Old Norse vs Shona

8/8/2019 Old Norse vs Shona

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Poetry and Society:Aspects of Shona, Old English and Old Norse Literature

Hazel CarterSchool of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

One of the most interesting and stimulatingdevelopments of recent years in African studieshas been the discovery and rescue of the tradi-tional poetry of the Shona peoples, as reportedin a previous issue of this journal.1 In particular,to anyone acquainted with Old English (Anglo-Saxon) poetry, the reading of the Shona poetrystrikes familiar chords, notably in the case ofth e nheternbo and madetembedzo praise poetry.The resemblances are not so much in thecontent of the poetry as in the treatment ofZvaitwa, Chivara,Njunta yerenje.Heko.ni vaTemho,Mashongera,Chinakira-matondo,yakashonga mikonde SavakadzuMhuk a inoti, kana yomha nyamumalombo,Kuatsika, unoona mwoto kuti cherucfreru.2

eald uht-sceadha,se dhe byrnendenacod nidh-draca,fyre befangen;swidhe ondraedadh.hord on hrusan,waradh wintrum frod;

Hord-wynne fond,opene standan,biorgas secedh,nihtes fieogedh,hyne fold-buendHe geseacan sceallthaer he haedhen goldne bydh him wihtedhy sel.

the themes, and especially in th e use made ofcertain poetic techniques common to both.Compare, for instance, the following extracts,the first from the clan praises of the Zebra(Tembo), the second from Beowulf, the greatOld English epic, composed probably in theseventh century. The Zebra praises are com-plimentary and the description of the dragonfrom Beowulf quite the reverse, but the expres-sion and handling of the imagery is strikinglysimilar:It has been done, Striped One,Hornless beast of the desert.Thanks, honoured Tembo,Adorned One,Bush-beautifier,decked with bead-girdles like women,Beast which, when it runs amid therocks,And steps on them, you see fire drawnforth.

the ancient dawn-ravager,he that burningthe naked dragon-foe,compassed with fire;greatly dreadeth.the hoard in theearth,guardeth, old in years;

Hoard-joy (treasure)he found,

standing open,seeketh caves,by night he flieth,him the fold-dwellerHe must needs seekwhere he heathen goldnor is he onewhit the better for it.Beowulf, 11. 2270-6.3

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Both languages make much use of imageryexpressed descriptively, frequently in the formof compounds: chinakira-matondo (bush-beauti-fier for zebra) and uht-sceadha (dawn-ravagerfor dragon). Both forms of poetry employ thetechnique of variation, repeating the same orsimilar information in different words, andoften with structural parallelism of variouskinds: biorgas secedh . . . nihtes fleogedh is aninstance from the excerpt above, with whichone should compare the examples given byFortune for the Shona nhetembo of the Hera,and madetetnbedzo (okupfimbana, courtshippraises).4

There is a further point which strikes thereader when he comes to consider literatureswhich are generally classed as related to thatof Old English, in particular that of theScandinavian countries. Old Norse li teratureflourished at about the same time as OldEnglish, was composed in a closely relatedlanguage or group of languages, and by peoplessharing a considerable common heritage oftraditional material and poetic techniques. Yetdespite all this, Old Norse Poetry, and especi-ally the large body of skaldic poetry, is inmany ways less like Old English poetry thanis Shona.

The divergence of the two Germanic poetrieshas been noted before, as for instance byGordon :In general style the Old Norse poemsare very different from the Anglo-Saxon.They . . . set forth their matter with alyrical conciseness and abruptness whichis nearer to the medieval ballad than tothe splendid epic fullness of Beowulf . . .The Norse poems have not the epicdignity or the fine scenic effects ofBeowulf, but . . . a re vivid and dramatic

. . . [with a] fierce power.3The further perception that Shona poetryresembles Old English, in ways in which neitherresembles Old Norse, prompts one to ask thequestion, what factors can be called upon toaccount for the curious agreement betweenShona and Old English?

For at first sight it certainly does seemcurious. Shona is divided from Old Englishby many hundreds of years and thousands ofmiles; the cultures are vastly different, and thelanguages unrelated. Conversely, Old English

and Old Norse are related Germanic languages,and the cultures similar, including religiousdevelopment and to some extent politicalorganization. Both flourished in about the sameperiod of time: Old English from about 650A.D. to the Norman Conquest of the eleventhcentury, and Old Norse skaldic verse fromthe eighth or ninth century to the fourteenth.Moreover, the two cultures were for a timejuxtaposed and even intermingled, through theViking invasions of Britain, so that muchmutual influence might be expected. The factremains that the differences between the twopoetries are deep and significant, and it ispossible to find parallels in Shona literaturefor the points at which Old English differsfrom her sister poetry. One such feature is thatof variation, described and exemplified above;there is no trace of this in skaldic poetry.Another is in the nature of the descriptiveterms used, and this will be more fully dealtwith in the sketch of Norse verse below.

Since literature is the product of a society,this seems an obvious place to look for thevariables. In seeking to discover a correlationbetween certain aspects of the society, andcertain characteristics of the literature, onedoes not of course look so much at the rela-tively trivial features of content and allusionwhich are clearly culture-based or dependentupon the environment. The mention of frostin Beowulf and of salt-gathering expeditionsin the nhetembo are of this kind. What is atissue here is less obviously 'cultural' features,which are generally classed as literary charac-teristics, such as the use of devices likeimagery, in its various forms of expression.Equally, one must leave out of accountpoetic devices so dependent on language struc-ture that they can only occur in languages ofa particular structural type. For instance,although one does not minimise the featurescommon to English and Norse poetry as againstShona, it is found that most such features havetheir origin in the exploitation of linguistic re-sources at fairly low levels.6 The two Germaniclanguages have a clear strong/weak stressdistinction, whereas Shona has not, apart fromthe pre-pausal stress and lengthening (in normalspeech) on the penultimate syllable. Thus thestress-based metre of Old Germanic poetry isnot available to Shona. Similarly alliteration in

Shona is intimately bound up with the gramma-tical structure, whereas with Ge rma nic langu-12


