Kenning for the word

Kenning Definition

What is a kenning? Here’s a quick and simple definition:

A kenning is a figure of speech in which two words are combined in order to form a poetic expression that refers to a person or a thing. For example, «whale-road» is a kenning for the sea. Kennings are most commonly found in Old Norse and Old English poetry.

Some additional key details about kennings:

• In most cases, kennings consist of two nouns side-by-side combined using hyphens so that they form a single unit known as a compound.
• A kenning is a specific type of circumlocution because it refers to a thing using more words than necessary.
• Because the meaning of a kenning is something more than or different from the literal meaning of its combined words, a kenning is a type of figurative language. In fact, one could say that every kenning involves an implied simile («the sea is like a road for whales»).
• The person or thing to which a kenning refers to is known as the kenning’s «referent.»

How to Pronounce Kenning

Here’s how to pronounce kenning: ken-ing

Kennings in Depth

Kennings are found most commonly in Old English and Norse poetry. They typically consist of two nouns that are joined by a hyphen, forming a compound that stands in for another noun, known as the «referent.» The two words that make up a kenning are called the «base word» and the «determinant»:

• The base word stands-in for the referent, and shares a metaphoric (though not always immediately evident) similarity with the referent.
• The determinant modifies the meaning of the base word, much like an adjective modifies a noun, to help reveal the base word’s connection to the referent.

So in the kenning «whale—road,» the noun «road» is the base-word, since it stands-in for the referent (the sea). The similarity they share is that both are expanses that offer a means of travel. The noun «whale» is the determinant, because it modifies the noun «road» by describing the type of road: in this case, a road for whales.

Modern Kennings

While kennings are most common and noticeable in Old English and Norse poetry, there are some modern phrases or idioms that fit the general kenning form. For instance, take these two examples:

• Couch potato: Here the referent (a lazy person) is being compared to a potato (which is similar to the lazy person in its lack of movement), so «potato» is the base word. The noun «couch» describes what kind of potato it is (one that sits on a couch), so «couch» serves as the determinant.
• Bookworm: In this case, the referent (a voracious reader) is being compared to a worm (a voracious eater), so the «worm» is the base word. The noun «book» describes the type of worm, so «book» is the determinant.

The point is not so much that there are still lots of poets thinking up kennings, but rather that the kenning form still has resonance today and crops up even when people are not purposely thinking up kennings.

Kennings vs. Epithets

An epithet is a descriptive phrase that is used to characterize a person or thing, and (like kennings) it can often be used in place of or alongside the thing being described. However, kennings and epithets are not the same. For example, in The Odyssey, the goddess Athena is frequently referred to as «grey-eyed Athena.» In this case, «grey-eyed» is an epithet for Athena. Similarly, water might be referred to using the epithet «bane of fire.» Note the two ways in which these, and all, epithets are unlike kennings:

• Structurally: Neither follows the noun-noun «determinant + base word» structure that is a part of kennings.
• Metaphorically: Kennings create a simile between their referent, base word, and determinant («the sea is like a road for whales»). Epithets, in contrast, identify a quality or characteristic of a thing or person and use that as the basis of its reference without creating any kind of comparison: Athena is grey-eyed; water is the bane of fire.

Kenning Examples

As mentioned earlier, kennings are prevalent in Old English and Norse poetry, and much less prevalent anywhere else. The examples below are all from different Old English poems.

Kennings in «Beowulf»

Kennings are used prolifically throughout Beowulf, one of the oldest surviving works of literature in Old English. In this passage, the compound phrase «battle-sweat» is used as a kenning for blood.

…bright blade, when the blood gushed o’er it,
battle-sweat hot; but the hilt I brought back
from my foes.

And here, «sea-cloth» is used to refer to a sail.

A sea-cloth was set, a sail with ropes,
firm to the mast; the flood-timbers moaned;

Kennings in «The Seafarer»

Another Old English poem, «The Seafarer» makes use of kennings like «whale’s path» and «whale-road» to describe the sea.

And now my spirit twists
out of my breast,
my spirit
out in the waterways,
over the whale’s path
it soars widely
through all the corners of the world

Kennings in «The Phoenix»

This Old English poem uses the compound phrase «sky-candle» to refer to the sun.

The bright sky-candle shines from the south,
Bringing warmth and light to middle-earth…

Why Do Writers Use Kennings?

