(Skáldaspillir)
(ca. 915–990)
The SKALDIC poet Eyvind Finson was one of the last, but one of the most important, skaldic court poets of Norway. Of his personal life, not much is known. But he was of the family of King Harold Fairhair, and thus related to Harold’s son, Hacon the Good (ca. 933–960), the first of three kings in whose courts Eyvind served. Eyvind is best known for two long poetic works, Hákonarmál and Háleygjafal, as well as for some 14 shorter skaldic poems, or lausavísur. Eyvind’s nickname, skáldaspillir (“plagiarist”), implies that he borrowed quite heavily from earlier writers. King Hacon’s crown was contested by his nephews, the sons of Harold Fairhair’s brother, Eirik Bloodaxe, whom Hacon had overthrown.Hacon fought several battles with these brothers, until he was killed in 960 in battle on the island of Stord and succeeded by his nephew Harold Greycloak. Eyvind’s Hákonarmál was written to commemorate this battle. Twenty-one stanzas of this text are preserved in the HEIMSKRINGLA, and three stanzas are also quoted in the PROSE EDDA. Eyvind’s poem vividly retells the king’s last battle. In the climax of the poem, the chief Norse god Odin sends two of his Valkyrie to ferry Hacon’s soul to Valhalla. There is an eight-stanza conversation between Odin, Hacon and the Valkyrie about the appropriateness of his acceptance into the pagan Valhalla, since Hacon was in fact a Christian. But he is praised for not violating any of the pagan Norse temples, and is welcomed into Odin’s great hall after all. According to the end of Eyvind’s poem, Hacon’s equal will not be seen before the end of the world.
Under the reign of Harold Greycloak (ca. 960–970), Eyvind is purported to have written the bulk of his 14 extant lausavísur. Some of these deal with the Battle of Stord. Others deal with famine and cold summers that accompanied the reign of Harold and his brothers. Never on good terms with the sons of Eirik Bloodaxe, Eyvind constrasts the poverty under the miserly Harold with the days of plenty under his old patron, Hacon. Eyvind is at his most playful and his most scathing in these poems, making witty and elaborate use of the KENNINGS that so prominently characterize Old Norse poetic style.
Harold was succeeded by Hacon, the earl of Lade and the last pagan king of Norway (ca. 970–995). Eyvind’s second major poem, Háleygjafal, was composed for Earl Hacon. In it Eyvind traces the earl’s family tree back to the Norse god Frey (or Yngvifreyr) himself, giving the new monarch as impressive a lineage as his predecessors in the older Ynglingar line of kings. The poem ends with a celebration of Earl Hacon’s great victory in 986 in the naval battle of Hjórunga Bay, in which he routed an invading fleet of Jómsvikings (a Danish warrior community). Only nine full stanzas and seven halfstanzas of this poem survive, mostly, once again, in the Heimskringla and a few only in the Prose Edda.
Bibliography
■ Poole, Russell Gilbert. Viking Poems on War and Peace: A Study in Skaldic Narrative. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991.
■ Turville-Petre, E.O.G. Scaldic Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976.