The Language Of The Skalds: Kennings And Heiti

The Viking Age was a time when information was transmitted orally. Traditional stories were usually told in verse, with the rhythms of metre and the patterns of poetic phrasing providing aids to memory and transmission. Norse heroic and mythic poetry was also a word game whose intricate language paralleled the style of Viking Age carvings made on wood, stone and metal objects. Both Scandinavian wordsmiths and artisans shunned realistic depictions, and instead intertwined their representations into complex images. In Old Scandinavia, participation of both skald and audience in the game of creating and unravelling poetic diction (skáldskaparmál) was a sign of intellect and learning.

Reading the Edda with an awareness of the techniques employed by skalds or poets greatly adds to the reader’s understanding and enjoyment of this text. The most frequent device used in these word games is the naming of people and things by metaphors called kennings, a word which comes from the verb at kenna, which has several meanings, including ‘to name and to call’. The other common device is the use of synonyms called heiti, a term which means ‘name’ and derives from the verb at heita, ‘to name’. Heiti were mostly nouns used to replace more common nouns, but heiti could also be proper nouns. For instance, skalds referred to Odin as Ygg, a heiti meaning ‘terrible one’. When referring to Odin’s son, Thor, a skald might use the heiti Ygg to build the kenning Ygg’s child. Such a kenning increased a skald’s word choice by paralleling other kennings, which may depend on kinship bonds, but do not employ heiti, as, for example: Odin’s son, Sif’s husband, Modi’s father, friend of men, lord of he-goats, relation to Odin, enemy of the wolf, slayer of the serpent, killer of giants and griefmaker of giantesses. All of these allusions are explained in tales gathered in the Edda.

Kennings at their simplest are phrases composed of a base noun qualified by a possessive noun. In the kenning ‘icicle of blood’, meaning sword, ‘icicle’ is the base word and ‘of blood’ is the qualifier in the possessive. Other examples are ‘horse of the sea’ for ship, and ‘moons of the forehead’ for eyes. The raven became ‘swan of blood’ because it ate the battlefield dead. Kennings have a logic and require a knowledge of Norse society and mythology to construct them. For example, a chieftain is referred to in the Edda as ‘breaker’ or ‘distresser of rings’, reflecting the common practice whereby leaders rewarded followers by breaking off pieces from their gold or silver arm rings and giving them as gifts.

Sometimes several kennings were strung together into one complex kenning. For example, a leader could be called ‘spurner of the bonfire of the sea’. The spurning refers to the generosity of a leader, whereas ‘bonfire of the sea’ is a kenning for gold, because there were stories about Ægin, a lord of the sea, whose home fires burned red, like gold beneath the sea. The audience for this poetry expected a good skald not only to replace a commonplace word like gold with a kenning, but also to be able to construct in a creative manner several kennings for the same commonplace word. Another kenning for gold was ‘Otter’s ransom’, an allusion to the gold that Odin had to pay as compensation to the giant Hreidmar for killing his son Otter, who had changed his shape to that of the animal (see Skaldskaparmal 7). Kennings appealed to skald and audience, because they awakened a shared understanding of Norse history and lore.

In stanza 3 of his poem Hattatal, Snorri offers several examples of kennings, concentrating on those meaning ‘earth’ or ‘land’:

The glorious spurner of the bonfire of the sea (giver of gold)

defends the woman friend of the adversary of the wolf (Earth or land).

The ship runs up in front of the steep

brows of the lady of the friend of Mimir (cliffs).

The mighty lord has the power to retain

the mother of the destroyer of the serpent (Earth).

Distresser of rings, may you enjoy (giver of Rings)

the mother of the foe of the giantess until old age (Earth).¹

The following stanza from Gylfaginning (on p. 10) provides a rich example of a kenning that assumes the audience shared knowledge of specific historical events along with mythology.

On their backs they let shine hall shingles of Svafnir, when bombarded with stones, those resourceful men.

This stanza is employed in the Edda for several purposes. First, it reminds the audience that Svafnir is another name for Odin. Second, the kenning for ‘shield’, ‘hall shingles of Svafnir’, turns on the understanding that Valhalla was roofed with shields in the manner of wooden shingles. The stanza, however, is older than the Edda. Just how old we do not know but it comes from a skaldic poem commemorating the famous victory about the year 870 by Norway’s King Harald Fairhair. It is a mocking reference to Harald’s enemies, who are resourceful in covering or roofing their backs with their shields as they flee.

Heiti, or synonyms, allowed skalds to replace a common word, such as ‘horse’, with the more poetic, ‘steed’. Most heiti (the word is both singular and plural) are more obscure than this example and require a familiarity with Scandinavian myth and legend that the Edda provides. Largely because of heiti, Norse poetry has its own vocabulary or lexicon, and mastering the art of poetic composition means learning new meanings and names. In Gylfaginning High explains that Odin is known by many names:

All-Father in our language, but in Asgard the Old, he has twelve names: one is All-Father, a second is Herran or Herjan, a third is Nikar or Hnikar, a fourth is Nikuz or Hnikud, a fifth is Fjolnir, a sixth Oski, a seventh Omi, an eighth Biflidi or Biflindi, a ninth Svidar, a tenth Svidrir, an eleventh Vidrir and a twelfth Jalg or Jalk. (p. 11)

Heiti fall into several groups. One is ancient words used only in poetry. A good example of this group is the word gumi, meaning ‘man’. Although gumi is found in prose compound words, such as the word for bridegroom (brudgumi), as a single word gumi is never found outside poetry. Another example of heiti from this group is the word drasill, meaning horse, as in Yggdrasil (Yggdrasill), meaning Odin’s horse. Many heiti for the gods fall into this group. For example, Hnikar and Fjolnir in the above list of names for Odin are found only in the poetry. Hence they are listed in the Edda for aspiring skalds to learn. Another important group consists of words well known in prose but with different meanings in poetry. An example is the word (brúðr) bride. In prose it refers to a woman who is about to marry, but in poetic diction brúðr had the broader meaning of ‘woman’.

NOTE

1. My thanks to Russell Poole for translating this stanza.