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ages this is not so; alliteration makes anaesthetic impact in English and Norse, and canbe used in a metrical scheme, in a way whichdoes not hold good for Shona. These differencesspring from the different phonological and mor-phological systems of Bantu and Germanicrespectively, and it is not suggested that langu-age structure and society are related in themanner implied here.Conversely, all three languages allow com-pound nominals however much the speci-fic constructional patterns may vary andone may then compare the use made of thisfeature in their literatures.Ideally for such an investigation we requireknowledge of the whole literature of eachsociety, and the place of particular genres with-

in it; of the circumstances under which thegenre was composed and recited, by whom andfor whom; the relationship of the composer(and performer, if different) to the audience,the relationships of both to the rest of thesociety. A similar body of knowledge is neededfor other cultural phenomena, the relationshipof the community to others neighbouring, thephysical environment and its effect on ease ofcommunication, and indeed, countless otheraspects of human life and what affects it.Set out in this fashion, the task appearsformidable, if not impossible. Such informationregarding the traditional society of the Shonais , thanks to the researches of recent years,fairly readily available. We know very muchless about Old Norsemen, and even lessabout Old Englishmen. Indeed, most of therelevant facts about Old English must be de-rived from the poetry itself, and conclusionsmust therefore be tentative.Equally important, for both English and

Norse, is the fact that we do not know forcertain whether what has survived in writtenrecords is typical of the genre represented, norwhat other genres remain unrepresented.Nevertheless, with all these unpromising condi-tions, I think one may still come to some rea-sonably well-supported assessment of the re-lationship between society and literarycharacteristics. Because of limitations of space,consideration is confined to the nhetembodzorudzi (clan praises) of the Shona, thenarrative and meditative poetry of OldEnglish (excluding gnomic verse, charms andriddles), and the skaldic poetry of Scandinavia.

An acquaintance is assumed with Shonatraditional poetry, as described in the articles(already cited) by Fortune, but a short accountis given of Old English and Norse poetry ingeneral, as well as of the genres selected forstudy.O L D E N G L I S H P O E T R Y

Very little of the poetry composed beforethe Norman Conquest of 1066 has come downto us. We possess in all some 30 000 lines, ofwhich by far the greater part is preserved infour manuscripts, all written about 1 000 A.D.7The literature had to run the gauntlet, firstof the censorship of monkish scribes, whowould not have wasted precious writingmaterials on, say, drinking or love songs though they did include some rather pagancharms, and riddles of doubtful morality.Secondly there were the chances of t ime, asof war and natural disaster, particularly fire.A great deal was lost in the fire at the CottonianLibrary in 1731, and in the 1807 bombard-ment of Copenhagen. Much of what had beenwritten down before 1066 had already beendestroyed during the Viking raids, whenmonastic l ibraries were ravaged. What doesremain of the poetry composed from aboutthe seventh to the tenth centuries shows stronglymarked characteristics, which we may supposeto have developed during the period whenEnglish poetry was still truly oral literature.

There are two stages discernible. The firstbelongs to the 'heroic age', when society wasorganized chiefly for war. In the case of theEnglish, the wars were at first offensive, duringthe fifth and sixth century invasions of Britain;later, when the onslaughts of the Vikings began,there was more need for defence. The centralfigure in this society was the hlajord (lord),with his retinue of warriors living communallyin a hall and held together by bonds of loyaltyand hope of reward. The entourage of a lordusually included a scop, or minstrel, whoseduty was to entertain the lord and warriorswith song and harp-playing. Most of the epicand heroic poetry, such as Beowulf itself, wasprobably composed in this, the pre-Christianperiod, although in the eventual writing downit almost certainly suffered considerable change.After the introduction of Christianity intoEngland in the late sixth century, an at temptwas made to 'christen' the poetry, with some

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rather incongruous results. Beowulf as it nowexists shows a strange mixture of the old,stoic, somewhat gloomy, though invariablycourageous, pagan outlook on life, with theoccasional seasoning with Christian ethic. Thehero Beowulf has a pagan funeral, completewith pyre, despite his constant references to'God, the giver of victories', presumablyoriginally Wotan or Tyr, the ancient gods.

After the acceptance of Christianity, the oldheroic poetry remained alive, but by the sideof it there developed a form, modelled on thetraditional type, used primarily for transmittingthe Christian teachings. We find numerous livesof the saints, couched in terms more appropri-ate to the exploits of heathen warriors, partsof Biblical narrative, and even straightforwardpreaching, such as the 'Soul's address to theBody'. Old Testament stories, like that ofJudith, had content rather more in tune withthe heroic outlook, but it must be admitted thatthe Christian poetry is on the whole very dullstuff; it has however given us one splendidpiece, the 'Dream of the Rood', where Christianand heroic elements are fused into a strangelypowerful mystic whole.

We have Christianity to thank for the factthat the poems were written down at all. Onlytiny fragments remain of the runic writing inuse before the introduction of the half-uncialscript from Ireland, from the seventh centuryonwards, and in any case, runes were mostlyused for carving on wood, bone and stone.The scop in Old English society

As previously mentioned, the scop or gleo-mann (glee-man) was a retainer of the lord, awarrior chief. There is evidence that at leastsome of the fraternity were wandering minstrels,attaching themselves to any lord willing toemploy them, and departing when the wander-lust took them again.8 But whether in per-manent or temporary employment, the scopwas utterly dependent on his 'gold-friend', thelord, and could be replaced if he failed to givesatisfaction. The minstrel author of 'Deor'had the unhappy experience of having his 'land-right' taken from him and given to 'Heorrenda,a man skilled in song', after many winters asscop of the Heodenings. His position was nosinecure; he had to be able to fulfil what wasexpected of him, and this appears to have in-

cluded the recitation of a poem as long asBeowulf, of o ver 3 000 lines.From the content of the extant poems ofthe 'semi-Christian' type, a large part of thescop's energy was devoted to extolling thevirtues of bravery and loyalty to the lord. This

was indeed a necessity if the community wasto survive the attacks of enemies: as White-lock notes, 'The poet's demand of absolutefidelity to a lord was no mere poetic, conven-tional standard. '9As far as the scop's membership of anyparticular social class is concerned, there areconsiderable gaps in our knowledge, but in-ferences can be drawn from a few scraps ofevidence. The structure of English society inAnglo-Saxon times seems to have been rathermore complex than that of the Norsemen, for

example,10 although both systems included thetwo extremes of those of noble blood, andserfs or slaves. Eorl, from which our modern'earl' is descended, a term cognate with theNorse jarl (nobleman), seems to have includeda man noble in spirit, a hero, sometimes simplya man, especially a warrior. The term corres-ponding most closely to jarl in semantic cover-age is ealdor and its compounds, as ealdor-mann (chief, prince, nobleman), though therewere a number of other terms for king andprince. Another class of society was that of thecheorl (churl, common man), above that ofth e theow (servant, slave). In addition there wasa class known as laet, and the half-free."

