Poetic Diction

Edith Marold

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Vol. III. Poetry from Treatises on Poetics 7. Introduction 7. Poetic Diction

7. Poetic Diction

Edith Marold 2017, ‘Poetic Diction’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols [check printed volume for citation].

Skaldic style is characterised by the variation of words by means of poetic synonyms, called heiti ‘name(s)’, or with different kinds of periphrastic expressions comprising two or more parts which are called kennings (kenningar). Because this section is an introduction to the poetry edited in SkP III, all examples are drawn from the present volume. For a more comprehensive discussion of poetic figures, see the General Introduction in SkP I, Section 5.2.

Heiti

In modern use heiti denotes a poetic expression that is a simplex or single word, hence a poetic synonym. However, the term is taken from Skáldskaparmál (Skm), where Snorri Sturluson uses it for both simplices and periphrases; it seems that he applied this word as a generic term for all poetic expressions (for an overview of the discussion of this term see the General Introduction in SkP I, Section 5.2). People had already begun collecting heiti in the early Middle Ages. These oral collections were passed down in the form of mnemonic stanzas, usually in fornyrðislag metre, containing lists of poetic synonyms. These are called þulur (sg. þula) and are edited in this volume (for a detailed discussion of the þulur see Introduction to Anon Þulur). Snorri himself also collected heiti in the second part of Skm (SnE 1998, I, 83-133) and there are heiti for roughly the same sets of terms for which there are also kennings, e.g. for ‘man’, ‘woman’, ‘ruler’, ‘earth’, ‘ocean’, ‘fire’, for serpents and species of wild and domestic animals, and for celestial bodies.

Heiti are partly appellatives, partly nomina propria ‘proper nouns’; sometimes mythological or legendary names are used as appellatives, e.g. Fenrir for ‘wolf’ or Sleipnir for ‘horse’. In terms of morphology, the appellatives can be nouns derived from adjectives, e.g. Víðbláinn ‘wide-blue one’ for ‘sky’ (Þul Himins I l. 10), or past participles such as mjǫklituðr ‘much-coloured’ for ‘dwarf’ (Þul Dverga 1/2). They can be compounds such as eyþvari ‘island-borer’ (lit. ‘island-drill’) for ‘ox’ (Þul Øxna 1/6) and Dragvandill ‘draw-wand’ for ‘sword’ (Þul Sverða 1/4). Nomina agentis form the largest group among the derivations, e.g. gallópnir ‘shrill-crier’ for ‘eagle’ and ljósfari ‘light-bringer’ or ‘light-traveller’ for ‘sun’ (Þul Sólar l. 6; for ‘sky’ in SnE 1998, I, 85). Several attempts have been made to arrive at a system for subdividing heiti into groups. These sub-groups are mostly based on the presumed origin of the heiti and include the following categories: loan words, e.g. lung ‘ship’ (Bragi Frag 4/2) and díar (KormǪ Sigdr 3), both possibly from Old Irish; old poetic words such as heiðþornir ‘bright-clouded’ (SnE 1998, II, 304); personal names and names of gods used as appellatives, such as Jǫrð or Hlǫðyn or Fjǫrgyn for ‘earth’; nouns derived from adjectives; and original metaphors such as fagrahvél ‘fair-wheel’ (Þul Sólar l. 2).

There are few studies on the function of heiti. In general these poetic simplices are used for variation, partly as appositions or substitutions, and they clearly also helped the poets fulfill metrical requirements. It is difficult to determine how and to what extent heiti can contribute to content, e.g. by emphasising certain themes. This depends on how linguistically transparent such constructions would have been.

