3.1. Type B (× / ×/)

In the previous section, we saw that type B is extremely underrepresented in fornyrðislag in favor of types A and C. The greatly diminished use of type B, however, is subject to a further restriction, namely the distinction between the a-verse and the b-verse. As illustrated in table 2, type B occurs more frequently in the a-verse. This verse distribution stands in sharp contrast to the situations obtained in Beowulf and the Heliand, in which type B is used with greater preference in the b-verse.

Table 2.

Distribution of type B in fornyrðislag, Beowulf, and the Heliand.

As it turns out, fornyrðislag is diametrically opposed to Beowulf and the Heliand with respect to the distribution pattern of type B: while in the latter two works, type B appears overwhelmingly in the b-verse, exactly the converse obtains in fornyrðislag, in which type B occurs with a similarly outstanding frequency in the a-verse. Furthermore, given the broadly comparable corpus size of fornyrðislag verse and Beowulf (see table 1), it can be said that the radical decrease of type B is primarily brought about by that in the b-verse, whereas the use in the a-verse remains hardly affected. Therefore, it may follow that type B is avoided principally in the b-verse, rather than falling out of favor in general terms. Since type B is the only major type that ends in drop + lift, we may restate that this cadence tends to be avoided in the b-verse in fornyrðislag. The avoidance of the verse-final drop + lift in the b-verse in turn may be explained as a consequence of the ascendancy of the reverse configuration lift + drop as a favored cadence for the b-verse in fornyrðislag.

3.2. Type C (× / / ×)

Depending on the syllable quantities of the first and second lifts, type C is divided into three variants, Sievers' (Reference Sievers1893:§16) types C1 (x. . .P#Px), C2 (x. . .px#Px), and C3 (x. . .P#px). Type C1 is obtained through realization of both lifts by a long stressed syllable (P); type C2 is distinguished by resolution of the first lift, that is, realization by the sequence of a short stressed syllable and an unstressed counterpart (px); and type C3 is realized when the second lift is associated with a short stressed syllable alone (p) through suspension of resolution and the following unstressed syllable consequently constitutes a verse-final drop.

Table 3 shows the distribution of the three variants of type C (C1, C2, and C3) in fornyrðislag, Beowulf, and the Heliand, as exemplified in 2.

Table 3.

Distribution of the three variants of type C in fornyrðislag, Beowulf, and the Heliand.

1. (2) Hym 6.3 Ef, vinr, velar (C1)

   Sg 15.3 um borin Buðla (C2)

   Vsp 57.7 leicr hár hiti (C3)

   Beo 1202a pone hring hæfde (C1)

   Beo 2570a tō gescipe scyndan (C2)

   Beo 1233a druncon wīn weras (C3)

   Hel 1871a thene uueg uuîsit (C1)

   Hel 331a te thera magað minnea (C2)

   Hel 200a uuas im fel fagar (C3)

Differentiating fornyrðislag most sharply from the meters of Beowulf and the Heliand is the demonstrably low frequency of the verse form x. . .P#px (C3) in the b-verse, in contrast to its predominant occurrence in the b-verse in the West Germanic meters. With the p-value < 0.001 resulting from chi-square test for comparison between fornyrðislag and Beowulf on the one hand and fornyrðislag and the Heliand on the other, we may conclude that the distribution of x. . .P#px in fornyrðislag is significantly different from those in Beowulf and the Heliand. We are then required to provide an explanatory account of this unique feature of fornyrðislag.

A further notable distinguishing property of fornyrðislag is the graded distribution of the three type C variants: while the variant with suspension of resolution (x. . .P#px; C3) is attested more frequently in the a-verse, the one with the resolved first lift (x. . .px#Px; C2) occurs overwhelmingly in the b-verse; and between these two extremes is located the sequence with both lifts realized by a long stressed syllable (x. . .P#Px; C1), which shows a weak preference for the b-verse, a pattern more or less contrary to that of the unresolved variant (x. . .P#px; C3). In more rigorous terms, the distribution patterns of these three variants are significantly distinguished from each other, given the p-value of less than 0.001 by chi-square test. By contrast, the two West Germanic meters do not show anything approaching such a neatly graded preference pattern. More specifically, as far as Beowulf is concerned, the distribution of type C2 is indistinguishable from that of type C1 (p = 0.400) on the one hand and that of type C3 (p = 0.517) on the other. In the case of the Heliand, while significantly differing from type C3 (p < 0.001), type C1 is nondistinct from type C2 (p = 0.841).

