For the last two weeks over on X, the VSS community had the pleasure of having host, Cassondra Windwalker, whose latest gothic horror novel I featured here a few months ago. For her fifteen days as word prompter, she gave us kennings to make our 280 character very short stories with (March 1-15) and it was fun.
I admit, I had to go look the word up:
According to Etymology online, a kenning is a "periphrastic expression in early Germanic poetry", 1871, a modern learned word from Old Norse kenning in a special sense "poetical periphrasis or descriptive name" (it also meant "teaching, doctrine; preaching; mark of recognition"), from kenna "to know, to recognize, to feel or perceive; to call, to name (in a formal poetic metaphor)," from PIE root *gno- "to know." It goes on to quote Henry Sweet’s "Sketches of the History of Anglo-Saxon Poetry," London, 1871.
In the whole poem of Beowulf there are scarcely half a dozen of them [similes], and these of the simplest character, such as comparing a ship to a bird. Indeed, such a simple comparison as this is almost equivalent to the more usual "kenning" (as it is called in Icelandic), such as "brimfugol” (puffin), where, instead of comparing the ship to a bird, the poet simply calls it a sea-bird, preferring the direct assertion to the indirect comparison.
The allusions are rich, and refer to a variety of things: ice-floes in an Icelandic fjord, the roughness of the open sea, and then the rough water around the skerries or rock reefs, sailing vessels and most of all, war.
Below you have a little sampling of kennings, and many more can be found in the Skaldic Project.
Blood is 'battle-sweat'. An arrow is a 'wound-starling'. Death is 'sword-sleep'. A warrior is a 'feeder of ravens'. (Carrion crows) 'Whale-road' or 'Swan-road' refers to the sea, and 'sky-candle' to the sun. Fire is 'bane of wood'. Honor is 'mind's-worth'. A ship is a 'sea-steed'.
I have never read the Icelandic Rímur, nor any other Norse literature, but kennings are not something strictly of the past. For example, I saw some lovely ones in a recent series written by Steven Knight. See (2020-2022), set on earth in the 24th century, where humankind is blind and living in a paleolithic society because of a 21st century virus. Very clever of Mr. Knight to enrich his world-building with kennings. Among his expressions are things like the ‘God Flame’ (sun), and ‘God Bone’, (metal).
Other languages have their own. For example, in Spanish, the verb for ‘Give birth’ is parir, but the expression used more commonly for humans is Dar a luz, literally, to give to the light.
Modern day English, along with its synecdoche1 and metonymy2, also has kennings, if you consider expressions like: ankle-biter (child), fender-bender, pencil-pusher, rug-rat or coffin nails. You probably can think of a fair number yourself.
The fifteen days of kennings are over, but the idea of them is fresh in my mind.
I’ll leave a selection of my vss here. Thanks for reading.
VSS
Tuesday March 5, 2024 #feeder_of_ravens (a warrior) Grief is the only food of the feeder of ravens, whose hand closes unseeing eyes, whose voice is heard, to the plangent dirige bound, on the hills where carrion flowers bloom once the cries of battle fall silent, where both crown and torque are lost in the mud. Wednesday March 6, 2024 #Swans_road (the sea) A vermilion sun peers over the bone ship rocking in the summer heat. The bass blow bubbles in the foamy Swans road, and the leviathan whales and serpents frolick. I have swooned with the hours—Return with us to Edira! She shakes her head, and slips back into the sea. Saturday March 9, 2024 #battle_sweat (blood) How the eons of battle sweat leave us bloodless. There is a calmness in the stone. The ones who laid down their claims are gone. We have cast from the melted iron of their blades our crowns. Yet we have not the strength to fight again; soon another will take our place. Monday March 11, 2024 #anvil_of_joy (the heart) Who strikes the anvil of joy, hears the strength of its rhythm, keeping time in the hour of the rat or the tiger. At its swiftest, time slows to a crawl. You are there—how I can't fathom, and the stars tell us to follow their celestial song. I listen with my hammers. Thursday March 14, 2024 #corpse_fjord (grave) I see them best in half-light, dancing before the corpse fjord, to the music of their own murmuring hearts. They cry: we have no regrets, no fear of the grim scythe! Their bodies, husks that slip away, are born to a life called eternal, to which they say, Merely new.
Wheels (a car) or hands (crew; workers)
The substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, for example suit (business executive), or turf (gang’s territory).
Wow!