The men of the viking age usually associated the royal hall with the thought of elaborate festivities. The greatest moment in such an occasion was when the scald rose to sing the praises and recite the exploits of his host. It has been thought that the activities of the court poet show Celtic influence,[419] and it may be that the scald had learned freely from the bard; but the institution itself is most probably of native origin. Like the Irish singer his chief theme was praise; but we need not suppose that the scald confined himself wholly to contemporary themes: the gleeman in Beowulf sang of the great hero that sat beside the King; but he also told the tales of the Volsungs and the still older story of creation; before the onslaught at Stiklestead one of Saint Olaf's scalds recited the ancient Bjarkamál, the Old Norse version of Beowulf's last fight. The holy King seems to have enjoyed the inspiriting strains of heathen heroism; he thanked the poet, as did all the host.
Old Norse poetry had its beginnings in the ninth century; but its greater bulk belongs to the tenth and eleventh. It begins with a wonderful series of mythical poems, most of them belonging to the period of lull in the viking activities (900-980). The series culminates in the Sibyl's Prophecy (Voluspá), one of the grandest monuments of mediæval literary art and thought. It tells the story of the creation, the destruction, the regeneration of the world in heathen terms with heathen gods, giants, and demons as the actors. But it contains unmistakable Christian elements and the poet must have had some acquaintance with the faith that ruled in the Western Islands. The poem seems to have been composed a generation or two before the days of Canute; but it was doubtless widely current during the years of his kingship. That the later scalds knew and appreciated the poem is evident from the fact that it was quoted by Christian poets in the following century.[420] No doubt it was an important number in their repertoire of song and story, and perhaps we may believe that it was gladly heard by Canute and his henchmen in the royal hall at Winchester.
The four decades that the Norns allotted to Canute (995?-1035) are a notable period in the history of Northern literature: it was the grand age of Old Norse poetry. The advance of Christianity had made the myths impossible as poetic materials, but new themes were found in the deeds and virtues of the old Teutonic heroes and of the mighty war lords of the viking age. The saga materials of the heroic age, the stories of Helgi and Sigrun, of Sigurd and Brunhild, of Gudrun's grief and Attila's fury, had long been treasured by the Northern peoples. Just when each individual tale was cast into the form that has come down to us is impossible to say; the probabilities are, however, that a considerable number of the heroic lays were composed in the age of Canute.
When we come to the court poetry we are on firmer ground: unlike the other poems, the dirges and praise-lays are not anonymous and their dates can be determined with some definiteness. The scald found the age great with possibilities. Those were the days of Hakon and Erik, of Sweyn and Canute, of Erling and Thurkil,—men who typified in their warlike activities the deified valour of the old faith. It was also a period of famous battles: Swald, Ringmere, Clontarf, Ashington, and Stiklestead, to mention only the more prominent. About twenty scalds are known to have sung at the courts of the viking princes, but the compositions of some of them have been wholly lost or exist in mere fragments only. In the reign of Canute three poets stood especially high in the royal favour: Thorarin Praise-tongue, Ottar the Swart, and Sighvat the Scald.
The three were all Icelanders and were of a roving disposition as the scalds usually were. They all visited Canute's court, presumably at Winchester. Sighvat came to England on the return from a trading journey to Rouen in 1027, it seems, just after the King's return from his Roman pilgrimage, which the poet alludes to in his Stretch Song. Ottar seems to have visited Winchester the same year: his poem, the Canute's Praise, closes with a reference to the Holy River campaign in 1026. Thorarin Praise-tongue had his opportunity to flatter the King a year or two later, most likely in 1029: his Stretch Song deals with the conquest of Norway in 1028.
Canute appears to have attached considerable importance to the literary activities of these Icelanders. When he learned that Thorarin had composed a short poem on himself, he became very angry and ordered him to have a complete lay ready for the following day; otherwise he should hang for his presumption in composing a short poem on King Canute. Thorarin added a refrain and eked the poem out with a few additional stanzas. The refrain, "Canute guards the land as the lord of Greekland [God] the kingdom of heaven," evidently pleased the King. The poet was forgiven and the poem rewarded with fifty marks of silver. Thorarin's poem came to be known as the Head Ransom.[421]
It is said that when Ottar came to the King's hall he asked permission to recite a poem, which the King granted.
And the poem was delivered to a great gathering at the next day's moot, and the King praised it, and took a Russian cap off his head, broidered with gold and with gold knobs to it, and bade the chamberlain fill it with silver and give it to the poet. He did so and reached it over men's shoulders, for there was a crowd, and the heaped-up silver tumbled out of the hood on the moot-stage. He was going to pick it up, but the King told him to let it be. "The poor shall have it, thou shaft not lose by it."[422]