The key to an understanding of the issue hinges on the b-verse's preference for the cadence lift + drop in fornyrðislag that I identified above. Although type C regardless of its varied manifestations ends in the preferred cadence in question (/ ×), it seems to differ in relative degrees of preference depending on its particular realizations. As substantiated in Suzuki Reference Suzuki1996 and Suzuki Reference Suzuki2004, the prototypical, hence optimal, realization of the lift is the long stressed syllable (P), or more technically the monosyllabic and bimoraic unit. On this ground, its exclusive association with the short stressed syllable (p)—monosyllabic and monomoraic—through suspension of resolution is of insufficient prominence and must therefore be valued as less optimal. Accordingly, the sequence x. . .P#px is preferred in the b-verse to a lesser extent and occurs with a correspondingly lower incidence. On the other hand, the a-verse does not share the strong predilection for the cadence at issue. The overall consequence is that the variant x. . .P#px occurs more frequently in the a-verse than in the b-verse.

We are, in turn, confronted with the differential preference for the other two variants, both of which have the second lift realized optimally by the long stressed syllable in accord with its prototypical association. Why are these two variants differentiated in the way they are, then, and why are they not treated indiscriminately in terms of distribution pattern as in the West Germanic meters?

At this point, the configuration of the two consecutive lifts in type C comes into the picture. The second of the two lifts occurring in succession is precluded from its full prominence because of the immediately preceding more saliently perceived entity, the first lift (compare Sievers Reference Sievers1893:§9.3, §171.4, Cable Reference Cable1974:65–74, Suzuki Reference Suzuki1996:187). By virtue of this syntagmatically motivated attenuating effect, then, the second lift of type C tends to be denied its otherwise optimal realization by the long stressed syllable. Accordingly, the variant x. . .P#Px is the least valued among the three variants and occurs with the lowest frequency throughout the three metrical traditions (table 3 above). As a strategy for avoiding this mismatch and implementing instead a more appropriate realization, the second lift is rendered susceptible to suspension of resolution in the degrees unprecedented in other metrical types (Suzuki Reference Suzuki1996:231–232): by exclusive association with the short stressed syllable, the second lift receives a lowered prominence in accord with the syntagmatically motivated constraint. The unresolved variant x. . .P#px thus occurs with by far the highest frequency in Beowulf (table 3 above).

In fornyrðislag, however, a totally different, new factor comes into play, namely the predilection for the cadence lift + drop, as repeatedly referred to so far in this paper. Since this preference is couched in terms of abstract metrical structure (that is, a concatenation of a lift and a drop) and hence remains unspecified according to context, it is not conditioned by the immediately preceding lift and it accordingly overrides the traditional force for associating the second lift of type C with the short stressed syllable through suspension of resolution. The optimal cadence lift + drop demands type C of its prototypical realization by the string of a long stressed syllable and an unstressed one, as elsewhere.

While the verse-final string px no longer counts as an optimal realization of the cadence of type C in fornyrðislag, the relative attenuation of the second of the two lifts occurring in succession does not cease to exist, as it is presumably based on general prosodic properties. Therefore, where the second lift is realized fully by the long stressed syllable in defiance of its attenuated prominence but at the same time in conformity to the optimal realization of the cadence lift + drop, the preceding first lift is more likely to receive a metrical boost in accordance with the relative difference in prominence involved. The extra prominence on demand is provided by association with a disyllable through resolution: by resolution, the lift is realized by a disyllabic sequence as opposed to a monosyllable. Because of the resultant extra syllable quantity, that is, disyllabic/bimoraic, the lift in question manifests a greater prominence. The higher incidence of the variant x. . .px#Px (C2) than x. . .P#Px (C1) is thus subject to explanation: this is a consequence of adding extra prominence to the first lift, rather than subtracting prominence from the second lift that gives rise to the variant x. . .P#px. In either case, the underlying motivation is the same but the means are different: to encode prosodic differences between the two consecutive lifts by distinct metrical devices, suspension of resolution on the second lift on the one hand and resolution on the first lift on the other. In this way, on account of the special configuration—clashing lifts—obtained in type C, the full realization of the second lift as part of the desirable cadence materializes when the first lift is resolved. Therefore, the variant x. . .px#Px (C2) counts as the optimal form for realizing the cadence in question and appears in the b-verse with the maximal frequency in fornyrðislag.

