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In:From Carving Runestones to Digitizing Skaldic Poetry: Studies in Germanic philology and historical linguistics
Edited by David Bolter, Erin Noelliste, Christopher D. Sapp and Lane Sorensen
[Studies in Germanic Linguistics 11] 2026
► pp. 77–95

Chapter 6
Echoes in a cave

Additional rhyme and alliteration in the poetry of Bergbúa þáttr

 | University of Copenhagen
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
The short Icelandic narrative work Bergbúa þáttr contains a 12-stanza poem often given the modern title Hallmundarkviða. This poem appears to describe volcanic phenomena from the point of view of a supernatural being that inhabits a cave in the mountains. It is composed in the dróttkvætt meter, which employs formalized internal rhyme and alliteration, and which no other scholar of our generation has been better able to describe and analyze than the late Kari Ellen Gade. In addition to these formal features, the poem repeats the last line of each stanza, and it contains a large amount of repetitions of phonemes and phoneme groups such as nasal consonants. Many of these features do not fall under the extensive native poetic terminology of Old Norse, but can be demonstrated to have been composed for deliberate poetic effect in this poem.
This paper takes as a starting point the approach of Heslop’s study of Glymdrápa in Viking Mediologies (pp. 143–9), where it is demonstrated that both the diction and phonic system of that poem are directed towards representing the noise of battle. In Bergbúa þáttr the impetus is the apparent evocation of volcanic and/or subterranean phenomena — phenomena probably experienced primarily by medieval Icelanders in the form of the sounds and movement of earthquakes and related activity. This paper will survey the techniques used in the poem to build a sonic environment evocative of its subject-matter, as well as other sensory reference points related to the poem’s subject matter and context.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Bergbúa þáttr and its poetry
    • 1.2Echoic features
    • 1.3The human sense system
    • 1.4Cave poetry
  • 2.Analysis of the poetry
    • 2.1Scope of the analysis
    • 2.2Stanza 1
    • 2.3Stanza 2
    • 2.4Stanza 3
    • 2.5Stanza 4
    • 2.6Stanza 5
    • 2.7Stanza 12
  • 3.Interaction of sound and sense
  • Author queries
  • Abbreviations
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
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