stylistic:style_transfer, structural:expansion, linguistic:translation
Cnut's skalds

The Old Norse catalogue of skalds known as Skáldatal lists eight skalds who were active at Cnut's court. Four of them, namely Sigvatr Þórðarson, Óttarr svarti, Þórarinn loftunga and Hallvarðr háreksblesi, composed verses in honour of Cnut which have survived in some form, while no such thing is apparent from the four other skalds Bersi Torfuson, Arnórr Þórðarson jarlaskáld (known from other works), Steinn Skaptason and Óðarkeptr (unknown). The principal works for Cnut are the three Knútsdrápur by Sigvatr Þórðarson, Óttarr svarti and Hallvarðr háreksblesi, and the Höfuðlausn and Tøgdrápa by Þórarinn loftunga. Cnut also features in two other contemporary skaldic poems, namely Þórðr Kolbeinsson 's Eiríksdrápa and the anonymous Liðsmannaflokkr.

Cnut's skalds emphasise the parallelism between Cnut's rule of his earthly kingdom and God's rule of Heaven. This is particularly apparent in their refrains. Thus the refrain of Þórarinn's Höfuðlausn translates to "Cnut protects the land as the guardian of Byzantium Heaven" and the refrain of Hallvarðr's Knútsdrápa translates to "Cnut protects the land as the Lord of all the splendid hall of the mountains ". Despite the Christian message, the poets also make use of traditional pagan references and this is particularly true of Hallvarðr. As an example, one of his half-stanzas translates to "The Freyr of the noise of weapons has also cast under him Norway; the battle-server diminishes the hunger of the valcyrie 's hawks." The skald here refers to Cnut as "Freyr of battle", a kenning using the name of the pagan god Freyr. References of this sort were avoided by poets composing for the contemporary kings of Norway but Cnut seems to have had a more relaxed attitude towards pagan literary allusions.