At the center of every kenning is a simile: the sea is like a road for whales; the sun is like a candle in the sky. So in many ways, people use kennings to breathe new life into the subjects of their poetry using words that are not synonyms for the thing being described, but that share certain essential characteristics with it. In this sense, kennings help to describe things poetically by using metaphorical or figurative language that can change the way readers see or think about the thing being described. Additionally, it’s important to note that kennings are not nearly as common in modern English literature as they were in Old English and Old Norse literature, when they were an essential part of what it meant to write poetry. The same kennings were often used repeatedly by different writers in Old English, so the use of kennings in writing was also simply a way of participating in the poetic style and convention of the time.

Other Helpful Kenning Resources

• The Wikipedia Page on Kenning: A somewhat technical explanation, including various helpful examples.
• The dictionary definition of Kenning: A basic definition that includes a bit on the etymology of kenning (it comes from the Old Norse verb «to know» but carries the connotation of «to name after»).
• A short video explaining kennings and their use in «Beowulf» in under three minutes.

Not to be confused with kerning.

A kenning (Icelandic: [cʰɛnːiŋk]) is a figure of speech in the type of circumlocution, a compound that employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun. Kennings are strongly associated with Old Norse-Icelandic and Old English poetry. They continued to be a feature of Icelandic poetry (including rímur) for centuries, together with the closely related heiti.

A kenning has two parts: a base-word (also known as a head-word) and a determinant. For example, the base-word of the kenning «íss rauðra randa» (‘icicle of red shields’ [SWORD], Einarr Skúlason: Øxarflokkr 9) is íss (‘ice, icicle’) and the determinant is rǫnd (‘rim, shield-rim, shield’). The thing, person, place or being to which the kenning refers is known as its referent (in this case a sword). Although kennings are sometimes hyphenated in English translation, Old Norse poetry did not require kennings to be in normal word order, nor do the parts of the kenning need to be side-by-side. The lack of grammatical cases in modern English makes this aspect of kennings difficult to translate.

Etymology[edit]

The corresponding modern verb to ken survives in Scots and English dialects and in general English through the derivative existing in the standard language in the set expression beyond one’s ken, «beyond the scope of one’s knowledge» and in the phonologically altered forms uncanny, «surreal» or «supernatural», and canny, «shrewd», «prudent». Modern Scots retains (with slight differences between dialects) tae ken «to know», kent «knew» or «known», Afrikaans ken «be acquainted with» and «to know» and kennis «knowledge». Old Norse kenna (Modern Icelandic kenna, Swedish känna, Danish kende, Norwegian kjenne or kjenna) is cognate with Old English cennan, Old Frisian kenna, kanna, Old Saxon (ant)kennian (Middle Dutch and Dutch kennen), Old High German (ir-, in-, pi-) chennan (Middle High German and German kennen), Gothic kannjan < Proto-Germanic *kannjanan, originally causative of *kunnanan «to know (how to)», whence Modern English can ‘to be able’. The word ultimately derives from *ǵneh₃, the same Proto-Indo-European root that yields Modern English know, Latin-derived terms such as cognition and ignorant, and Greek gnosis.^[1]

Structure[edit]

Old Norse kennings take the form of a genitive phrase (báru fákr «wave’s horse» = «ship» (Þorbjörn Hornklofi: Glymdrápa 3)) or a compound word (gjálfr-marr «sea-steed» = «ship» (Anon.: Hervararkviða 27)). The simplest kennings consist of a base-word (Icelandic stofnorð, German Grundwort) and a determinant (Icelandic kenniorð, German Bestimmung) which qualifies, or modifies, the meaning of the base-word. The determinant may be a noun used uninflected as the first element in a compound word, with the base-word constituting the second element of the compound word. Alternatively the determinant may be a noun in the genitive case placed before or after the base-word, either directly or separated from the base-word by intervening words.^[2]

Thus the base-words in these examples are fákr «horse» and marr «steed», the determinants báru «waves» and gjálfr «sea». The unstated noun which the kenning refers to is called its referent, in this case: skip «ship».

In Old Norse poetry, either component of a kenning (base-word, determinant or both) could consist of an ordinary noun or a heiti «poetic synonym». In the above examples, fákr and marr are distinctively poetic lexemes; the normal word for «horse» in Old Norse prose is hestr.