Kennings

It is generally agreed that a kenning is a circumlocution which has multiple parts, minimally two. After much discussion, most scholars have accepted Meissner’s (1921) definition of this term: a kenning replaces a noun of ordinary discourse, consists of at least two parts and follows typical periphrastic patterns, on the basis of which the actual kennings are formed by variation. The two constituents of a kenning are traditionally referred to as base-word and determinant. The two elements may form a genitival construction, such as dǫgg hræva ‘dew of corpses’ for ‘blood’ (Bragi Rdr 4/3), or a compound, such as gljúfrskeljungr ‘gully-whale’ for ‘giant’ (Ggnæv Þórr 1/4); the two structures are absolutely equivalent in skaldic style. The choice may in some cases be determined by metre. Essential to the nature and poetic effect of the kenning is its substitutive character. It replaces a common word or proper noun in a sentence; for this reason, constructions that use a kenning as a predicative (i.e. in a construction with vera ‘be’) violate this substitutive character. The same is true of kennings that appear in apposition to another word.

Meissner’s (1921) corpus (Meissner) shows that there is a group of about one hundred terms or concepts (referents) for which kenning patterns exist. Referents from the military sphere, such as warriors, weapons, wounds, corpses and ships, are particularly common, but so too are gold, earth, sea, sun, moon, animals, humans (men or women) and body parts. In addition to these generic concepts, human beings and gods are also circumscribed either as individuals (e.g. Hákon jarl and the god Þórr) or as belonging to a type (warrior, ruler, giant, etc.).

One can conceive of the kenning patterns as forming a kind of advice to poets about how to form a kenning, but the kenning system was also indispensable to the listener’s (and our) understanding of the poetry. Poets created kennings by varying these patterns. This variation can be described linguistically as paradigmatic substitution. For each element of a pattern there is a paradigm of available substitutes for the poet to select from. This paradigm of possible substitutes consists not only of synonyms, but also of words and kennings belonging to a logical taxonomical hierarchy. For example, in the kenning pattern ‘wave-horse’ for ‘ship’, any synonym for ‘horse’ (e.g. hestr, fákr, viggr, drasill) can stand in for the base-word ‘horse’, as can every other four-legged animal such as ‘elk’, ‘buck’ or indeed even ‘bear’ or ‘boar’. The same is true for the determinant ‘wave’ in this pattern which can be replaced by any term for ‘water’, such as ‘sea’, ‘river’ and ‘surf’. Further complexity is possible, since the determinant (and very rarely the base-word) can be replaced by a kenning, thus producing an extended kenning, e.g. máni reiðar Ræs ‘the moon of the chariot of Rær <sea-king> [SHIP > SHIELD]’ (Bragi Rdr 7/3). The kenning pattern here is ‘heavenly body of the ship’; the base-word ‘heavenly body’ is expressed by ‘moon’, the determinant ‘ship’ is expressed by the kenning ‘chariot of Rær’. Snorri refers to such constructions as tvíkent ‘doubly paraphrased’ or ‘doubly modified’, and this term is also used in modern scholarship. This technique of replacing the determinant of a kenning by another kenning can be taken further, producing complex kennings that Snorri calls rekit, literally ‘driven’. The following kenning from Úlfr Uggason’s Húsdrápa (ÚlfrU Húsdr) will serve as an example of this: reynir folka leggs fróns ‘the tester of the peoples of the bone of the earth [ROCK > GIANTS > = Þórr]’ (ÚlfrU Húsdr 4/3-4). The pattern used here is ‘fighter of giants’; the determinant ‘giants’ is replaced by ‘peoples of the bone of the earth’, which is again based on the pattern ‘people of the mountains’, and the concept ‘mountains’ is expressed by the kenning ‘bone of the earth’ for ‘rock’, which can also stand for ‘mountains’.

In rare instances, however, a kenning’s base-word can also be replaced by a kenning. Two very common kenning patterns exemplify such cases: a warrior can be referred to as a ‘feeder of the wolves’ or ‘feeder of birds of prey’; the base-word ‘feeder’ can appear either as a simplex, e.g. fœðir gunnstara ‘feeder of battle-starlings [RAVENS > WARRIOR]’ (SnSt Ht 92/6), or be circumscribed with a kenning ‘destroyer of hunger’, such as hungreyðendr gagls Hanga ‘hunger-assuagers of the gosling of Hangi <= Óðinn> [RAVEN > WARRIORS]’ (Hfr Hák 3/2-3). A further example of this device is the substitution of ‘lover, husband’ with ‘cargo of the arms’ in the kenning farmr arma Sigvinjar ‘cargo of the arms of Sigyn’ for Loki (Þjóð Haustl 7/1-2).