Since resolution on the first lift of type C is motivated by the association of the second one with a long stressed syllable, this metrical device is unlikely to be implemented when the second lift is realized by a short stressed syllable. The combination of resolution on the first lift and suspension of resolution from the second counterpart would be simply redundant (compare Sievers Reference Sievers1893:§171.4). As it is, there are only two examples of the sequence x. . .px#px in the corpus: Vsp 14.2 í Dvalins liði and Hdl 18.6 oc Frecar baðir.

To recapitulate, while uniformly ending in the cadence lift + drop, type C is divided into the three variants in regard to the realization of their constituent lifts in traditional versecraft. With the privileging of the same cadence for the b-verse in fornyrðislag, these three variants were subject to re-evaluation and thereupon underwent redistribution in terms of their usage pattern. The variant x. . .P#px (C3), which had been most commonly used in earlier practice, was suppressed in the b-verse because of the less than optimal prominence of the second lift, monomoraic (p) rather than bimoraic (P). Instead, the variant x. . .px#Px (C2) was radically increased and used overwhelmingly in the b-verse, since in it the prosodic potential of the second lift was assured of its full realization by virtue of the resolution on the immediately preceding lift. The variant x. . .P#Px (C1) was rated at a midpoint between the above two: while the second lift was given a bimoraic value through association with the long syllable (P), it was precluded from its full realization in conflict with the preceding, equally monosyllabic, first lift. In this way, the scale of optimality for realization of the second lift as part of the targeted cadence is correlated to the graded relative frequency of occurrence in the b-verse.

3.3. Type A (/ × / ×)

In the preceding two sections, I examined how two of the three major metrical types were reconstituted and reorganized in terms of their realization and distribution by the emergent preference for the cadence lift + drop in the b-verse. Now we turn to consider the remaining major type, type A. Since one of its variants, type A3 (× × / ×), is virtually limited to the a-verse on account of the constraint on alliteration, it has to be excluded from our examination below.Footnote ⁴ At issue, therefore, is type A1.Footnote ⁵

This type, however, is involved in wide-ranging variation particularly in regard to the realization of the first drop in Old Germanic meter in general (see, for example, Suzuki Reference Suzuki1996:149–158, Reference Suzuki2004:29–66). Most notably, the larger size and greater prominence of the first drop is correlated to the more frequent occurrence in the a-verse. This regularity, also applicable to fornyrðislag, thus constrains our approach to looking into the effects (if any) that the emergent cadence brought about on the use of type A1. Specifically, we should concentrate on by far the most frequent variant of type A1, namely Px#Px, the first drop of which is least prominent and therefore lacks extra properties that are conducive to a greater demand for appearing in the a-verse.

Table 4 illustrates the varying distribution of the sequence Px#Px in fornyrðislag verse, Beowulf, and the Heliand, as exemplified in 3.

Table 4.

Distribution of Px#Px (type A) in fornyrðislag, Beowulf, and the Heliand.

1. (3) Hym 24.5 S⊘cþiz síðan

   Beo 11a gomban gyldan

   Hel 187a lêra lêstin

A chi-square test shows that the distribution pattern of fornyrðislag is significantly different from that of Beowulf and that of the Heliand, respectively. With the p-value of less than 0.001 in both cases, we are allowed to reject the null hypothesis that the distribution pattern does not significantly differ between the two bodies of verse under consideration (fornyrðislag and Beowulf on the one hand and fornyrðislag and the Heliand on the other).

With the distributional difference thus statistically supported, I conclude that the sequence Px#Px shows a significantly stronger preference for the b-verse in fornyrðislag verse than in the other two works. This enhanced association of the sequence Px#Px with the b-verse can in turn be attributed to the cadence lift + drop that has been accorded a privileged status for the composition of the b-verse in fornyrðislag. In this way, type A has been partly reorganized in its usage in harmony with the emergent preferred cadence lift + drop in the b-verse in the meter: unless special conditions favorable to occurrence in the a-verse apply, type A is increasingly used in the b-verse by virtue of its inherent cadence lift + drop.