Which of these classes produced scops, orwhether all of them did, is not known for cer-tain. Bede's account of the poet Caedmon, whodied in 680, states that he received the gift ofscop-gereord (poetic voice or language) in adream, when he had gone out to the cattle-stall,it being his turn to watch the beasts that night.He is thus unlikely to have been of noble birth,and indeed, the next day he betook himself toth e tun-geref (town-reeve, bailiff), who was hisealdor-mann. Caedmon had gone out to thestall from a banquet he was attending, andwhich he left largely out of shame at beingunable to participate 'when for the sake ofmirth it was decreed that each should in turnsing to the harp'.1 2 We thus have indicationsof a society in which even the lowliest mayhave been acquainted with poetry, and appar-ently expected, at least on occasion, to performit, whethe r a fully-fledged scop or n ot.14


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It seems unlikely that the scop composedhis own poetry, apart from selecting and arrang-ing themes, plots and poetic expressions fromthe common stock, although no doubt manyadded expressions of their own, on traditionallines. We know the names of a few Christianpoets, such as Caedmon and Cynewulf, butmost of the poetry is anonymous. It may bethat minstrelsy was mainly in the hands of aminority of practitioners, but it seems that thepoetry as a whole was common heritage; menof noble lineage, as well as Caedmon's ban-quet-companions, were often accomplishedperformers on the harp. The scop then isperhaps rather to be regarded as a professionalamong amateurs, than as posessing a skillpeculiar to himself alone.Characteristics of Old English poetry

It is supposed that the poetry was originallyintended to be sung, or more probably chanted,to the accompaniment of the harp; there arenumerous references in the literature to thesound of the harp in connection with the scop'sperformance.13 We have no means of knowingwhether the poetry was sung to a melody ornot ; song-craejt covers poetry as well as song,14and terms such as hleothor appear to havereference to any sound made by the voice, cryas well as singing. It is most probable howeverthat the harp was used for striking chords atstressed syllables, rather than for playing atune, when it accompanied the kind of poetryunder discussion. Even so we do not knowwhether the chords were struck in regularrhythm or not, though in the earliest kind ofpoetry this is possible. The lines there are shortand of fairly even length, whereas in laterpoetry, with some exceptions, the lines havebecome longer and less even, and we mayassume that the harp no longer accompanieddeclamation. In fact, this poetry was probablyread silently rather than recited.The alliterative metre

Of the various kinds of patterning theoreti-cally available, Old German poets fixed on thatof initial rhyme, or alliteration. We are fairlycertain that Old English, like its relations andits modern descendant, had strong/weak stressdistinctions, and the strong stresses were takenas points of reference in the organization of theverse. The line was composed of words ofwhich four contained strong stress (compounds

could count as two words), and of these stressedsyllables at least two, and often three, beganwith an alliterating sound. It is also customaryto assume a break or caesura between thesecond and third stresses, dividing the lineinto two halves; at least one stress in eachhalf-line alliterated with one in the other. Un-stressed syllables were apparently not counted,and their number was probably governed bythe criterion of manageability. In the olderpoetry they are generally few, ranging fromnone to a maximum of six in any one 'slot' .Examples are from Beowulf (with the stressedsyllables printed in bold):

\y\lde-rmce ac he hrathe v/olde(the ma n of war but he swiftly wasminded) (1.1576; 1 and 3 alliterate)Fvndon dha on s&nde s&wul-le&sne(Found they there on the sand [him]lifeless 1.3033; 2 and 3 alliterate)wyrm ofer weall-c/// leton weg niman(the worm [dragon] over the wall-cliffthey let take [his] way [they pushed thedragon over the cliff])(1.3132; 1, 2 and 3 alliterate)The total range of alliterations was sixteenor seventeen sounds. All vowels alliterated witheach other:ennne anhagan off gebindadh(the wretched solitary [man] often bind)(The Wanderer, 1.46; 1, 2 and 3 alliterate)Alliterating consonants were b, c, d, f, g, h,I, m, n, r, s, t, w, y; th and dh (thorn andbarred d) alliterated together. There is somedoubt about p, which occurs in initial positiononly in late loans.15Towards the end of the Old English period,rhyme begins to make an appearance. Some-times the two half-lines rhyme together, a

feature found in 'Judith', composed probablytowards 900 A.D.; and sometimes there arealliterating pairs of items, as hlynede anddynede (resounded and vociferated). With onenotable exception, however, rhyme in OldEnglish poetry is sporadic, and certainly notan integral part of the form.16Kennings

The other major technique was that ofthe kenning. The term is from Old Norsekenning (pi. kenningar, originally meaning sign15


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kenna

Beowulf,

beado-leoma (battle-light for sword). Since

a) synonyms: sweord, bill, heoru, secg, brondmece (blade); ecg (edge);ire (iron) beado-mece (battle-blade);hilde-bil (war-sword); gudh-bil (battle-sword); hdeft-mece (hilted blade)descriptive and m etaphorical com pou nds:brogden-mael (ornamented mark); sceaden-mael (shadowed mark); wunden-mael(waved mark); waeg-sweord (wavy sword;this and the three preceding all have refer-ence to the damascening of the blade);

ba t under beorge.on stefn stigon sund widh sande;on bearm nacangudh-searo geatolic;weras on wil-sidhGewat tha oferwcteg-holmflota fami-healsodh thaet ymb anlidwundcn-stefna

flota waes on ydhwnBeornas gearwestreamas wundon,secgas naeronbeorhte fraetwe,guman ut scufon,wudu bondene.winde gefysedfugle gelicost,olhres dogorcsqcwaden haefde . . .(11. 210-20)

'Ship' is mentioned seven times, each timea' are each expressed by four differentThis is a point which will become of

hring-mael (ring-mark [ringed sword]);hamera-laf (hammered inheritance); beado-leoma (battle-light); hilde-leoma (war light);gudh-wine (battle-friend).The class of kennings includes expressionsbased on metonymy or synecdoche.With this range of terms at his command,the scop could include sword in ten allitera-tions out of the sixteen. One third of the voca-bulary of the poem Beowulf consists of com-pounds of the kind shown under (c) and (d);there is on average a compound in every otherline, and a new compound every third line.The kenning had also another function, inaddition to substitution for the more directterm in obedience to the requirements ofalliteration. Kennings were introduced for

variation, which was in part decorative, and inpart a retarding device or 'padding', in thesame way as the Homeric or epic simile. Thefollowing eleven lines from Beowulf merelyrecord that the warriors bestowed their armourin a ship and set sail:

the boat beneath thecliffs.on the prow embark-ed the sea against thesand;to the bosom of theves'selsplendid war-gear;heroes on the willingventure.Went then over thewave-seathe foamy-neckedfloateruntil after due timethe bound stem

th e floater was on thewaves,The warriors eagerlythe currents swirled,the men borethe bright treasure,the men pushed out,the bounden wood.driven by the windmost like to a bird,on the following dayhad travelled . . .