Complex kennings[edit]

The skalds also employed complex kennings in which the determinant, or sometimes the base-word, is itself made up of a further kenning: grennir gunn-más «feeder of war-gull» = «feeder of raven» = «warrior» (Þorbjörn Hornklofi: Glymdrápa 6); eyðendr arnar hungrs «destroyers of eagle’s hunger» = «feeders of eagle» = «warrior» (Þorbjörn Þakkaskáld: Erlingsdrápa 1) (referring to carrion birds scavenging after a battle). Where one kenning is embedded in another like this, the whole figure is said to be tvíkent «doubly determined, twice modified».^[3]

Frequently, where the determinant is itself a kenning, the base-word of the kenning that makes up the determinant is attached uninflected to the front of the base-word of the whole kenning to form a compound word: mög-fellandi mellu «son-slayer of giantess» = «slayer of sons of giantess» = «slayer of giants» = «the god Thor» (Steinunn Refsdóttir: Lausavísa 2).

If the figure comprises more than three elements, it is said to be rekit «extended».^[3] Kennings of up to seven elements are recorded in skaldic verse.^[4] Snorri himself characterises five-element kennings as an acceptable license but cautions against more extreme constructions: Níunda er þat at reka til hinnar fimtu kenningar, er ór ættum er ef lengra er rekit; en þótt þat finnisk í fornskálda verka, þá látum vér þat nú ónýtt. «The ninth [license] is extending a kenning to the fifth determinant, but it is out of proportion if it is extended further. Even if it can be found in the works of ancient poets, we no longer tolerate it.»^[5] The longest kenning found in skaldic poetry occurs in Hafgerðingadrápa by Þórðr Sjáreksson and reads nausta blakks hlé-mána gífrs drífu gim-slöngvir «fire-brandisher of blizzard of ogress of protection-moon of steed of boat-shed», which simply means «warrior».

Word order and comprehension[edit]

Word order in Old Norse was generally much freer than in Modern English because Old Norse and Old English are synthetic languages, where added prefixes and suffixes to the root word (the core noun, verb, adjective or adverb) carry grammatical meanings, whereas Middle English and Modern English use word order to carry grammatical information, as analytic languages. This freedom is exploited to the full in skaldic verse and taken to extremes far beyond what would be natural in prose. Other words can intervene between a base-word and its genitive determinant, and occasionally between the elements of a compound word (tmesis). Kennings, and even whole clauses, can be interwoven. Ambiguity is usually less than it would be if an English text were subjected to the same contortions, thanks to the more elaborate morphology of Old Norse.

Another factor aiding comprehension is that Old Norse kennings tend to be highly conventional. Most refer to the same small set of topics, and do so using a relatively small set of traditional metaphors. Thus a leader or important man will be characterised as generous, according to one common convention, and called an «enemy of gold», «attacker of treasure», «destroyer of arm-rings», etc. and a friend of his people. Nevertheless, there are many instances of ambiguity in the corpus, some of which may be intentional,^[6] and some evidence that, rather than merely accepting it from expediency, skalds favoured contorted word order for its own sake.^[7]

Semantics[edit]

Kennings could be developed into extended, and sometimes vivid, metaphors: tröddusk törgur fyr […] hjalta harðfótum «shields were trodden under the hard feet of the hilt (sword blades)» (Eyvindr Skáldaspillir: Hákonarmál 6); svarraði sárgymir á sverða nesi «wound-sea (=blood) sprayed on headland of swords (=shield)» (Eyvindr Skáldaspillir: Hákonarmál 7).^[8] Snorri calls such examples nýgervingar and exemplifies them in verse 6 of his Háttatal. The effect here seems to depend on an interplay of more or less naturalistic imagery and jarring artifice. But the skalds weren’t averse either to arbitrary, purely decorative, use of kennings: «That is, a ruler will be a distributor of gold even when he is fighting a battle and gold will be called the fire of the sea even when it is in the form of a man’s arm-ring on his arm. If the man wearing a gold ring is fighting a battle on land the mention of the sea will have no relevance to his situation at all and does not contribute to the picture of the battle being described» (Faulkes (1997), pp. 8–9).

Snorri draws the line at mixed metaphor, which he terms nykrat «made monstrous» (Snorri Sturluson: Háttatal 6), and his nephew called the practice löstr «a fault» (Óláfr hvítaskáld: Third Grammatical Treatise 80).^[9] In spite of this, it seems that «many poets did not object to and some must have preferred baroque juxtapositions of unlike kennings and neutral or incongruous verbs in their verses» (Foote & Wilson (1970), p. 332). E.g. heyr jarl Kvasis dreyra «listen, earl, to Kvasir’s blood (=poetry)» (Einarr skálaglamm: Vellekla 1).