This transformation not only concerns the relative proportion between the a-verse and the b-verse, as we have seen; it also bears on absolute occurrences of type A in the b-verse. The change comes to light most clearly when we compare the relevant figures between the three works. As may be recalled, the corpus size of fornyrðislag verse and Beowulf is virtually the same; furthermore, that of the Heliand almost equals those of fornyrðislag verse and Beowulf combined. In this light, the number of occurrences in the b-verse in fornyrðislag proves to be outstandingly larger than in the other two. Of no less significance, the frequency in the a-verse is lower in fornyrðislag than in either work. The privileged use of the cadence lift + drop in the b-verse thus leads to the conspicuous presence of Px#Px there and conversely its marked underrepresentation in the a-verse.

At this point, a further variant of type A may be adduced in support of my claim that type A is reorganized in its use by the privileged cadence lift + drop for the b-verse in fornyrðislag. At stake here is the variant PxSx (table 5), that is to say, a compound word that constitutes a verse on its own, as exemplified in 4.

Table 5.

Distribution of PxSx (type A) in fornyrðislag, Beowulf, and the Heliand.

1. (4) Hym 2.4 miscorblinda

   Beo 23a wilgesīþas

   Hel 1780a eldibarnun

In fornyrðislag, the variant PxSx displays a similar distribution pattern to the variant Px#Px treated above. In fact, a chi-square test results in the p-value 0.531, meaning that there is no significant difference between the two variants in terms of verse distribution. This stands in sharp contrast to Beowulf (but not to the Heliand this time), in which the two variants are distributed in opposite ways: the difference proves to be statistically significant with the p-value < 0.001. As argued in Suzuki Reference Suzuki1996:346, the predominance of the variant PxSx in the a-verse in Beowulf is attributed to the marked status of the a-verse in contrast to the unmarked b-verse; since the realization of the lift by a secondary-stressed syllable is obviously exceptional in formal and quantitative terms, this irregular property tends to be carried by the marked a-verse.

By contrast, fornyrðislag follows a distinct rule of its own, the ubiquitous cadence lift + drop in the b-verse. In terms of metrical structure (/ × / ×), the variant PxSx is no different from Px#Px: both end in the increasingly favored cadence (/ ×). Furthermore, since the first drop of the variant PxSx is realized by a single unstressed syllable that is not in word-initial position, the sequence PxSx counts as a minimal structure of type A1 that is equivalent to Px#Px. Without any conditions conducive to larger occurrences in the a-verse, then, the variant PxSx is treated in the same way as the variant Px#Px, so that both are used with greater preference in the b-verse.

3.4. Type A with Anacrusis (× / ×/ ×)

Anacrusis is an optional element that appears at the head of a verse that begins with a lift. Accordingly, only types A, D, and E are eligible for anacrusis. Given by far the highest incidence of type A and the extremely low frequency of the latter two minor types (see table 1), anacrusis is expected to occur only on type A in large numbers. Our primary concern in the discussion below therefore is with type A with anacrusis.

Table 6 shows the distribution of type A with anacrusis in fornyrðislag eddic poetry, Beowulf, and the Heliand, as exemplified in 5.

Table 6.

Distribution of type A with anacrusis in fornyrðislag, Beowulf, and the Heliand.

1. (5) Vkv 33.9 né brúði minni

   Beo 2681a geswāc æt sæcce

   Hel 263a ne forhti thu thînun ferhe

While uncommon and still less frequent than in Beowulf, anacrusis should not be excluded from fornyrðislag on categorical grounds despite some metrists' claims to the contrary (see, for example, Russom Reference Russom1998:49, 209). The attestation of anacrusis in a fairly wide range of poems would make unlikely its characterization as a corruption or stylistic idiosyncrasy attributable to a few exceptional poems; rather we should view it as a marginal yet legitimate verse form in fornyrðislag.Footnote ⁶ Moreover, since anacrusis does not count as an autonomous metrical position in traditional meter, its use does not contravene the maximality of four-positions that seems to be required with greater stringency in fornyrðislag. Of further interest, fornyrðislag displays more frequent occurrences of anacrusis than Beowulf as far as independent words, as opposed to prefixes, are concerned: in Beowulf, we find only nine and five such instances (type A1 with anacrusis) in the a-verse and b-verse, respectively.Footnote ⁷ Rather than rule out anacrusis categorically from the metrical system as Russom (Reference Russom1998) did, I would therefore assume that the traditional device was still in practice, although extremely marginalized primarily for the reason that Russom (Reference Russom1998:49) adduced, namely loss of prefixes, the prototypical realizations of anacrusis (Suzuki Reference Suzuki1996:315–322). The peripheral use (in terms of traditional practice), however, was retained in the Norse meter.

