concept
Kennings
kenningar
The compressed poetic riddles of skaldic verse, such as 'Ymir's skull' for the sky or 'Kvasir's blood' for poetry, which only make sense if you know the myths; Snorri wrote Skáldskaparmál to explain them.
A kenning is a way of naming something without saying its name. The sea becomes "Ymir's blood", gold becomes "Sif's hair", a ship becomes "the steed of the billow", poetry becomes "Kvasir's gore". Kennings were the basic tool of Old Norse court poetry, the verse of the skalds, and they are the reason the myths survived in the form they did. A poet could not call gold "Otter's ransom" unless his audience knew the story of Otr. When Snorri Sturluson wrote his Edda around 1220, he wrote the second part, Skáldskaparmál ("the language of poetry"), mainly to explain kennings to young poets. Many myths we know only from Snorri are there as the explanations of a poetic phrase.
Snorri's three kinds of name
Skáldskaparmál opens with Bragi, god of poetry, telling the sea-giant Ægir stories at a feast. When Ægir asks how poetry is made, Bragi answers that it has two elements, "Metaphor and metre", and that "Three are the types of skaldic metaphor" Skáldskaparmál 1. The first is calling everything by its own name. The second is "substitution". The third is "periphrasis", the kenning. Snorri explains it with Odin:
just as when we speak of Victory-Týr, or Týr of the Hanged, or Týr of Cargoes: that then becomes Odin's name: and we call these periphrastic names.Skáldskaparmál 1
The name of one god (Týr), joined with something that belongs to another (victory, the hanged, cargoes), points to that other god, Odin. That is the basic recipe of a kenning: a base word that names the wrong thing, and a determinant that tells you which thing is really meant. A ship is a horse, but a horse "of the billow" Skáldskaparmál 50. The sky is a skull, but "Skull of Ymir" Skáldskaparmál 23, because in the creation myth the gods made the heavens from Ymir's skull Gylfaginning 8.
Heiti are different. A heiti is a single poetic word used instead of the everyday one, the way an English poet might write "steed" for horse or "main" for sea. Snorri gives long lists of them later in Skáldskaparmál, starting with "How are the uninvolved terms of poesy made? By calling each thing by its proper name" Skáldskaparmál 53. The sea, for example, "is called Ocean, Main, Wintry, Lee, Deep" Skáldskaparmál 60. A kenning is a phrase that has to be worked out. A heiti is a word that has to be known. In "the Sea-Peak's Sleipnir" Skáldskaparmál 25, the name of Odin's horse Sleipnir serves as a heiti for "horse", and the sea-word turns the horse into a ship.
Kennings built on myth
Many kennings only make sense as compressed stories, and Snorri tells the story behind each. Poetry is "Kvasir's Blood or Dwarves' Drink … or Suttungr's Mead", because of the mead brewed from Kvasir's blood Skáldskaparmál 1. Poets used these freely. Einarr Tinkling-Scale asks an earl to "Hear … the Gore of Kvasir" Skáldskaparmál 3, and Egill Skallagrímsson says he "bore" "Odin's Mead … To English shore" Skáldskaparmál 3. Gold has a whole set:
How should gold be periphrased? Thus: by calling it Ægir's Fire, and Needles of Glasir, Hair of Sif, Snood of Fulla, Freyja's Tears, Talk and Voice and Word of Giants, Draupnir's Drop and Rain or Shower of Draupnir, or of Freyja's Eyes, Otter's Ransom, Forced Payment of the Æsir,Skáldskaparmál 32
Snorri then explains why gold is Sif's hair (Loki cut it off, and dwarves made her new hair of gold) Skáldskaparmál 35, why it is Freyja's tears Skáldskaparmál 37, and why it is Otter's ransom Skáldskaparmál 39.
The same habit appears in the Eddic poems, more sparingly. Waves are "Ægir's daughters" in Helgakviða Hundingsbana I Helgakviða Hundingsbana I 30, matching Snorri's sea-kenning "Father of Ægir's Daughters" Skáldskaparmál 25. Snorri says a man may be called by tree-names, "Ash or Maple, Grove", because words for warrior and tree sounded alike Skáldskaparmál 31. Sigrdrifa twice calls Sigurth a tree: "tree of battle" and "Thou tree of the biting blade" Sigrdrífumál 5 Sigrdrífumál 20. Woman, Snorri adds, may be called "by the names of the Ásynjur or the Valkyrs" or norns Skáldskaparmál 31. So a skald could call a lady "the Mead's bright Valkyr" Skáldskaparmál 46, a woman who serves drink, named with a valkyrie word.
Riddles within riddles
Kennings could be stacked. Snorri lists battle as the "Storm … of Odin" Skáldskaparmál 47 and weapons as "Fire … of Hjadnings", the warriors of an endless battle Skáldskaparmál 49. Combine such pieces and a sword becomes "the fire of Odin's storm", and a warrior "the tree of the fire of Odin's storm". This example is built from Snorri's lists, but skaldic poets did make chains like it. Snorri also gives a playful example of the whole art in one exchange: a troll-woman hails the poet Bragi the Old with a string of kennings for herself, and he answers with kennings for "skald", among them "Yggr's Ale-Bearer" (Yggr being Odin, and the ale being the mead of poetry) Skáldskaparmál 53.
Snorri wrote as a Christian, and he was careful to say so. Young poets should keep the old kennings, he says, but "Christian men" ought not "to believe in heathen gods, nor in the truth of these tales" Skáldskaparmál 1. In practice his textbook preserved the gods for the next eight centuries.
In the sources
Quoted from the hosted translations; each line is checked against the text when the site is built. Select a reference to read it in context.
Three are the types of skaldic metaphor.
just as when we speak of Victory-Týr, or Týr of the Hanged, or Týr of Cargoes: that then becomes Odin's name: and we call these periphrastic names.
How should the heaven be periphrased? Thus: call it Skull of Ymir, and hence, Giant's Skull;
How should gold be periphrased? Thus: by calling it Ægir's Fire, and Needles of Glasir, Hair of Sif, Snood of Fulla, Freyja's Tears,
Here the ship is called Steed of the Gunwale; and the sea is Gylfi's Land; the sea is also called Gull's Wake.
How are the uninvolved terms of poesy made? By calling each thing by its proper name.
Where the sources disagree or fall silent
- Whether every kenning Snorri explains with a myth really goes back to that myth, or whether he sometimes invented or adapted a story to account for a phrase.
In modern culture
Not from the medieval sources.
Kennings were kept alive in Icelandic rímur poetry for centuries after the saga age. English readers usually meet them through Old English poetry, where Beowulf calls the sea the 'whale-road'. Modern poets and fantasy writers still coin kenning-like compounds.
