Kenning
A kenning (Icelandic: [cʰɛnːiŋk]) is a figure of speech, a figuratively-phrased compound term that is used in place of a simple single-word noun.
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] 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.
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".
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).
"[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'.
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.
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.
[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).
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.
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).
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.
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).
[11] 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).
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.
[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 do not come under his strict definition of kenning.
990) compares the greed of King Harald Greycloak (Old Norse: Haraldr) to the generosity of his predecessor, Haakon the Good (Hákon): Bárum, Ullr, of alla, ímunlauks, á hauka fjöllum Fýrisvalla fræ Hákonar ævi;
nú hefr fólkstríðir Fróða fáglýjaðra þýja meldr í móður holdi mellu dolgs of folginn —Eyvindr skáldaspillir, Lausavísa A literal translation reveals several kennings: "Ullr of the war-leek!
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.
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 ... '{{{1}}}' (Beowulf 456).
John Steinbeck used kenning-like figures of speech in his 1950 novella Burning Bright, which was adapted into a Broadway play that same year.