Sometimes there is a kind of redundancy whereby the referent of the whole kenning, or a kenning for it, is embedded: barmi dólg-svölu «brother of hostility-swallow» = «brother of raven» = «raven» (Oddr breiðfirðingr: Illugadrápa 1); blik-meiðendr bauga láðs «gleam-harmers of the land of rings» = «harmers of gleam of arm» = «harmers of ring» = «leaders, nobles, men of social standing (conceived of as generously destroying gold, i.e. giving it away freely)» (Anon.: Líknarbraut 42).

While some Old Norse kennings are relatively transparent, many depend on a knowledge of specific myths or legends. Thus the sky might be called naturalistically él-ker «squall-vat» (Markús Skeggjason: Eiríksdrápa 3) or described in mythical terms as Ymis haus «Ymir’s skull» (Arnórr jarlaskáld: Magnúsdrápa 19), referring to the idea that the sky was made out of the skull of the primeval giant Ymir. Still others name mythical entities according to certain conventions without reference to a specific story: rimmu Yggr «Odin of battle» = «warrior» (Arnórr jarlaskáld: Magnúsdrápa 5).

Poets in medieval Iceland even treated Christian themes using the traditional repertoire of kennings complete with allusions to heathen myths and aristocratic epithets for saints: Þrúðr falda «goddess of headdresses» = «Saint Catherine» (Kálfr Hallsson: Kátrínardrápa 4).^[2]

Kennings of the type AB, where B routinely has the characteristic A and thus this AB is tautological, tend to mean «like B in that it has the characteristic A», e.g. «shield-Njörðr», tautological because the god Njörðr by nature has his own shield, means «like Njörðr in that he has a shield», i.e. «warrior». A modern English example is «painted Jezebel» as a disapproving expression for a woman too fond of using cosmetics.

Kennings may include proper names. A modern example of this is an ad hoc usage by a helicopter ambulance pilot: «the Heathrow of hang gliders» for the hills behind Hawes in Yorkshire in England, when he found the air over the emergency site crowded with hang-gliders.^[10]

Sometimes a name given to one well-known member of a species, is used to mean any member of that species. For example, Old Norse valr means «falcon», but Old Norse mythology mentions a horse named Valr, and thus in Old Norse poetry valr is sometimes used to mean «horse».

Ellipsis[edit]

A term may be omitted from a well-known kenning: val-teigs Hildr «hawk-ground’s valkyrie/goddess» (Haraldr Harðráði: Lausavísa 19). The full expression implied here is «goddess of gleam/fire/adornment of ground/land/seat/perch of hawk» = «goddess of gleam of arm» = «goddess of gold» = «lady» (characterised according to convention as wearing golden jewellery, the arm-kenning being a reference to falconry). The poet relies on listeners’ familiarity with such conventions to carry the meaning.^[11]

Definitions[edit]

Some scholars take the term kenning broadly to include any noun-substitute consisting of two or more elements, including merely descriptive epithets (such as Old Norse grand viðar «bane of wood» = «fire» (Snorri Sturluson: Skáldskaparmál 36)),^[12] while others would restrict it to metaphorical instances (such as Old Norse sól húsanna «sun of the houses» = «fire» (Snorri Sturluson: Skáldskaparmál 36)),^[13] specifically those where «[t]he base-word identifies the referent with something which it is not, except in a specially conceived relation which the poet imagines between it and the sense of the limiting element'» (Brodeur (1959) pp. 248–253). Some even exclude naturalistic metaphors such as Old English forstes bend «bond of frost» = «ice» or winter-ġewǣde «winter-raiment» = «snow»: «A metaphor is a kenning only if it contains an incongruity between the referent and the meaning of the base-word; in the kenning the limiting word is essential to the figure because without it the incongruity would make any identification impossible» (Brodeur (1959) pp. 248–253). Descriptive epithets are a common literary device in many parts of the world, whereas kennings in this restricted sense are a distinctive feature of Old Norse and, to a lesser extent, Old English poetry.^[14]

Snorri’s own usage, however, seems to fit the looser sense: «Snorri uses the term ‘kenning’ to refer to a structural device, whereby a person or object is indicated by a periphrastic description containing two or more terms (which can be a noun with one or more dependent genitives or a compound noun or a combination of these two structures)» (Faulkes (1998 a), p. xxxiv). The term is certainly applied to non-metaphorical phrases in Skáldskaparmál: En sú kenning er áðr var ritat, at kalla Krist konung manna, þá kenning má eiga hverr konungr. «And that kenning which was written before, calling Christ the king of men, any king can have that kenning.^[15] Likewise in Háttatal: Þat er kenning at kalla fleinbrak orrostu […] «It is a kenning to call battle ‘spear-crash’ […]».^[3]

