragnar's own sons, Eirek, has a famous
death poem
This is from my translation of that saga.
I will accept no payment for my brother nor a wife nor hear Eystein named as the killer of Agnar
No mother mourns me. I am ready to die high above the other corpses here. Let the Spears pierce me
No king's son I ever heard of died on a better bed for the Ravens breakfast. The eager
thankless shining feathered bird will soon caw over both brothers' bodies
Take these final words : my journey East has ended. Tell the lovely lady Áslaug that she owns my rings now
She will be angry (my stepmother) when she hears I am dead. She will tell her gentle sons
The Raven is hungry for my bloody head that eager bird thirsts for my unseeing eyes
You know if the Raven pulls the eyes from my head that carrion bird repays me badly for the feasts I fed him
This is as
Eirek has been captured by King no Eystein of the Swedes. Who's already killed his brother Agnar and of course
Eirek points out that his own mother is dead so no mother will mourn him but he asks that his
father's second wife, Áslaug, be informed about how he dies
Which is : he requests to be thrown onto a bed of spears planted in the earth
It's pretty metal
Another famous death poem comes to us in the saga of Gísli Súrsson
Gísli has been fighting off his attackers
He's been standing on top of a ridge and fighting them off as they come at him
But finally his guts have been torn out by one of his attackers weapons he
ties his guts back into his body and
then speaks this poem before jumping from the top of his ridge to kill one last attacker as he falls to his own death
I'll read this in Old Norse and reconstructed medieval pronunciation as well as in my own translation
↑(See annotation for Old Norse)↑
The beautiful woman, jewel of my home, who cheers me. Will proudly hear of her brave husband
I think it's well, though the sharp blades of swords bite me. My father gave his son this toughness
Another very famous death poem actually comes from well after the Viking Age
This is the death poem of Thórir jokull : Thórir the glacier.
Uttered in 1238 but still very much in the Viking spirit
↑(See annotation for Old Norse)↑
You must climb up on the keel though the sea sleet is cold
Strain to harden your heart here your life will end
Don't bow your bald head to the snow, though it showers down on you. You had the love of women
everyone must die on some day
So this
grand
poetic acceptance of death may or may not be perfectly historical of course. You may have a difficult time composing a perfectly
calibrated
poem especially in the skaldic tradition as you're dying but maybe it's something you think about.
You know, in the years leading up to it when you think maybe I'll die in some particularly drengr fashion and
then I'll know what to say
Myself on the one occasion that I truly did think I was going to die
I did not utter quite such
quite such drengr words. Although I guess I could have done worse. In conclusion as always I'm wishing you all the best
from beautiful, Colorado
↓Click / tap SHOW MORE for subtitler etc↓
Ma'am do you know why I pulled you over this afternoon?