In the present edition, the following principles apply to the layout of kennings. For a two-part kenning, the referent is given inside square brackets, in upper case if the referent is an appellative, in lower case with an equals sign if the kenning refers to an identifiable human or mythical person; hence e.g. garðr Geitis ‘the fence of Geitir <sea-king> [SHIELD]’ (Þjóð Haustl 20/5-6) and njótr hafra ‘the user of goats [= Þórr]’ (ÚlfrU Húsdr 5/3). For three-part (tvíkent) kennings, an arrow ‘>’ points to the next referent, e.g. hermðarspjǫll heinvandils ‘the anger-words of the whetstone-Vandill [SWORD > BATTLE]’ (Refr Þorst 3/3-4). Here, ‘whetstone-Vandill’ is ‘sword’ and ‘anger-words of the sword’ is ‘battle’ (the noise of weapons compared to the speech of men). Sometimes the base-word of the determinant-kenning forms a compound with the base-word of the whole kenning (inverted kenning). In this case the following notation is used: hauka strætis hyrbrjótr ‘the breaker of the fire of the hawks’ street [(lit. ‘hawks’ street’s fire-breaker’) ARM > GOLD > GENEROUS MAN]’ (RvHbreiðm Hl 81/3). ‘Hawks’ street’ is ‘arm’ (where falcons used for falconry perch) and ‘fire of the arm’ is ‘gold’ or ‘jewelry’. The one who breaks gold is a generous man who distributes gold to his warriors, whether the breaking literally involves chopping up gold rings or is more metaphorical.

The technique of substitution provides the skald with innumerable ways not only of finding the appropriate words to satisfy requirements of metre and rhyme, but also of highlighting content through allusion. Numerous scholars have regarded the variation on kenning patterns as the skalds’ main poetic achievement (Meissner; Mohr 1933; Krijn 1927; Einar Ólafur Sveinsson 1947; Gutenbrunner 1963b).

Several attempts have been made to subdivide the kenning patterns into groups. In the General Introduction (SkP I, lxxvi-lxxx) the following classification was suggested: An initial division distinguishes appellative kennings (i.e. kennings which paraphrase appellatives, words for things etc.) from personal kennings. Appellative kennings as a group have predominantly metaphorical base-words, but there are also base-words one would describe as metonymic or synecdochic rather than metaphorical (for a further subdivision see the General Introduction in SkP I, lxxvi-lxxviii). Personal kennings circumscribe personages either according to type (e.g. warrior, ruler, or giant), or as individuals (e.g. Haraldr harðráði, Óðinn etc.); hence the two groups ‘typifying kennings’ and ‘antonomastic kennings’. Both groups can be broken down further according to the specific circumlocutory device employed (see the scheme in the General Introduction in SkP I, lxxix-lxxx). By means of such a classification one can distinguish between the four groups of personal kennings below in which persons can be circumscribed according to the following characteristics or attributes:

1) Their deeds and accomplishments: e.g. stillir lýða ‘controller of men [RULER]’ (Bragi Rdr 10/1); haussprengir Hrungnis ‘skull-splitter of Hrungnir <giant> [= Þórr]’ (Bragi Þórr 4/3); sœki-Nirðir láðs sverða ‘attack-Nirðir <gods> of the land of swords [SHIELD > WARRIORS]’ (Ásgr Lv 1/1, 3); bœti-Þrúðr dreyrugra benja ‘curing-Þrúðr <goddess> of bloody wounds [= Hildr]’ (Bragi Rdr 9/2, 4); hleypimeiðr hlunnviggja ‘the impelling-tree of the slipway-stallions [SHIPS > SEAFARER]’ (Hfr Óldr 2/7, 8^I) (i.e. ‘tree that impels the stallions of the slipway’).