Snorri’s expression kend heiti «qualified terms» appears to be synonymous with kenningar,^[16][17] although Brodeur applies this more specifically to those periphrastic epithets which don’t come under his strict definition of kenning.^[18]

Sverdlov approaches the question from a morphological standpoint. Noting that the modifying component in Germanic compound words can take the form of a genitive or a bare root, he points to behavioural similarities between genitive determinants and the modifying element in regular Old Norse compound words, such as the fact that neither can be modified by a free-standing (declined) adjective.^[19] According to this view, all kennings are formally compounds, notwithstanding widespread tmesis.

Old Norse kennings in context[edit]

In the following dróttkvætt stanza, the Norwegian skald Eyvindr skáldaspillir (d. ca 990) compares the greed of King Harald Greycloak (Old Norse: Haraldr) to the generosity of his predecessor, Haakon the Good (Hákon):

A literal translation reveals several kennings: «Ullr of the war-leek! We carried the seed of Fýrisvellir on our hawk-mountains during all of Haakon’s life; now the enemy of the people has hidden the flour of Fróði’s hapless slaves in the flesh of the mother of the enemy of the giantess.»

This could be paraphrased as «O warrior, we carried gold on our arms during all of King Haakon’s life; now the enemy of the people has hidden gold in the earth.» The kennings are:

Ullr … ímunlauks, «warrior», from Ullr, the name of a god, and ímun-laukr, «sword» (literally «war-leek»). By convention, the name of any god can be associated with another word to produce a kenning for a certain type of man; here «Ullr of the sword» means «warrior.» «War-leek» is a kenning for «sword» that likens the shape of the sword to that of a leek. The warrior referred to may be King Harald.

Hauka fjöllum, «arms», from hauka «hawk» and fjöll mountain. This is a reference to the sport of falconry, where a bird of prey is perched on the arm of the falconer. By convention, «hawk» combined with a term for a geographic feature forms a kenning for «arm.»

Fýrisvalla fræ, «gold», from «Fýrisvellir», the plains of the river Fýri, and fræ, «seed.» This is an allusion to a legend retold in Skáldskaparmál and Hrólfs saga kraka in which King Hrolf and his men scattered gold on the plains (vellir) of the river Fýri south of Gamla Uppsala to delay their pursuers.

Fróða fáglýjaðra þýja meldr, «flour of Fróði’s hapless slaves», is another kenning for «gold.» It alludes to the Grottasöngr legend.

Móður hold mellu dolgs, «flesh of the mother of the enemy of the giantess.» «earth.» Here the earth is personified as the goddess Jörð, mother of Thor, enemy of the jǫtnar.

Old English and other kennings[edit]

The practice of forming kennings has traditionally been seen as a common Germanic inheritance, but this has been disputed since, among the early Germanic languages, their use is largely restricted to Old Norse and Old English poetry.^[13][20] A possible early kenning for «gold» (walha-kurna «Roman/Gallic grain») is attested in the Proto-Norse runic inscription on the Tjurkö (I)-C bracteate.^[21][22] Kennings are virtually absent from the surviving corpus of continental West Germanic verse; the Old Saxon Heliand contains only one example: lîk-hamo «body-raiment» = «body» (Heliand 3453 b),^[23] a compound which, in any case, is normal in West Germanic and North Germanic prose (Old English līchama, Old High German lîchamo, lîchinamo, Dutch lichaam, Old Icelandic líkamr, líkami, Old Swedish līkhamber, Swedish lekamen, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål legeme, Norwegian Nynorsk lekam).

Old English kennings are all of the simple type, possessing just two elements. Examples for «sea»: seġl-rād «sail-road» (Beowulf 1429 b), swan-rād «swan-road» (Beowulf 200 a), bæð-weġ «bath-way» (Andreas 513 a), hron-rād «whale-road» (Beowulf 10), hwæl-weġ «whale-way» (The Seafarer 63 a). Most Old English examples take the form of compound words in which the first element is uninflected: «heofon-candel» «sky-candle» = «the sun» (Exodus 115 b). Kennings consisting of a genitive phrase occur too, but rarely: heofones ġim «heaven’s gem» = «the sun» (The Phoenix 183).

Old English poets often place a series of synonyms in apposition, and these may include kennings (loosely or strictly defined) as well as the literal referent: Hrōðgar maþelode, helm Scyldinga … «Hrothgar, helm (=protector, lord) of the Scyldings, said …» (Beowulf 456).

