Scop
Encyclopedia
A was an Old English
poet, the Anglo-Saxon
counterpart of the Old Norse
.
As far as we can tell from what has been preserved, the art of the scop was directed mostly towards epic poetry
; the surviving verse in Old English consists of the epic Beowulf
, religious verse in epic formats such as the Dream of the Rood
, hero
ic lays of battle
, and stern meditations on mortality and the transience of earthly glory. By contrast, the verse
preserved from the skald
s consists mostly of poems in praise of kings and incidental verse
preserved in the sagas
, often done up in the elaborate metre, and the ballad
-like forms that form most of the corpus of the Poetic Edda
. Both, of course, wrote within the Germanic
tradition of alliterative verse
.
(glossing and ; also ) may be related to the verb scapan "to create, form" (Old Norse skapa, Old High German scaffan; Modern English
shape), from Proto-Germanic "form, order" (from a PIE "cut, hack"), perfectly parallel to the notion of craftsmanship expressed Greek
itself; Köbler (1993, p. 220) suggests that the West Germanic word may indeed be a calque
of Latin .
, meaning "mocking, scolding", whence scoff), a third meaning "tuft of hair", and yet another meaning "barn" (cognate to English shop). They may all derive from a Proto-Germanic .
The association with jesting or mocking is, however, strong in Old High German. There is a glossing both and and a glossing and . on the other hand is of a higher register, glossing . The words involving jesting are derived from another root, PIE *skeub- "push, thrust", related to English shove, shuffle, and the Oxford English Dictionary
favours association of with that root. The question cannot be decided formally, since the Proto-Germanic forms coincided in zero grade
, and by the time of our surviving sources (from the late 8th century), association with both roots may have influenced the word for several centuries.
It is characteristic of the Germanic tradition of poetry that the sacred or heroic cannot be separated from the ecstatic or drunken state, and correspondingly crude jesting (compare the Lokasenna
, where the poet humorously depicts the gods themselves as quarrelsome and malicious), qualities summed up in the concept of , the name-giving attribute of the god of poetry, .
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
poet, the Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
counterpart of the Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
.
As far as we can tell from what has been preserved, the art of the scop was directed mostly towards epic poetry
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
; the surviving verse in Old English consists of the epic Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
, religious verse in epic formats such as the Dream of the Rood
Dream of the Rood
The Dream of the Rood is one of the earliest Christian poems in the corpus of Old English literature and an example of the genre of dream poetry. Like most Old English poetry, it is written in alliterative verse. Rood is from the Old English rod "pole", specifically "crucifix"...
, hero
Hero
A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...
ic lays of battle
Battle
Generally, a battle is a conceptual component in the hierarchy of combat in warfare between two or more armed forces, or combatants. In a battle, each combatant will seek to defeat the others, with defeat determined by the conditions of a military campaign...
, and stern meditations on mortality and the transience of earthly glory. By contrast, the verse
Verse (poetry)
A verse is formally a single line in a metrical composition, e.g. poetry. However, the word has come to represent any division or grouping of words in such a composition, which traditionally had been referred to as a stanza....
preserved from the skald
Skald
The skald was a member of a group of poets, whose courtly poetry is associated with the courts of Scandinavian and Icelandic leaders during the Viking Age, who composed and performed renditions of aspects of what we now characterise as Old Norse poetry .The most prevalent metre of skaldic poetry is...
s consists mostly of poems in praise of kings and incidental verse
Lausavísa
In Old Norse poetry and later Icelandic poetry, a lausavísa is a single stanza composition, or a set of stanzas unconnected by narrative or thematic continuity....
preserved in the sagas
Sagàs
Sagàs is a small town and municipality located in Catalonia, in the comarca of Berguedà. It is located in the geographical area of the pre-Pyrenees.-Population:...
, often done up in the elaborate metre, and the ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
-like forms that form most of the corpus of the Poetic Edda
Poetic Edda
The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems primarily preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. Along with Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda is the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends, and from the early 19th century...
. Both, of course, wrote within the Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
tradition of alliterative verse
Alliterative verse
In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal structuring device to unify lines of poetry, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of alliterative verse are those found in the oldest literature of many Germanic...
.
Etymology
Old English and its cognate Old High GermanOld High German
The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...
(glossing and ; also ) may be related to the verb scapan "to create, form" (Old Norse skapa, Old High German scaffan; Modern English
Modern English
Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, completed in roughly 1550.Despite some differences in vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern...
shape), from Proto-Germanic "form, order" (from a PIE "cut, hack"), perfectly parallel to the notion of craftsmanship expressed Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
itself; Köbler (1993, p. 220) suggests that the West Germanic word may indeed be a calque
Calque
In linguistics, a calque or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root translation.-Calque:...
of Latin .
Scop, scopf, and scold: The art of verbal insulting
Not coincidentally, while became English scoff, the Old Norse lives on in a Modern English word of similarly deprecating meaning, scold. There is a homonymous Old High German meaning "abuse, derision" (Old NorseOld Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
, meaning "mocking, scolding", whence scoff), a third meaning "tuft of hair", and yet another meaning "barn" (cognate to English shop). They may all derive from a Proto-Germanic .
The association with jesting or mocking is, however, strong in Old High German. There is a glossing both and and a glossing and . on the other hand is of a higher register, glossing . The words involving jesting are derived from another root, PIE *skeub- "push, thrust", related to English shove, shuffle, and the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
favours association of with that root. The question cannot be decided formally, since the Proto-Germanic forms coincided in zero grade
Indo-European ablaut
In linguistics, ablaut is a system of apophony in Proto-Indo-European and its far-reaching consequences in all of the modern Indo-European languages...
, and by the time of our surviving sources (from the late 8th century), association with both roots may have influenced the word for several centuries.
It is characteristic of the Germanic tradition of poetry that the sacred or heroic cannot be separated from the ecstatic or drunken state, and correspondingly crude jesting (compare the Lokasenna
Lokasenna
Lokasenna is one of the poems of the Poetic Edda. The poem presents flyting between the gods and Loki....
, where the poet humorously depicts the gods themselves as quarrelsome and malicious), qualities summed up in the concept of , the name-giving attribute of the god of poetry, .