There are some differences between prose and poetic language. The poetic language is of course in metre, or else it wouldn't be poetry, but it's also more archaic - the more old words one could squeeze into a poem, the better. But not only the words are more archaic, there are other features that can only be found in poetry.

Lots of words are used in poetry only. They were not in ny way invented for that purpose, they are just very old words that have fallen out of use elsewhere. Some examples of such words are:

börr fylkir gumi gunnr halr hölðr

'tree' 'commander' 'man' 'battle' 'man' 'man'

hildr hjörr hyrr jór mækir rann

'battle' 'sword' 'fire' 'horse' 'sword' 'house'

rekkr seggr spiör tífar víf ægir

'man' 'man' 'spear' 'gods' 'woman' 'sea'

You can find more ancient words in Snorri's edda (see below).

byrði betri | berrat maðr brautu at		'a better burden does one not carry on the road' (berr-at)
upp líta | skalattu í orrostu		'you shall not look up in battle' (skal-at-þu)
flýra sá eld er yfir hleypr		'he doesn't flee from fire who leaps over (it)' (flýr-a)

ef þyrfta'k at málungi mat		'if I hadn't needed food for the meals' (málum-gi)

nýsta'k niðr | nam'k upp rúnar		'I looked down, I took up runes' (nýsta ek, nam ek)
Lætr sá'r Hákun heitir		'He who's called Hákunn ...' (sá er)

Sometimes when ek is enclitic, another nonenclitic ek can still appear:

stóðkat ek fjarri | þá er fell konungr		'I stood not far away when the king fell' (stóð-k-at ek)
emkat ek álfa | né ása sona		'I am not (son) of elves nor of sons of the gods' (em-k-at ek)

In stead of using an existing word one can make a new one, so if the old skalds needed a word for 'sword' they could call it sáralauk 'wound onion' (in ancient times swords had the shape of a drawn-out onion). Likewise a snake could be called lyngfiskr 'heather fish' (i.e. a "fish" that "swims" in the heather), and a hawk hábrók '(he with) high trousers' (because of the feathers on his legs). A word like this is called a heiti (one heiti, two heiti).

An even more complicated way to say for example 'gold' is to call it dreka beðr 'dragon's bed'. This is explained by the myth about the dragon Fáfnir who rested on his stolen gold. Dreka beðr is an example of a kenning (one kenning, two kenningar).
To make a kenning more complicated, one can compose it out of other kenningar or heiti, and call the gold hvalvegs glóð 'embers of the whale road'. The whale road is of course the water, and what shines like ember in the water is gold.

There are lots and lots of both heiti and kenningar in Snorri's edda (see below)!

Often, like in the first example with the dragon's bed, knowledge of old myths is necessary for understanding the kenningar. For that purpose the famous icelandic skald Snorri Sturluson wrote a book that he called Edda (the only known meaning of this word is "great grandmother", nobody knows why Snorri gave it to his book). In his Edda Snorri tells us about the myths and beliefs of his forfathers, to explain why gold is the dragon's bed or Freyja's tears, and why mead is the dwarves' rescue. This is done in Gylfaginning and Skaldskaparmál

The Edda also contains a long poem dedicated to the norwegian king Hákunn (norw. Håkon). Every one of the over 100 stanzas is in a different metre, and to each one Snorri gives his comments. This part of his Edda is called Háttatal.

Snorri's Edda is available in several languages on the internet. You can find links at the bottom of this page.

Old germanic poetry does not rhyme like modern poetry. Two words are considered to rhyme, not when they end alike, but when they begin alike. This is called allitteration.

All words that begin in the same sound do not allitterate, however. Only the first sound in a stressed syllable counts. Since the stress is almost exclusivly on the first syllable in old norse it is not a problem there, but in other langauges it is important to think of this. In modern english, for example, regret and gift allitterate, but not regret and rift (because the first stressed syllable in regret begins with a g).

There are other exceptions:
• Sp only allitterates with sp (not with just s!), sk only with sk, and st only with st
• Vowels all allitterates with each other, regardless of quality. In fact it is actually considered to sound better if two allitterating vowels are of different quality. The semivowel j also alitterates with vowels (because all inital j:s in ON were once e:s!). Cf. the following passages from Völuspá:

Ek man jötna, | ár um borna (Völuspá 2.1-2)
and
jörð fannsk æfa, | ne upphiminn (Völuspá 3.5-6)

NB: Sounds allitterate, not letters! In english cole and kill allitterate, but not cole and cell.

The stress is always on the first syllable of a word in old norse, but in a sentence stress is put only on some words. Usually nouns and adjectives carry stress, whereas conjunctions, prepositions and pronouns do not. The allitterations usually tells us which words that carry the stress, since only stressed words allitterate. But this should not cause any problems to any speaker of a modern European language.