for aesthetic or more practical considerations,such as mnemonic device, or retarding devicewhile the poet remembered the next part ofhis tale, or to spin out the tale to a satisfactorylength.This can be compared to the use of expres-sions carrying the imagery in Shona nhetembo,where likewise one finds a succession of what

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may equally justifiably be called kennings,similaly often in the form of compounds, andwhich sometimes virtually constitute the poem.S K A L D I C V E R S E 1 7

The type of Norse poetry to be consideredhere is that of the skalds. The term skald meanspoet in a very wide sense, but is particularlyapplied to the court poets of the ninth tofourteenth centuries. Skaldic poetry differs fromboth Old English and traditional Shona poetryin that it is known to be the product of indivi-duals , whose names and often life-stories arerecorded. The first known skald, Bragi Bod-dason, was a Norwegian of the first half of theninth century, and we know of some 250 skaldsby name.

The early societies of the Scandinavianpeoples Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, eventu-ally Icelanders and Greenlanders were alsoorganized chiefly for war, but here the warfarewas far more, and for far longer, offensive.Communities seem to have been smaller andless coherent than in England, and men weremore mobile. It was not unusual for a manto spend some months of every year in piracyand raiding, and Viking adventurers went asfar afield as Athens and Constantinople, offer-ing their services as mercenaries, or on slave-hunting raids, as well as visiting the Norsecolonies in the Orkneys, Ireland, Iceland andthe English mainland.Society was organized in three classes, re-garded as divinely ordained: the thrall, or slaveclass; the freeman; and the jarl, the aristocracywho possessed most of the wealth and power.M en of noble birth were looked on as des-cended from the gods, in pagan times at least,and from the turbulent history of the Scandi-navian countries in the era c. 700-1000, it isclear that anyone with the requisite lineage,who could command the necessary support ,could make himself a king.18 These petty kingshad no established capital city, as did theEnglish, but moved round their territories,expecting hospitality from their wealthier sub-jects.

Old Norse society was much more favour-able to the individual of strong personality andambition than was the Anglo-Saxon. TheEnglish rapidly became sedentary after theirsuccessful conquest and settlement of Britain,

while the Norsemen continued their raidingand pillaging for several centuries more. Thenecessarily defensive stance of the English re-quired them to be more unified and co-operativethan was the case with the small bands ofmarauders produced in Scandinavia.There was much in common between the

ethos of both. The duty of vengeance for thekilling of lord or kinsman, for example, wasa matter of importance to English and Norsealike, as is clear from the laws of Anglo-SaxonEngland,19 but this theme does not appear inEnglish literature to anything like the extentto which it does in the Norse. The Icelandicsagas, in particular, frequently show the blood-feud as central in tales like that of Flosi andNjal in the Brennu-Njdlssaga. The l i terature,both prose and poetry, is full of personaltragedies brought about by conflicting loyaltiesrequiring vengeance to be taken against one sideon account of the other.The skald: in Norse societyThe skald was not entirely comparable tothe English scop. While a few skalds wereprofessionals, most were men of aristocraticbirth, who used their p oetic skill to gain favoursfrom those in power. This was especially thecase with 'colonials' from Iceland, trying tomake their way in the mother-country of Nor-way. 'In the eleventh century most of the poetsof the Norwegian courts were Icelanders; . . .Icelandic gentlemen used their skaldic arts asa means of introduction and advancement inthe halls of kings and earls, and theycarried their songs to all Scandinavian lands,and even to England. '20 Further, 'high amongthe accomplishments of a young gentlemanof high birth came the ability to compose inskaldic metres'.21 Rognvald Kali, Earl of theOrk ney s from 1135 to 1158 , lists in verse theattainments of a gentleman, and in addition tothe ability to read runes, row and ski he men-tions harp-sldtt ok brag-thaltu (harp-playingand the art of poetry).22

More than one instance is recorded of aman's being spared his life through having com-posed a suitable poem. Perhaps the mostfamous is that of Egil SkaHagrimsson (bornc. 910), who obtained his lifetemporarily atleastfrom King Eric Blood-axe by composingand reciting a drdpa in praise of that grim ruler.We learn incidentally from the saga of his life17


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that skaldic poetry was at least sometimes re-cited rather than sung or declaimed to the harp,since Egil is said to have 'raised up [begun]the poem and spoken loudly and got a hearing[lit. silence] at once', 2 3 with no mention of anaccompanying harp. The verg kvedha, glossedhere by 'speak', is used of saying, declaring,declaiming, uttering, reciting or even shoutingor crying aloud, but apparently not of singing.Thus, although we know that playing the harpand singing were certainly part of Norse culture,skaldic poetry was not necessarily associatedwith them.

The picture we have, then, is of the skaldas very frequently an amateur, whose poetrywas the creation of an individual, composedwith the aim of helping the composer to obtainsomething he desired from a king. He wasalways of noble birth, of the same social classas the king, although not as sucessful or for-tunate in having acquired power.Characteristics of skaldic verse

Since much of the poetry is in theform of addresses to a powerful king or earl,it is, as one might expect, encomiastic in themain. We are however told of 'scores of in-stances . . . when the ruler was criticized,warned, exhorted, excoriated by his skald, whothus sometimes incurred the wrath and some-times earned the gratitude of his sovereign'.24This kind of content is found more frequentlyin the form of a lausavisa or kvidhling, a singlestanza or even a couplet of epigrammaticcharacter, often supposedly composed on thespur of the moment. Lausavisur are found inabundance throughout the sagas, where dreamwarnings and threats are often conveyed by thismeans, as well as the comments of the per-sonages on events.25 The eulogistic poem wasgenerally longer, in the form of a flokkr, shortlay without refrain, or a drdpa, a longer laywith a refrain of 2-4 lines every 2-4 stanzas.Egi l 's 'Head-ransom ' drdpa (Hofudh-lausn) wasof twenty stanzas, with two refrains, and, asin almost all Norse poetry, 'the warlike notepredominated ' .26Skaldic metre