With anacrusis having been acknowledged as a legitimate device, let us consider its use in fornyrðislag. Again, the Norse meter is distinguished from both Beowulf and the Heliand by the reverse distribution pattern: while in the latter two poems, type A with anacrusis occurs predominantly in the a-verse, it appears in the b-verse with a slightly higher frequency in fornyrðislag poetry. The observed difference is statistically significant: with the p-value less than 0.001 by chi-square test, fornyrðislag and Beowulf display a distinct distribution pattern for type A with anacrusis; and the p-value 0.02 resulting from the same test confirms that fornyrðislag is also distinct from the Heliand by the same parameter. The observed reversal in distribution, however, comes as no surprise in the light of our foregoing considerations. Fornyrðislag increasingly yields to the demand to use the cadence lift + drop in the b-verse. Since type A with anacrusis ends in this privileged configuration, this verse form, too, succumbs to an enhanced presence in the b-verse. It may therefore follow as a matter of course that the verse form in question is redistributed so that it may no longer appear predominantly in the a-verse. Thus, the emergent canonical cadence for the b-verse overrides the traditional rule for anacrusis that induces its occurrence in the a-verse by virtue of the extra metrical element involved, which is more compatible with the relatively greater prominence of the a-verse (Suzuki Reference Suzuki1996:344, 347).

Of particular interest, the innovation of the dominant use of type A with anacrusis in the b-verse in fornyrðislag stands in contrast to the novel use established for type B, treated in section 3.1 above, whereby it is used overwhelmingly in the a-verse. This contrast readily yields to an explanatory account. In structural terms, type A with anacrusis and type B constitute a minimal pair: both have the first four metrical positions in common, namely × / × /; the only difference is the presence versus absence of × in verse-final position. The opposition between these otherwise identical two configurations is thus ascribed to the determining role that the cadence lift + drop assumes in organizing verse distribution in fornyrðislag. The presence of the verse-final drop after a lift creates the cadence highly valued for the b-verse, whereas its absence results in the cadence drop + lift that is maximally opposed to the optimal counterpart. Therefore, type A with anacrusis, which was a privilege of the a-verse, is dissociated from that privileged distribution pattern; by contrast, type B is disfavored in the b-verse by virtue of its diametrically opposite cadence structure.

As pointed out at the outset of this section, anacrusis is largely confined to type A. Yet there are several examples of type D with anacrusis, whereas there seems to be no instance of anacrustic type E in fornyrðislag verse. These rare anacrustic type D verses, as exemplified in 6, are distributed as shown in table 7.

1. (6) Hm 2.5 er fát fornara

   Beo 1554a gewēold wīgsigor

   Hel 5410a that folc frâgoian

Table 7.

Distribution of type D with anacrusis in fornyrðislag, Beowulf, and the Heliand.

As it turns out, the distribution pattern of type D with anacrusis is contrary to that of type A with anacrusis (table 6): the a-verse dominates at the expense of the b-verse. The preference for the a-verse thus makes fornyrðislag indistinguishable from the West Germanic meters in this respect. This state of affairs is confirmed by Fisher's exact test (two-tailed): with the p-value of 0.107, fornyrðislag is not significantly different from Beowulf; nor can it be distinguished from the Heliand, given the p-value of 1.Footnote ⁸

We may naturally ask why type D with anacrusis is immune to the kind of reorganization that affects type A with anacrusis. The question can readily be answered by pointing out that type D does not have the canonical cadence lift + drop: it ends either in the sequence heavy drop + drop (\ ×) or drop + heavy drop (× \), as shown in 1, section 1 above. In the absence of the crucial condition of lift + drop in verse-final position, then, type D with anacrusis falls outside the scope of the increased preference for the cadence lift + drop and therefore its verse distribution pattern remains unchanged.