Although the word «kenning» is not often used for non-Germanic languages, a similar form can be found in Biblical poetry in its use of parallelism. Some examples include Genesis 49:11, in which «blood of grapes» is used as a kenning for «wine»,^[24] and Job 15:14, where «born of woman» is a parallel for «man».^[25][26]

Modern usage[edit]

Figures of speech similar to kennings occur in Modern English (both in literature and in regular speech), and are often found in combination with other poetic devices. For example, the Madness song «The Sun and the Rain» contains the line «standing up in the falling-down», where «the falling-down» refers to rain and is used in juxtaposition to «standing up». Some recent English writers have attempted to use approximations of kennings in their work. John Steinbeck used kenning-like figures of speech in his 1950 novella Burning Bright, which was adapted into a Broadway play that same year.^[27] According to Steinbeck biographer Jay Parini, «The experiment is well-intentioned, but it remains idiosyncratic to the point of absurdity. Steinbeck invented compound phrases (similar to the Old English use of kennings), such as ‘wife-loss’ and ‘friend-right’ and ‘laughter-starving,’ that simply seem eccentric.»^[28]

Kennings remain somewhat common in German (Drahtesel «wire-donkey» for bicycle, Feuerstuhl «fire-chair» for motorcycle, Stubentiger «parlour-tiger» for cat, and so on). Kennings are also found in Mandarin Chinese (火鸡 «fire-chicken» for turkey, 猫头鹰 «cat-headed eagle» for owl).

The poet Seamus Heaney regularly employed kennings in his work; for example, ‘bone-house’ for «skeleton».

See also[edit]

• Bahuvrihi
• Difrasismo
• Elegant variation
• Heiti
• List of kennings
• Makurakotoba
• Metalepsis
• Metonymy
• Synecdoche

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

• Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist (1952), The Meaning of Snorri’s Categories, United States: University of California Press
• Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist (1959), The Art of Beowulf, University of California Press
• Faulkes, Anthony (1997), «Poetic Inspiration in Old Norse and Old English Poetry.» Dorothea Coke Memorial Lecture in Northern Studies delivered at University College London 28 November 1997, Viking Society for Northern Research
• Faulkes, Anthony (1998 a), «Edda: Skáldskaparmál: 1, Introduction, Text and Notes.» Viking Society for Northern Research
• Faulkes, Anthony (1998 b), «Edda: Skáldskaparmál: 2, Glossary and Index of Names.» Viking Society for Northern Research
• Foote, Peter & Wilson, D, M. (1970), The Viking Achievement, Book Club Associates, London
• Gardner, Thomas (1969), «The Old English Kenning: A Characteristic Feature of Germanic Poetical Diction?», Modern Philology, 67 (2): 109–117, doi:10.1086/390147, ISSN 0026-8232, S2CID 162218658
• Heusler, Andreas (1941), Die altgermanische Dichtung. (2nd ed.), Potsdam, OCLC 560148330
• Hultin, Neil C. (1974), «Some Homonyms in the Old Norse Atlakvida», MLN, 89 (5): 862–866, doi:10.2307/2907091, JSTOR 2907091
• Krause, Wolfgang (1971), Die Sprache der urnordischen Runeninschriften, Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, Heidelberg
• Kuhn, Hans (1893), ‘The rímur-poet and his audience’, Saga-Book 23:6
• Looijenga, Jantina Helena (1997), «Runes around the North Sea and on the Continent AD150-700: Texts and Contexts.» University of Groningen dissertation.
• Looijenga, Tineke (2003), Texts & Contexts of the Oldest Runic Inscriptions (PDF), Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, ISBN 90-04-12396-2
• Meissner, Rudolf (1984), Die Kenningar der Skalden ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik, Leipzig: Olms, ISBN 3-487-07534-2, OCLC 1069966201
• Sverdlov, Ilya V, (2006), «Kenning Morphology: Towards a Formal Definition of the Skaldic Kenning, or Kennings and Adjectives.» 13th International Saga Conference: Durham and York

External links[edit]

• Skaldic Project – Index of Kennings
• Jörmungrund: Lexicon of Kennings – The Domain of Battle
• Septentrionalia: The Medieval North (Lexica poetica)

Definition of Kenning

A kenning, which is derived from Norse and Anglo-Saxon poetry, is a stylistic device defined as a two-word phrase that describes an object through metaphors. A Kenning poem is also defined a riddle that consists of a few lines of kennings, which describe someone or something in confusing detail. It is also described as a “compressed metaphor,” which means meanings illustrated in a few words. For example, a two-word phrase “whale-road” represents the sea.