We know a considerable amount on thetechnical side of skaldic verse, since in thetwelfth or thirteenth century, while it was stillflourishing, it was written about, as well as be-ing written down. There was a full technical

vocabulary, with terms for the different genresof poetry and the various aspects of metre.Skaldic metre was far stricter than Old English,in requiring counting of syllables, as well asof stress, and rhyme as well as alliteration.There were many more varieties of metre thanin English, or at least, in what has survivedof the latter. Snorri Sturluson, in the Hattatdl,mentions and exemplifies a large number ofmetres with different numbers of syllables perline, and different arrangements of rhymes.Assonance was permitted, as well as true rhymecalled adhal-hending (noble rhyme), and acurious kind of final alliteration, called skot-hending, as, for example, in sang and bring.Although a great variety of metres was per-mitted, no departure from the basic require-men ts of counte d syllables, alliteration andrhyme was tolerated. Thus although manydifferent forms were at the service of the skald,he was much more restricted, within thoseforms, than was the English scop with his lessarduous alliterative metre.This led to much distortion of syntax. Anexample from Egil Skallagn'mson is: thar'si bloahi / / brimils modhi / / vb'llr of thrum dhi jand veum glumdhi; which according to Gor-don 2 7 is logically ordered brimilis' vollr glumdhii modhi und veum, thar's i blodhi of thrumdhi(for translation , see below , p. 19). An othe rfeature, shared to some extent by English,

was the inclusion of parenthetic sentences, suchas hugat maelik thar (a considered [thing] 1speak there).Kennings

The technique of variation is very littleused in Old Norse poetry; the kenning is notused to express differently what has been saidbefore, nor is it a delaying device. On the otherhand, the art of the kenning has been developedbeyond its function in English, to the pointwhere it becomes an esoteric term. It has beencalculated that in the extant poetry of onetypical skald, Sigvat, one third to one half ofthe vocabulary is poetic diction, not found inprose writings, and an extreme case is that ofEilifr Godninarson, whose vocabulary is nine-tenths poetic diction.

As has often been remarked, practicallynothing in skaldic verse is referred to by itsordinary name. In Old English, as in Shonapoetry, kennings serve for embellishment and18


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variation; there was no intention of settingthe audience a puzzle to solve. The object inquestion is very often given an ordinary term,and this is followed by kennings. In skaldicVasa villr stadharfyr grams glodhumthar's i blod'hivollr of thrumdhi

vefr darradhargeirvangs rodhumi brimils mod hiund veum glumdhi.

verse, however, the kenning is used instead ofthe more direct term, and there is no repetition.For example, here is the fifth stanza from Egil's'Head- ransom' drdpa:Went not astraybefore the king's

gladthere in bloodthe plain too lay

the weaving of spearsspear-field's[shield's] ranksin the seal's meadow[sea]under banners roar-ing.

Since the subject of the poetry is warfaremore often than not, there is sometimes a superficial apearance of variation, as in anotherextract from the same drdpa:Hlam heimsodhulbelt bengrefill Frdk at felliOdhins eiki

vidh hjalmrodhulthat vas blodhrefill.fyr fetils svellii jdrnleiki.

but this is best regarded as variation on a them e,rather than variation in presentation of thesame information, as in the citation fromBeowulf (p. 16 above). In this case , the sword-strokes referred to in the first and second linesare not assumed to be the same.Mastery of Norse kennings demanded pro-found knowledge of the myths and legends ofpagan times. Examples of kennings using thissource are Frodha mjol (Frodhi's meal [flour])for gold, in reference to the legendary KingFrodhi, who possessed a magic mill whichground gold instead of flour. Odhins seiki(Odin's oaks, the kenning for men in the 'Head-ransom') includes the name of the Allfather,chief of the Norse gods, Odin (Wotan in Old

English). Sometimes the allusion could be evenmore obscure: d-brandr (river-fire) is anotherterm for gold, but here the allusion is to thelegend of the Niflungs (Niebelungs), whosehoard of gold sank in the River Rhine, there togleam like flames beneath the waves.Christianity was adopted in the Norsecountries much later than in England, particul-arly in Iceland, where the Althing, the HighCouncil of the island, did not make the new

Clashed whetstone-saddle [sword]bit wound-engraver[sword] I heard that [there]fellOdin's oaks [men]

against helmet-sun[sword]that was a blood-?[sword-point],before the belt's ice[sword]in the iron-play[battle].

faith official unt il the yea r 1 000 . He nce the re-ference to stories of the old gods in poetryis not necessarily a poetic convention. None-theless, by the time of Snorri Sturluson(1178-1241), the knowledge required for under-standing and creating the kennings was fastbecoming lost, which prompted Snorri to writethe 'Prose ' Edd'a, consisting of legends of thegods1, an account of poetic diction, and a dis-course on the skaldic metres.

Skaldic kennings show a higher degree ofcomplexity than those of the other two cultures.'Prince of the bone of the island' is a kenningfor 'dwarf; the 'bone of the island' is rock,and dwarves were conceived of as living under-ground and engaging in mining, hence the'prince' of the rock meant the dwarf, whopossessed it as his realm. 'Goddess of the whiteland of the hawk' alludes to the sport of hawk-ing, when the bird was carried on the arm, its'white land'; the 'goddess' of the arm was thelady .2 8 Hollander also cites the following, inwhich there are tiers or 'layers' of meaning:Haka dyrs bliks dyns saedhinga hungrdeyfir= warrior(lit. Ha ki's anim al's glam our's din's seagulls 'hunger-slayer [appeaser]).

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The analysis is:Haki: name of a Viking chief, gen. Haka(Vikings were great seafarers)Haka dyr: Haki 's animalhe 'rode' the seas) ship (on whichHaka dyrs blik: glamour of Haki 's animal

shields (Viking ships were decoratedwith shields carried along the sides)Haka dyrs bliks dynr: din of the glamour ofHa ki's anim al = battle (in which shieldsclash together, making a noise, or din)Haka dyrs bliks dyns saedhingr: seagull ofthe din, etc = raven (scavenger of thebattle-field, also the bird of Odin, godof the dead)Haka dyrs bliks dyns s'aedhinga, hungrdeyfir:

hunger-slayer [appeaser] of the seagullsof the din, etc. warrior, who providesthe raven with food in the form ofcorpses.Unravelling a skaldic kenning must havegiven a pleasure akin to ours in solving acrossword clue. Some kennings indeed are stillobscure; we know for instance that skip dverga(ship of the dwarves) means 'poetry', but theallusion is so far untraced.29There is at first sight a curious paradox in

skaldic poetry. The society which produced itwas intensely individualistic, and indeed, manyskalds were men of considerable, even colour-ful, personality; yet the skald was bound byconventions far more restrictive than thoseapplying to the English scop, or the traditionalShona poet. The independence and self-relianceof the typical Norseman seem to sort ill withthe limited themes and approaches, and verycircumscribed forms of his poetry. There wasnone of the freedom to experiment and varietyof form such as are found in, say, later Euro-pean poetry. Skalds did not apparently seekto be different from each other as poets, inoriginality of form or even subject-matter; theyonly tried to outdo each other by excellingwithin very narrow confines.