2) Their characteristic connections to various objects: e.g. njótr hafra ‘user of goats [= Þórr]’ (ÚlfrU Húsdr 5/3); Viðrir hveðru brynju ‘Viðrir <= Óðinn> of the troll-woman of the mail-coat [AXE > WARRIOR]’ (Bragi Rdr 11/2); meiðr morðteins ‘tree of the murder-twig [SWORD > WARRIOR]’ (KormǪ Sigdr 2/1, 2).

3) Their relationships to various other people or mythical beings: e.g. biðill Greipar ‘wooer of Greip <giantess> [GIANT]’ (Þjóð Haustl 13/3, 4); dolgr Frísa ‘the Frisians’ enemy [= Eiríkr]’ (Skúli Svǫlðr 2/1).

4) Their kinship with others: niðjar Þorns ‘the descendants of Þorn <giant> [GIANTS]’ (Eil Þdr 2/4); konr Jarðar ‘the son of Jǫrð <goddess> [= Þórr]’ (Eil Þdr 16/2).

Personal kennings can have several types of base-words, among them, a nomen agentis, the name of a god or a species of tree. Early in the skaldic tradition, the use of a god’s name as the base-word of a personal kenning probably served an honorific, perhaps even a religious purpose, although the putative religious significance cannot be established with certainty. Later, these kennings were conventionalised and used mostly without regard for their religious meaning. The group of very common kennings with tree-names as base-words may have arisen by way of metaphors, even though the ‘tree : man’ relationship also registers in myths (e.g. the creation of mankind from tree trunks in Vsp 17-18).

A special group among the kennings are the nýgervingar ‘new creations, new constructions’, which can be defined as creative expansion of the imagery of a kenning: the originally selected field of imagery is maintained throughout, and new kennings are created along these lines. Some examples: In Eil Þdr 15/7, 8 the back of a giantess is called kjǫlr hlátrelliða ‘the keel of the laughter-ship [BREAST > BACK]’. The breast-kenning hlátrelliða ‘of the laughter-ship’ alludes to the breast as the seat of the soul or the centre of emotion. The breast-kenning is formed with the base-word ‘ship’, and if the breast is a ‘ship’, the back can be called its ‘keel’. Hallar-Steinn (HSt Frag 5/1) says the following about his composition of a poem: Ek hef skafna þér branda stefknarrar lokri óðar ‘I have smoothed the bows of the refrain-ship [DRÁPA > UPPHAF] for you with the plane of poetry [TONGUE]’. Here he compares composing poetry with building a ship: the drápa is a ‘ship’, and the beginning (upphaf) is ‘the bows’. With the next kenning, lokarr óðar ‘the plane of poetry [TONGUE]’, he extends this imagery even further: the ‘tongue’ is a tool for poetic composition, therefore the base-word for the kenning denoting it can be another tool used in ship building, in this case a plane. Another example which indeed looks obscure at first sight is a kenning for ‘pillar’ in Eil Þdr 19/3-4, namely, leggr fletbjarnar ‘the leg of the bench-bear [HOUSE > PILLAR]’. This kenning can be explained by the fact that houses are sometimes referred to in kennings as animals; in this case the base-word is ‘bear’ and the determinant is a part of the house, the flet ‘bench’. The resulting nýgerving for ‘pillar’ draws on the analogy between an animal’s foot and the pillar of a house.

The poet’s choice of a kenning may be guided by various factors. Without a doubt, it helps him meet the demands of metre and rhyme, primarily by virtue of its variability. The external form likewise influences another function, called copiosum in rhetoric, whereby the verbal richness of a complex kenning gives dominance to a particular concept. For example, skalds have a predilection for placing extensive kennings in their poems’ introductory stanzas, e.g blað ilja þjófs Þrúðar, hreingróit steini ‘the leaf of the footsoles of the thief of Þrúðr <goddess> [= Hrungnir > SHIELD], bright-planted with colour’ (Bragi Rdr 1/2, 3, 4), where the kenning expresses the skald’s gratitude for the gift he has received.