Characteristics of Kenning

A literary piece may be considered as a kenning example if it possesses the following defining characteristics:

• It is used to describe an object in detail.
• The two parts of a compound word represent a relationship between subjects and objects, which creates associations in an abstract and concise way.
• It is also called a compressed metaphor.

Examples of Kenning in Literature

Example #1: The Seafarer (By Ezra Pound)

“May I for my own self song’s truth reckon,
Journey’s jargon, how I in harsh days
Hardship endured oft.
Bitter breast-cares have I abided,
Known on my keel many a care’s hold,
And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent.

That he on dry land loveliest liveth,
List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea,
Deprived of my kinsmen;
Over the whale’s acre, would wander wide
Eager and ready, the crying lone-flyer,
Whets for the whale-path the heart irresistibly.”

The Seafarer is one of the best examples of kenning poems. Here, “whale-path,” “whale-road,” and “whale’s acre” refer to the ocean. “Breast-hoard” refers to the heart.

Example #2: Bone Dreams (By Seamus Heaney)

“… and its yellowing, ribbed
impression in the grass —
¬a small ship-burial.
As dead as stone,
flint-find, nugget
of chalk,
I touch it again,
I wind it in

the sling of mind
to pitch it at England
and follow its drop
to strange fields …
Bone-house:
a skeleton
in the tongue’s
old dungeons …”

This poem is also a very good example of kenning. Here, the words which are used as metaphors are “ship-burial,” “flint-find,” and “bone-house.” The two-word phrases give descriptions of objects in an alternative way. Though complex, kennings can make a poem more enjoyable.

Example #3: The Oven Bird (By Robert Frost)

“There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast…”

In the given example, Frost has also employed kenning. For instance, “mid-wood” refers to a bird. And the second obvious kenning is “petal-fall,” which represents autumn or the fall season.

Example #4: North (By Seamus Heaney)

“I returned to a long strand
Were ocean-deafened voices
warning me, lifted again
in violence and epiphany…

was buoyant with hindsight—
it said Thor’s hammer swung
to geography and trade,
thick-witted couplings and revenges,
the hatreds and behind-backs
of the althing, lies and women,
exhaustions nominated peace…

It said, ‘Lie down
in the word-hoard, burrow
the coil and gleam
of your furrowed brain…”

Here again, Heaney has utilized kenning. The two word phrases include: “ocean-deafened,” which refers to inaudible and warning voices, and other metaphors such as “thick-witted” and “word-hoard,” for erudition and books respectively.

Example #5: The Dream of the Rodd (By Caedmon and Cynewulf)

“Listen, I will tell the best of visions,
what came to me in the middle of the night,
when Voice-bearers dwelled in rest.
It seemed to me that I saw a more wonderful tree…
That beacon was entirely … likewise there were five
upon the Cross-beam. All those fair through creation.
Wondrous was the victory-tree, and I stained with sins,
wounded with guilts…”

This is an example of kenning from an old Anglo-Saxon poem. Here, the phrases “voice-bearer,” “cross-beam,” and “victory-tree” serve as metaphors. These help in describing an object’s detail by employing compound words.

Function of Kenning

Kenning is used as a poetic device, and its function in poetry is to describe something in alternative ways, in order to provide a richer and different meaning. Kenning is related to dialects as well, wherein it works as a showcase example of regional or local dialect. Also, metaphorical usage of kenning makes the poetic language more vibrant, and increases thought-provoking vocabulary. Hence, it tends to keep readers engaged.

Since I wrote my first blog post about Old English I’ve been meaning to do some more studying, so I can continue sharing facts about this interesting language.

Finally last week I skimmed Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf to make a list of Old English kennings.

Kennings are metaphoric terms used in place of nouns. They are common in Old Norse, Icelandic, and Old English (Anglo-Saxon) poetry, and usually use either a hyphen (e.g. “ring-giver” as a term for king) or a possessive (e.g. “swan’s road” as a term for sea).