In this connection it is interesting to con-sider Enkvist's discussion of 'group styles' and'individual styles'.30 All three societies gave riseto poetry which could be classified as 'groupstyle', but Old Norse poetry was, if one mayuse the phrase, more 'group' than the others, in

its conformity to rigid conventions, whichaffected many more features than in Shona orEnglish. Unlike Enkvist's 'officialese' writers,however, the skalds can scarcely be said to haveaim ed at self-effacement!In order to explain this apparent paradox,one has to call in the fact that Norse society

was sharply divided into the earl, freeman andthrall classes, regarded as of divine ordinance,and thus without mobility between classes. Asfar as can be ascertained, practice of theskaldic art was limited to the earl class; hencethe preservation of the characteristics- of theart unchanged through centuries, marking theearl class off from both the others, was almosta religious duty. It is indeed difficult here toseparate the structure of society from religiousbelief, since the two were so bound up together(and in any case, religious belief can be re-garded as a social phenomenon).COMPARISONS AND CONCLUSIONS

Superficially, the skald and the scop hadmuch in common. Both were 'court ' poets,practising an art which in the case of the skaldwas definitely limited to persons of a socialclass, and in that of the scop, was as a profes-sion in the hands of a minority. This marks theGermanic poets off from the Shona, where intraditional society everyone was a poet.31 Thereis however an important difference in the posi-tion and functions of the skald as opposed tothe scop. The skald was rarely a professional,in the sense of earning his living by his art;his aim was to obtain wealth, position or someother favour in return for his displays of skill.His relat 'onship was primarily with the personof the ruler, to whom he addressed his poems,the subject of which was the individual ad-dressed. The scop was more often a professionalminstrel, and his aim less narrowly focused;his function was to exhort the followers of thelord to courage and loyalty in the service oftheir master, rather than to flatter the lordhimself. The emphasis is different: the skaldreinforced the ruler's own sense of his positionand reputation, in the more individualisticsociety, while the scop concentrated on the en-couragement of heroic virtues as a factor inpromoting the well-being of the whole society.It is true that the scop contributed to the sup-port of the chieftainship, but he did so ratherindirectly, and his work served to reinforce the20


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position, rather than the individual holder ofit .In this respect the scop has more in com-mon with the Shona poet. Both are concernedwith a wider spectrum of relationships than isthe skald, and both support the structure ofsociety, or part of it: the clan system amongthe Shona,32 the unity and effectiveness of thewarrior band in Old English, or, in later poetry,the Christian ethic and the authority of theChurch.It seems useful here to draw a distinctionbetween the purpose and the function of thepoetry. One can say, for instance, that thepurpose of nhetembo dzorudzi is to praise aparticular clan through one of its members,but that the function is to cement relationshipsbetween clans, and to increase the awareness

of clan membership in the mind of the recipient all of which contributes to the strengtheningof the clan system.33 It may be possible, then,for poetry in two different societies to havepurposes of similar nature, while their functionsare quite different. The purpose is that whichis immediately perceptible, even to the outsider;the function, or role, has to do with relation-ships within the structure of a society, and isonly apparent to members of the society, orthose with profound knowledge of it. (Suchknowledge may be, for the members, intuitiveand not fully conscious.)

In both Shona and English, the poet wasnot so important as his poetry; in the society,provided that someone was at hand to fulfilthe function, it was of little moment who itwas. In Norse, by contrast, one of the functionsof the verse was to gain favours for the ambi-tious or supplicant individual, and it was im-portant that the poetry be known as that of aparticular man. Hence the anonymity, on thewhole, of the Shona and English poets, as op-posed to the quite different situation for theskalds. While all were dealing in, or drawingfrom, a common pool of traditional themes andexpression types, we are not aware of the con-tributions to the stock of specific individualsin the two former societies.34

The function of the poetry is closely boundup with the poet's place in society. As previous-ly noted, poetry in the Norse lands, skaldicpoetry, at least, was the property of the earlclass alone. The lower classes had no partin it; it was neither composed by nor addressed

to them, and one might therefore say thatanother function of skaldic verse was to rein-force the awareness, of giver and recipient,of membership of the earl class. This is notquite comparable to the superficially similarfunction of nhetembo in reinforcing awarenessof clan membership; nhetembo are not limitedto one clan, though each clan has its specificpraises, and one clan is praised, as it were, interpares. Quite often nhetembo are recited bymembers of other clans, whereas both skaldand addressee were invariably of the samesocial class.

As previously shown, we are not sure aboutthe social class, if any, from which scopspredominantly came, and this in itself is somemeasure of the difference in function of Englishand Norse poetry. Social class was in any caseless clear-cut in England, and despite the fre-quent references to the heroic society as 'aristo-cratic', there is nothing in the poetry whichappears to warrant the supposition that partof its function was to support this aspect ofsocial organization. The pagan and semi-Christian poetry is concerned more with in-culcating qualities useful in the state of siege both physical and mental in which theEnglish found themselves.

There are two major resemblances betweenShona nhetembo and Old English poetry, asalready pointed out. One is the use of kenningsas a means of variation, repetition of the samemessage and frequently using direct terms aswell as kennings. Old Norse prefers the kenningto the direct term, and uses little if any varia-tion in this sense. Secondly, kennings in Shonaand English are relatively simple, whereas theNorse kenning is frequently more laboured andcomplex, and often 'layered'.This is despite certain facts which wouldseem a priori to produce different groupings.

