However, Edith Marold and Bjarni Einarsson have argued that the term mansöngr has been over-used in medieval scholarship, being applied to love-poems which we have no evidence were actually viewed as mansöngvar.
According to the saga, the Icelandic skald Óttarr svarti composed a mansǫngsdrápa about Queen Ástríðr of Norway when they were both in the court of her father, the King of Sweden.
In the Konungsbók version, §238, the text reads[6] Ef maðr yrkir mansöng vm cono oc varðar scog gang.
If she will not have it prosecuted, then her legal administrator has to bring the case.In Icelandic rímur, mansöngur is the term used for the (optional) opening section of each ríma poem within the larger epic.
The mansöngur typically shares a metre with the ríma it prefaces but is lyric poetry rather than narrative and the poet often speaks in the first person, addressing the audience directly.
[7] One example of the content of a mansöngur is afforded by Craigie's summary of stanzas 1-17 of the third ríma of Skotlands rímur by Einar Guðmundsson, a 17th-century poet.
The mansöngur is also a platform for personal expression—here, probably, a (veiled) complaint over losing his position as the minister for Staður in Reykjanes in 1635 after accusing two parishioners of sorcery: Though the ring-decked maiden might wish for a love-song, I have but little poetry from Odin.
[8]Among the medieval inscriptions found at Bryggen in the Norwegian city of Bergen, there are preserved examples of mansǫngskvæði (mansǫngr poems) written in Skaldic meters such as dróttkvætt.