The kenning is generally independent of its context and furthermore it can stand in contrast to both its semanto-syntactic environment and its situational context. It can even be said that this contextual incongruity is more or less typical of the functionality of the kenning. That applies particularly to metaphorical or metonymical kennings, where the base-word violates the semantics of the sentence. But even personal kennings, whether they are typifying or antonomastic, can contradict the situational context. However, there are also kennings that do match the context of the sentence and of the situation, the so-called treffende ‘fitting’ kennings, and there are sometimes kennings that become the basis for a metaphorical sentence arrangement as well, if the verb and other syntactic elements fit the metaphor of the kenning, e.g. (prose order, with emphasis added) Innmáni ennis ǫndótts vinar banda skein; orðsæll ôss skaut œgigeislum á men storðar ‘The interior-moon of the forehead [EYE] of the hostile friend of the gods [= Þórr] shone; the praise-blessed god shot terror-beams at the necklace of the earth [= Miðgarðsormr]’ (ÚlfrU Húsdr 3).

A kenning, even if it is context-independent, can serve various functions. One of them is to ornament the poem. In this regard the effect of a kenning resembles that of the epitheta ornantia ‘ornamental epithets’ in epic poetry. Both are context-independent stereotypes with decorative function. Formal aspects of the poetry such as metre and the artfulness of language, which arises to a large extent through the use of kennings, were held in high regard. Kennings, therefore, participate in and contribute to the function of praise.

A further function of the context-independent kenning is that it poses riddles that yield pleasure and rational satisfaction when solved. The kenning is a stylistic figure that speaks to knowledge and reason. It delights in word play and logical relationships. Delight in riddles is clearly demonstrated by a phenomenon like ofljóst ‘excessively clear’ (SnE 1998, I, 109). In this case it is not the word itself that is replaced by a periphrasis, but its homonym, e.g. when Loki is referred to by the kenning gammleið ‘vulture-path’ (Eil Þdr 2/2). The explanation for this kenning is that the Old Icelandic word for ‘air’ is lopt and Loptr, which means ‘one who travels or passes through the air’, is an alternative name for Loki. The notation for such kennings is ‘vulture-path [AIR = Loptr <= Loki> (lopt ‘air’)]’. Another example of ofljóst is the kenning hróðrbarn Hǫrnar ‘the glory-child of Hǫrn <= Freyja> [= Hnoss (hnoss ‘treasure’)]’ (ESk Øxfl 3/1). The meaning ‘treasure’ can be explained by the fact that Hnoss is the daughter of the goddess Freyja in Old Norse myth, and hnoss also means ‘treasure’.

Each of the functions of a kenning mentioned so far also applies independently of the specific context in which it appears. However, kennings can nonetheless convey content by highlighting a dominant idea. They can deliver an ironic commentary or frame a parody. They constitute a sort of second level beyond the simple content domain of a stanza, which gives the poet the freedom to accentuate the plot, to give commentary, to look backward or forward in time and to intimate certain associations. In Haustl 7/2 Loki is called farmr Sigvinjar arma ‘the cargo of the arms [LOVER] of Sigyn <goddess> [= Loki]’ when his hands stick to the pole with which he hits at an eagle (the giant Þjazi in the shape of an eagle). This kenning may well be a reference to Loki’s future fate, in particular when coupled with the following relative clause sás ǫll regin eygja í bǫndum ‘the one whom all the divine powers eye in bonds’ (Þjóð Haustl 7/3, 4). Loki’s being fettered to the pole foreshadows his punishment by the gods, when he is caught and fettered to three stones with a snake above him dripping poison onto his face. Loki’s wife Sigyn kneels beside him, holding a basin to prevent the poison from falling on his face.