The purpose of the poetry in both Shona andOld Norse is similar to praise whileEnglish is narrative or meditative; and on thetechnical side, the demands of alliterative metreaffect both English and Norse, but Shona notat all.We receive the impression from skaldicverse of a deliberate esotericism, rather thanthe wish to use a striking image, the cultivationof a diction which could only be decoded bythose 'in the know'. Such knowledge was part

of the heritage and training of a few, by virtue21


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of their membership of a certain social class.No such impression is given by Shona andOld English; quite the reverse, in fact, forthe repetition by variation shows if anythingan anxiety lest the message be lost throughobscurity of expression.On the other hand, one can adduce otherpossible reasons for the English and Shonasituations. It has, for instance, been suggestedthat the English use of kennings owes at leastsomething to the clamorous conditions pre-valent in the banquet-hall; and one may per-haps add that the scop might have been awareof differences of intellectual attainment amonghis hearers, and repeated for the weaker breth-ren what they may not have grasped at first,though in such a way as not to offend thebrighter minds. In the nhetembo, variation is

of a slightly different kind, in that it rarelypresents1 an event, but is usually descriptive andeulogistic of, for instance, the clan animal orthe qualities of the clan members. Here thestimulus might be a desire to convey the sincer-ity of the speaker's gratitude, by means of hiswillingness to continue producing imagery inthe service of the clan being thanked. It canhardly be attributed to 'noise in the system', orwant of intelligence or knowledge in the audi-ence; no actual information is being communi-cated, and it is quite clear to both parties whatis happening, so that 'noise' would be irrelevant,even if the circumstances of recital were notideal.

It could be argued that Shona imagery isto some extent esoteric, in that its compositionand understanding presupposes considerableknowledge of the clan history and reputation,of natural phenomena, word-building processes,and a sharp observation of similarities betweenapparently dissimilar objects. This can how-ever be assumed in a Shona, since it is partof his heritage and training as a clan memberand Shona speaker brought up in the traditionalway. One cannot compare this kind of know-ledge to that required for skaldic compositionand appreciation, the preserve of one socialclass; all Shona are members of a clan, andhave, or had, the training necessary.

As usual, the English situation is not soclear cut, and seems to contain a compromise.While the main events of narrative poetry, andthe major themes of the meditative kind, are

presented by means of variation, and thus notopen to misinterpretation, there are allusionswhich do require special knowledge, of history,of legends and myths, and which may or maynot have been public property. An extremeexample of this is the poem 'Widsith', whichis little more than a catalogue of kings ofvarious countries and times. We do not knowwhether this was composed in order to displaythe scop's knowledge, or as a help to a youngscop in training, or whether it would have beenreadily comprehensible to his customary audi-ence. For us at least, some of it is now lost:no-one knows who were Hlithe, Incgentheowand Wyrmhere, save that they were probablyGoths, nor the 'Geat ' whose ' love for Maeth-hild ' is mentioned by Deor. 'That passed away,so may this ' (Thaes ofereode, thisises swa-maeg), and indeed it has, all too completely,from human memory. It is saddening to anEnglish speaker to realize that he may morefully understand the literature of the Shonathan the far past of his own.

One should not leave the subject of the re-lationship between society and poetry withouta brief mention of what may be called 'second-ary' or 'derived' literature, that is, the use ofa formal genre for a purpose and/or functionother than that for which it was originally de-veloped. It appears that among the traditionalShona, where poetry was very much more partof daily life than it has been for many centuriesin Europe, there is little if any 'secondary'l i terature; Fortune's description of the genresassigns a social role to all of them. But inboth English and Norse literature, there is agood deal of poetry which is clearly of thederived kind. For example, even some skaldsused their art for purposes other than flatteringa king; there are a number of sagas telling thetale of a love-lorn skald, and containing love-poetry in precisely the same metre and styleas that used to praise a ruler. Hollander notesthe incongruity of the metre known as drott-kvaet, developed for the drdpa as eulogium, forerotic poetry, and comments that it is 'a harshmanacle for the more playful sentiments orpassionate outbursts of love'.3 5 The laterChristian poetry of the Anglo-Saxons was like-wise a secondary form; both style and ap-pro ach were (as noted above on p . 13) derivedfrom the heroic poetry, and sits rather uneasilyon the Christian content. God is designated'Lord of Warriors ' , and His saints are 'heroes ' ,

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This study has perforce been limited to aw selected genres, omitting from consideration,

madimikira style, especi-nheketerwa, and zvirahwe

could be fruitfully com-lausavisur,

36

with either, since they are for the most parttranslations of, or modelled on, Latin enigmas).Clearly this is a subject which needs to be

explored at far greater length than is possiblehere, but perhaps enough has been said to showthat the project is worthwhile, and can throwup some interesting findings. There is certainlyenough evidence to show, firstly, that literarydevices may be of the same character amongpeoples of very different language and culture,and secondly, that the use of these devices isat least partly governed by the role of the poetryin the society. Morever, similar features insocieties remote from each other in space andtime can be correlated with similar usage ofliterary device, whereas societies differing inthese features may show quite dissimilar usage,however closely related they may be in otherrespects culturally and linguistically.

R E F E R E N C E SG. Fortune, 'Shona traditional poetry', Zambezia, 1971, 2, i, 41-60. See also G. Fortune, 'Variety in Shonaliterature', NADA, 1972, 10, iv, 69-76.2 l am indebted to Professor G. Fortune and Mr. A. Hodza for kindly allowing me to see and quote fromtheir forthcoming book on Shona traditional poetry, from which the Tembo praise is taken. The lines areselected from the full version; I have omitted tone-marks and hyphenated compounds. The conventions asto bold and italic type are as in Fortune's Zambezia article.sThe Old English is taken from F. Klaeber's edition of 1941 (Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, Boston, D.C.Hea th ) , which supplies lacunae and expands abbreviations. Conventions adopted in the spelling of the Anglo-

Saxon are: ae = ash, dh = barred d, th = thorn, w = wynn; vowel length is unmarked and compounds hy-phenated. The same conventions are observed for the spelling of Old Norse, save that vowel length is marked byacute accent, 6 is used, and compounds only occasionally hyphenated. Translations are by the present writer.'Fortune, 'Shona traditional poetry', 51-2, 53.sE . V. Gordon, An Introduction to Old Norse, 2nd edit., revised by A. R. Taylor, Oxford, Clarendon Press,1957, p.xxxvii.The customary hierarchy is used here, that is, from lowest to highest: phonetics, phonology, morphology,syntax, semantics.'The Exeter Book (Exeter Cathedral), the Vercelli Book (Vercelli Ca the dra l), Ms Cotton Vitellius A xv(British Museum), and Ms Junius II (Bodley, Oxford).Cf. 'Widsith': Swa scrithende gesceapum hweorjathgleo-men gumena geond grund fela.(Thus the wandering go as fate [decrees]the glee-men of men through many lands.)sD. Whitelock, The Audience of Beowulf, London, Oxford Univ. Press, 1959, p. 87.ioSee p.17.I 'For a detailed account of the classes of society, see D. Whitelock, The Beginnings of English Society, London,Penguin, 1952, ch. 5, especially for a discussion of the change in the meaning of terms such as thegn andgesith, sometimes used to designate the upper classes.izthonne thaer waes blisse intinga gedem ed thaet hie ealle sceolden thurh endebyrdnesse be hearpan singan,from the version given in Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader, 10th edit., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1946, p.42.isCf. Beowulf: Scop hwilum sanghador on Heorote. (The minstrel attimes sang clear-voiced in Heorot [the royal hall].) 11. 496-7.Thaer waes sang ond swaeg samod aetgaederefor Healfdenes hilde-wisan,