The stressed syllables must be long, i.e. they must have a long vowel or a short one followed by two or more consonants. Syllables that have a short vowel followed by only one consonant are short, and cannot carry stress, unless there are two of them, because two short syllables can function as one long, and carry stress like a one long.

Here is a verse from Völuspá in which the allitterating sounds are underlined, and the vowels of the stressed syllables are bold:

Hljóðs bið ek allar	|	helgar kindir,
meiri ok minni,	|	mögu Heimdallar;
Viltu at ek, Valföðr,	|	vel fyr telja
forn spjöll fira,	|	þau er fremst um man
(Völuspá 1)

In older germanic poetry the relation between verse/stanza and sentence, was quite free; a sentence could be finished in any number of lines. In old norse poetry, though, lines were ordered into verses like the ones above, and each verse like this one contained one sentence.

There are many different metres: The eddic metres, found in the edda and other ancient poems are quite simple, whereas the metres used by the viking age skalds can be very complicated, like dróttkvætt.

In the latter the verses must contain a certain number of syllables, a certain number of which are stressed, and the words must allitterate and their vowels harmonize in a certain way, whereas in the former only the number of stressed syllables is fixed and the allitterations are simple.

In the following metres the entire edda is written. They can also be found in runic inscriptions in Scandinavia, and they are very similar to metres used by other germanic peoples; the old english Béowulf, the old saxon Heliand and the old high german Hildibrandslîd are well known examples.

Gól at ásum	|	Gullinkambi,
sá vekr hölda	|	at Herjaföðurs;
en annarr gelr	|	fyr jörð neðan,
sótrauðr hani	|	at sölum Heljar.
(Völuspá 43)

• A verse consists of four long lines.
• Each long line consists of two short lines.
• Each short line contains two stressed syllables.
• The 3rd stressed syllable in each long line (the so called höfuðstafr 'main syllable'), alitterates with the 1st and/or the 2nd (one of the so called stuðlar 'props').

According to Snorri, the definition was slightly different, and the metre of Völuspá that we call fornyrðislag was really three different metres: fornyrðislag, starkaðarlag and balkarlag, but they are not even kept apart in the edda!

Mál er dverga	|	í Dvalins liði
lióna kindum	|	til Lofars telja,
þeir er sóttu	|	frá salar steini
Aurvanga sjöt	|	til Iöruvalla.
(Völuspá 43)

• A verse consists of four long lines.
• Each long line consists of two short lines.
• Each short line contains two stressed syllables.
• The höfuðstafr allitterates with either one of the stuðlar.
• The höfuðstafr is preceded by an anacrusis of one or more stressless syllables.

This metre is the metre of the main parts of Hávamál:

Ár skal rísa,	|	sá er annars vill
fé eða fjör hafa;
sjaldan liggjandi ulfr	|	lær um getr,
né sofandi maðr sigr.

• A verse consists of four long lines.
• The 1st and 3rd long lines consist of two short lines.
• Each one of those short lines contain two stressed syllables.
• The 2nd and 4th long lines contain three stressed syllables.
• The 3rd stressed syllable in long line n:o 1 and 3, allitterates with either the 1st or 2nd (see underlinings).
• Two of the three stressed syllables in long line n:o 2 and 4 allitterate with each other.

The following metres are younger than the others. They were invented by viking age skalds, who

These metres are more complicated than the others. There are more things that must be in a certain way and because of that the words can seldom be fitted into the verses in the best possible order. That of course makes these poems harder to understand.

This verse is used by Snorri to give an example of this metre:

Lætr sá'r Hákun heitir,	|	hann rekkir lið, bannat,
jörð kann frelsa, fyrðum	|	friðrofs, konungr, ofsa.
Sjalfr ræðr allt ok Elfar	|	ungr stillir sá milli,
gramr á gift at fremri,	|	Gandvíkr jöfurr landi.
( )

• A verse consists of eight lines, divided into four fjórðungar 'fourths'.
• Each line contains six syllables (including the stressless ones).
• The höfuðstafr 'main syllable' in each fjórðungr - i.e. the first stressed syllable of its' second line - alliterates with the stuðlar 'props' - two of the stressed syllables in the first line of the fjórðungr (frelsa : fyrðum : friðrofs)
• In the first row of each fjórðungr the last word shall have the same consonants after the vowel as one other word (jörð : fyrðum). This is called skothending.
• In the second row of each fjórðungr the last word shall have the same vowel and the same following consonants as one other word (friðrofs : ofsa). This is called aðalhending.