The Old English kenning: a characteristic feature of Old Germanic poetical
diction?
How Griceian can an Old English bard be?
Ingvæoniana
Bread, butter, and green cheese,
very good English, very good Friese.
When I was in Friesland, my topic was however Mata Hari, who does not
really have an English correlate, does she?!
In a message dated 11/25/2015 7:08:50 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes: "I went through an Old English phase
years
ago, nothing as detailed as Borges' however -- lost interest. Didn't find it
very good esthetically."
I think Borges treasured the kenningar!
(The charm of the kenning is 'semantic' and 'pragmatic' (alla Grice) -- but
as Borges notes in "This craft of verse", the main charm of Old English
poetry is the 'magic' of the sounds -- his example, the onomatopoetic,
"thunder!", sic with exclamative -- and the head-rhyme, rather than the
'feminine' Italian-invented end-rhyme!
The Ingaevones or, as Pliny has it, apparently more accurately, Ingvaeones
("people of Yngvi"), as described in Tacitus's Germania, written c. 98 CE,
were a West Germanic cultural group living along the North Sea coast in the
areas of Jutland, Holstein, Frisia and the Danish islands, where they had
by the 1st century BCE become further differentiated to a foreigner's eye
into the Frisii, Saxons, Jutes and Angles.
A kenning is a type of circumlocution, in the form of a compound that
employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun.
Kennings are strongly associated with Anglo-Saxon poetry.
They usually consist of two words, and are often hyphenated.
The word "kenning" was adopted into English in the nineteenth century from
medieval Germanic treatises on poetics, and is cognate with English 'can',
to “know, recognise; perceive, feel; show; teach; etc.”, as used in the
expression kenna við “to name after; to express [one thing] in terms of
[another]”, “name after; refer to in terms of”,[3] and kenna til “qualify by,
make into a kenning by adding”.
I.e. anything but to call a spade a spade. Talk of the Spaniards's
exclamations and interjections versus the rather directness of the Argentines!
The corresponding modern verb to ken survives only in highly remote English
dialects, other than 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".
Old English had "cennan".
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”.
The simplest kennings consist of a base-word (stofnorð, Grundwort) and a
determinant (kenniorð, 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.
Thus the base-words in these examples are fákr "horse" and marr “steed”,
the determinants báru “wave’s” and gjálfr “sea”.
The unstated -- or as Grice would have it, IMPLICATED -- noun which the
kenning refers to is called its referent, in this case: skip “ship”.
In 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 prose is hestr.
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 carnivorous 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”.
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”.
Kennings of up to seven elements are recorded in skaldic verse.
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.”
The longest kenning found in skaldic poetry occurs in Hafgerðingadrápa by
Þórður 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 in Old English was generally freer than in Modern English.
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 (cfr. Grice, "Avoid 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 English.
Another factor aiding comprehension is that Old English 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,[8] and some evidence that, rather than merely
accepting it from expediency, skalds favoured contorted word order for its own
sake.
Some scholars take the term kenning broadly to include any noun-substitute
consisting of two or more elements, including merely descriptive epithets
(such as grand viðar “bane of wood” = “fire” (Snorri Sturluson:
Skáldskaparmál 36)),[10] while others would restrict it to metaphorical
instances
(such as sól húsanna “sun of the houses” = “fire” (Snorri Sturluson:
Skáldskaparmál 36)), 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).
O. T. O. H., Grice's example of a metaphor is "You're the cream in my
coffee": implicature: "You're my pride and joy".
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 English poetry.
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. Likewise in
Háttatal: Þat er kenning at kalla fleinbrak orrostu [...] “It is a kenning to
call
battle ‘spear-crash’ [...]”.
Snorri’s expression kend heiti "qualified terms" appears to be synonymous
with kenningar,[15][16] although Brodeur applies this more specifically to
those periphrastic epithets which don’t come under his strict definition of
kenning.
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.[18] According to this view, all kennings are formally
compounds, notwithstanding widespread tmesis.
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).
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).
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 (but cfr. "Be as informative as is
required, no more, no less") 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 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 times 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).
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.
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". 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 on Yorkshire in England, when he found the
air over the emergency site crowded with hang-gliders.
A term may be omitted (via ellipsis) from a well-known kenning: val-teigs
Hildr “hawk-ground’s valkyrie/goddess” (Haraldr Harðráði: Lausavísa 19).
Cfr. truncated Cockney slang!
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.[22]
In the following dróttkvætt stanza, the Norwegian skald Eyvind Finnson
skáldaspillir (d. ca 990) compares the greed of king Harald Gråfell to the
generosity of his predecessor Haakon the Good:
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 8).
"Ullr of war-leek! We carried the seed of Fýrisvellir on the mountains of
hawks during all of Hakon'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 might be paraphrased: "O warrior, we carried gold on our arms during
all of Hakon's life; now the enemy of the people has hidden gold in the
earth."
ímun-laukr "war-leek" = "sword".
Ullr is the name of a god, Ullr. Ullr [...] ímunlauks "god of sword" =
"warrior", perhaps addressing King Harald. This kenning follows a convention
whereby the name of any god is combined with some male attribute (e.g. war or
weaponry) to produce a kenning for "man".
HAUKA FJÖLL "mountains of hawks" are "arms", a reference to the sport of
falconry. This follows a convention in which arms are called the land (or any
sort of surface) of the hawk.
Fýrisvalla fræ "seed of Fýrisvellir" = "gold". This is an allusion to a
legend retold in Skáldskaparmál and Hrólf Kraki's saga 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" alludes to
the Grottasöng legend and is another kenning for "gold".
móður hold mellu dolgs "flesh of mother of enemy of giantess" is the Earth
(Jörd), personified as a goddess who was the mother of Thor, the enemy of
the Jotuns.
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 English poetry.
A possible early kenning for "gold" (walha-kurna "Roman/Gallic grain") is
attested in the Ancient Nordic runic inscription on the Tjurkö (I)-C
bracteate.
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), 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, e.g. 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 ġ
im “sky’s jewel” = “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).
John Steinbeck used an approximation of kennings in his 1950 novella
Burning Bright, which was adapted into a Broadway play that same year.
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."
But then everybody loves a Broadway tune (that's a hyperbole).
Kennings remain somewhat common in German (Drahtesel "wire-donkey" for
bike, Feuerstuhl "fire-chair" for motorcycle, and so on).
Cheers,
Speranza
References
Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist (1959). The Art of Beowulf. University of
California Press.
Faulkes, Anthony (1997). "Poetic Inspiration in Old English Poetry."
Dorothea Coke Memorial Lecture in Northern Studies delivered at University
College London 28 November 1997. Viking Society for Northern Research.
Gardner, Thomas (1969). ‘The Old English kenning: A characteristic feature
of Germanic poetical diction?’ Modern Philology 67:2, pp. 109–117.
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. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV. ISBN 90-04-12396-2.
Kennings and Adjectives.” 13th International Saga Conference: Durham and
York.