gomen-wudu greted, gid oft wrecen,thonne heal-gamen Hrothgares scop23


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aefter medo-benc maenan scolde.There was song and sound both togetherbefore Healfdene's batt le leaderthe joy-wood (harp ) touch ed, the song oft uttered,when entertainment Hroth gar's minstrelalong the mead-bench was obliged to proclaim.(11. 1063-7)Elsewhere we read of hearpan swe% (sound of the harp) in similar context (11. 89, 2458, 3023) and, in'Widsith': hlude bi hearpan hleothor swingsadeloud to the harp the song resounded'In the proem to Alfred's translation of Boethius it is stated that 'when he had studied this book, andturned it from Latin into English spelle (prose), then wrought he it afterwards into leothe (poetry). ' leothis basically 'song'.1 s In 'The Battle of Maldon', prass (fine array, pomp) alliterates with the place-name Panta (Blackwater),but p does not occur initially in any word in Beowulf.' 5 The Rhyming Poem of the Exeter Book has end-rhyme as well as alliteration, and is written in couplets.We may svippose that there were other poems of like kind, but the rhyming forms were apparently notfavoured in heroic and Christian poetry. Alliteration persisted by the side of rhyme as a metrical form,especially in the North, up to the fourteenth century, as in 'Sir Gawayn and the Grene Knyght'.l 7This section owes much to Gordon, An Introduction to Old Norse, to L. M. Hollander, The Skalds, Prince-ton, Princeton Univ. Press, 1945, and to G. Jones, A History of the Vikings, London, Oxford Univ. Press,1968; equally, a debt is owing to my old teacher, now Professor G. Turville-Petre, whose stimulating Oxfordlectures in the years 1947-50 first introduced me to Norse literature.It should be added that skaldic verse is not, of course, the only kind of Old Norse poetry. The 'Elder 'or 'Poetic' Edda are in an older simpler style, including narrative, and in many ways arc closer to OldEnglish. These poems deal with heroic legend, tales of the gods and traditional wisdom, but we have nomeans of knowing, as we do for skaldic verse, anything of the background, composers or performers,no r in what context recitation took place. Their relation to the rest of the social environment is unknown,and nothing can thus be said of their function. It is interesting, naturally, to note the many similarities toEnglish in the stock of synonyms and periphrases, and the differences, such as the vividness, dramatic, powerand robustness of the Edda, contrasting with the slower-moving, dignified and somewhat melancholy tone ofth e Old English. We can however make no attempt to relate these features to extra-literary factors.'ajones, A History of the Vikings, p.151: 'during most of the Viking Age Scandinavia presents us with a pictureof too few supreme monarchs'. After the beginning of the eleventh century the picture changed somewhat.isWhitelock, The Audience of Beowulf, p. 15: 'One of the codes of King Edmund (939-46) attemped to curbthe blood-feud', and this was long after the introduction of Christianity.

zGordon, An Introduction to Old Norse, p.xliii.^Hol lander , The Skalds, p.5.z^Gordon, An Introduction to Old Norse, p.155, gives the Norse version.Z3lbid., p.112: 'hof upp kvaedhit ok kvadh hatt ok fekk thegar hljodh'."Ho l la n d e r , The Skalds, p.6. One notable example is that of Sigvat Thordarson, who succeeded in persuadingthe young King Magnus Olafsson to abate his fury against the enemies of his father, by means of theBersog-lisvisur (Outspoken verses), as related by Hollander, p.167 ff.asOne must, I think, have some reservations about the authenticity of some of the lausavisur, especially as relatedin the sagas. Many of them are probably the compositions of those who wrote down the present versions, mostof which are of a later date than the events narrated. This is a literary device of the author, not the reputedspeaker, and cannot be taken to represent a social institution such as the kutukana of the Shona.zsHollander, The Skalds, p.19.2?Gordon, An Introduction to Old Norse, p.233, note to 11. 189-90.zsHollander, The Skalds, p .121; the elaborate kenning for 'warrior' is taken from p.13.zslbid., p. 116, fn. 65.3N. E. Enkvist in Linguistics and Style, ed. J. Spencer, London, Oxford Univ. Press, 1964, p.22.3'Fortune, 'Shona traditional poetry', 41-2.32Other forms of poetry of course support different parts of the structure; for example, the madanha emugudzasupports the institution of marriage.33Cf. Fortune's use of 'social role' and 'functional use' in 'Shona traditional poetry', 41-2. I would regard 'role'and 'function' as synonymous for present purposes.3"Klaeber, Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, p.lxiii, states: 'A good many terms are nowhere recorded outsideof Beowulf, and not a few of these may be confidently set down as of the poet's own coinage.' I feel this canhardly be maintained in view of the certain fact that much of Anglo-Saxon literature has perished, and of theprobability, at the very least, that Beowulf is not the work of one hand.35Hollander, The Skalds, p. 118.S for example, Fortune, 'Shona traditional poetry', 55.

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POSTSCRIPT

This article was based on a series of lectures given for several years in theAfrican Oral Literature course at the School of Oriental and African Studies,University of London. After the present issue of Zambezia had gone to press, myattention was drawn to the article by J. Opland, 'Scop and Imbongi: Anglo-Saxonand Bantu oral poets' (in English Studies in Africa, (1971), 14, 161-78). Opland'spurpose is rather different from mine, in that he explores the 'contribution that canbe made to our appreciation of Anglo-Saxon literature by a study of the Bantuoral tradition', but he makes a number of similar points, such as the social roleof scop and Norse skald, and 'the resemblance between the two societies [Anglo-Saxon and Zulu], with their twin focal points of kin and chief. He likewiseemphasizes the fact that we know more about African oral poetry than our own,and notes certain techniques such as those of caesura and variation, commonto Anglo-Saxon and Xhosa poetry. However, perhaps the statement most relevantin the immediate context is this: 'It is an attractive hypothesis that societies similarin structu re will produce literatures with strong similarities' (p. 176). I hope thepresent article will have gone some way towards confirmation of Opland's hypo-thesis, and in pointing out that the converse also holds good.H.C.

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Old Norse vs Shona

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