In Beowulf you find many kennings for king, including:

• Ring-giver
• Treasure-giver
• Gold-giver
• Homeland’s guardian
• Guardian of the ring-hoard
• Gold-friend to retainers
• Shepherd of people

The first monster that Beowulf slays is named Grendel, who is referred to as:

• Hall-watcher
• Corpse-maker
• Shadow-stalker
• Hell-brute

Next Beowulf has to face Grendel’s mother, a creature called:

• Hell-bride
• Hell-dam
• Tarn-hag
• Swamp-thing from hell
• Terror-monger

Later in the epic poem Beowulf fights a dragon, who is known by many colourful kennings:

• Harrower of the dark
• Scourge of the people
• Guardian of the hoard
• Hoard-guardian
• Hoard-guard
• Sky-winger
• Sky-plague
• Sky-roamer
• Poison- breather
• Barrow-dweller
• Treasure-minder

Throughout the poem, many other kennings are used.

• Armour is called battle-dresses or battle-outfits.
• Deserters are called battle-dodgers and tail-turners.
• People are called earth-dwellers and children of men.
• The ribcage is called either breast-cage or bone-cage.
• The sea is referred to as whale-road and swan’s road.

I’ll end with some miscellaneous kennings that I came across:

• Battle-seat = saddle
• Battle-torch = sword
• Bone-house = body
• Bone-lappings = joints/ligaments
• Carrier of tales = singer
• Earth-gallery = (dragon’s) den
• Heather-stepper = deer
• Heaven’s candle = sun
• Peace-pledge between nations = queen
• Ruler of mankind = God
• Sea-shawl = sail
• Shield-clash = battle
• Treasure-seat = throne
• War-board = shield
• Water-ropes = icicles
• Word-hoard = vocabulary

I’m sure there are many kennings that I missed.
Do you have any to add to my list?

A kenning is a figurative expression, usually compound in form, that is used in place of a name or noun, especially in Old English.

Kennings as Metaphors

The kenning has been described as a kind of compressed metaphor with the referent suppressed. Commonly used kennings in Old English and Norse poetry include whale-road (for sea), sea-horse (for ship), and iron-shower (for the rain of spears or arrows during a battle).

Kennings in Poetry

«Old English poetry used a special poetic vocabulary … . [The word] ban-cofa (n) had a special meaning: its two elements were ‘bone-den,’ but it meant ‘body.’ Such an expression is a paraphrase, a reference to a thing by concentration on one of its attributes. A person could be called a reord-berend (speech-bearer) because speech is uniquely human. This device of paraphrase was frequent in Old English poetry, and it goes now by the name (borrowed from Old Norse) of ‘kenning.’» (W.F. Bolton, A Living Language: The History and Structure of English. Random House, 1982)

«The poets loved kennings because they were opportunities to vary their descriptions when they told long stories of heroes and battles. … So, what could a ship be? A wave floater, sea goer, sea-house or sea steed. And the sea? A seal bath, fish home, swan road or whale way. Anything could be described using a kenning. A woman is a peace-weaver, a traveller is an earth-walker, a sword is a wolf of wounds, the sun is a sky candle, the sky is the curtain of the gods, blood is battle sweat or battle icicle. There are hundreds more.» (David Crystal, The Story of English in 100 Words. St. Martin’s Press, 2012)

Circumlocutions

«The poets of medieval Scandinavia developed a system of naming by circumlocution, or ‘kennings,’ which they could expand to a dizzying degree of complexity. They might call the sea ‘earth of the fish.’ Next, they could replace the word ‘fish’ by the expression ‘snake of the fjord.’ Then, they might substitute for ‘fjord’ the phrase ‘bench of the ship.’ The result was a strange, prolix thing: ‘earth of the snake of the bench of the ship’ — which, of course, simply meant ‘sea.’ But only those familiar with the conceits of poetry would know it.» (Daniel Heller-Roazen, «Learn to Talk in Beggars’ Cant.» The New York Times, August 18, 2013)

Contemporary Kennings

«We clearly see kenning variation, for instance, in the seventh of the sequence ‘Glanmore Sonnets’ in [Seamus] Heaney’s next volume, Field Work [1979], when names of the BBC Radio 4 shipping forecast (itself possessing the sonority of a formulaic catalogue from early heroic poetry) prompt the poet to expand on the metaphor in the Old English kenning for the sea hronrad (‘whale-road,’ Beowulf, l. 10):

Sirens of the tundra,
Of eel-road, seal-road, keel-road, whale-road, raise
Their wind-compounded keen behind the baize
And drive the trawlers to the lee of Wicklow.

… Heaney performs variation not just on the concept signified, but on the signifier itself, echoing the hypnotic chant of the shipping forecast.» (Chris Jones, Strange Likeness: The Use of Old English in Twentieth-Century Poetry. Oxford University Press, 2006)