Skald

A Skald, or skáld (Old Norse: [ˈskald], later [ˈskɒːld]; Icelandic: [ˈskault], meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry, the other being Eddic poetry, which is anonymous. Skaldic poems were traditionally composed on one occasion, sometimes extempore, and include both extended works and single verses (lausavísur). They are characteristically more ornate in form and diction than eddic poems, employing many kennings and heiti, more interlacing of sentence elements, and the complex dróttkvætt metre.

More than 5,500 skaldic verses have survived, preserved in more than 700 manuscripts, including in several sagas and in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, a handbook of skaldic composition that led to a revival of the art. Many of these verses are fragments of originally longer works, and the authorship of many is unknown. The earliest known skald from whom verses survive is Bragi Boddason, known as Bragi the Old, a Norwegian skald of the first half of the 9th century. Most skalds of whom we know were attached to the courts of Norwegian kings during the Viking Age, and increasingly were Icelanders; the subject matter of their extended poems was sometimes mythical before the conversion, thereafter usually historical and encomiastic, detailing the deeds of the skald's patron. The tradition continued into the late Middle Ages.

The standard edition of the skaldic poetic corpus, Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning, was edited by Finnur Jónsson and published in 1908–15. A new edition was prepared online by the Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages project and began publication in 2007.