The association of two domains through the metaphors within kennings also provides an often-used technique for intermingling the earthly and the mythical and heroic domains. This is especially the case when the names of gods are used as base-words for man- or warrior-kennings. This aspect has been described as an attempt to poeticise trivial subjects, i.e. the kenning has the function of elevating an in itself commonplace everyday event into the heroic and mythical spheres (so Meyer 1889, 156-88; Mittner 1955, 13; von See 1964b, 9). However, as earlier scholars (e.g. Guðmundur Finnbogason 1934-5, 70-3) pointed out, such kennings would probably have had a parodic effect if applied to inappropriate subjects. Still, one of the functions of the kenning must have been to evoke by association a connection between the mythical and heroic and the earthly spheres. A sustained example of this is Sigurðardrápa by Kormákr Ǫgmundarson (KormǪ Sigdr) with its metre hjástælt ‘abutted’, where each stanza ends with a clause containing a mythical allusion. The juxtaposition of these abutted clauses and the historical content of the rest of the stanza establishes a connection or analogy between the mythical and the historical worlds (Marold 1990a, 112, 118; cf. Frank 1978, 117).

Metaphors

The number of metaphorical kennings in skaldic poetry is by no means small. However, aside from these kennings there are almost no nominal metaphors in the corpus. The use of verbal metaphors is more common, e.g. when Þórr stares down at Miðgarðsormr shooting ‘terror-beams’ with his eyes (ÚlfrU Húsdr 3/3). A depiction of a ship in rough sea is another good example of the use of such verbal metaphors: ‘But the spray-spattered Sleipnir <mythical horse> of the sea-peak [WAVE > SHIP] tears its breast, covered with red paint, out of the mouth of white Rán <sea-goddess>’ (Refr Ferðv 3/1-2, 3, 4). When the poet Vǫlu-Steinn describes the open grave awaiting the body of his dead son, he says that ‘the earth … gaped with a dug mouth’ (Vst Erf 2/1, 3, 4), comparing the earth to a monster that has opened (gein) its mouth (munni) to devour its victim, the deceased.

Indeed, entire images are based on the metaphorical resource of the kennings as in Hallfreðr’s Hákonardrápa (Hfr Hákdr), where each stanza contains the same metaphorical image, namely, that of a warrior-king conquering a territory, who is depicted as a lover who has sexual intercourse with a woman. In the words of Hallfreðr: ‘[he] draws under himself the foliage-haired waiting wife of Þriði <= Óðinn> [= Jǫrð (jǫrð ‘earth’)] by means of true words of swords [BATTLE]’ (Hfr Hákdr 5/1, 3-4); ‘Jǫrð <goddess> submits to the glorious ring-diminisher [GENEROUS MAN]’ (Hfr Hákdr 6/2-3); ‘The marriage was concluded, so that shrewdly-advising king’s intimate [RULER] afterward possessed the only daughter of Ónarr <giant> [= Jǫrð (jǫrð ‘earth’)], grown with forest’ (Hfr Hákdr 7). Another example of the use of extended metaphors is the depiction of the fight between Þórr and the giant Geirrøðr in Eilífr Goðrúnarson’s Þórsdrápa (Eil Þdr). In the giant’s hall Þórr and Geirrøðr engage in a sort of martial ‘game’ that involves hurling pieces of red-hot iron at each other. Eilífr depicts this fight by using a food-and-drink metaphor extending over several stanzas (sts 16-19). The hurled iron is paraphrased in kennings whose base-words denote ‘food’ or ‘drink’, the iron is thrown into the opponent’s mouth and catching the iron is called ‘swallowing it’. The giant ‘struck a hearth-boiled morsel of tongs [PIECE OF IRON] into the mouth of the sorrow-thief [HELPER] of Óðinn <god> [= Þórr]’ (Eil Þdr 16/5, 6-7, 8), Þórr ‘gaped with his forearm-mouth [HAND] at the heavy red mouthful of the seaweed of tongs [PIECE OF IRON]’ (Eil Þdr 17/1, 2, 4) and Þórr ‘swallowed the raised drink of the spark [PIECE OF IRON] in the air with the hurried mouths of his arms [HANDS]’ (Eil Þdr 18/2, 3, 4).

References

6. Metres

8. Snorra Edda as a Source of Mythology

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7. Poetic Diction

References

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