‘How should battle be referred to?’
‘By calling it the wind, tumult and din of weapons, and of shields, and of Odin, and of the Valkyrie and of invading kings.’
‘Weapons and armour can be named with reference to battle, to Odin, to valkyries and invading kings. Helmets can be referred to as helm, hat and headdress; mailcoats as shirt or tunic; shields as awning; and shield formations as hall, roof, wall and floor. Shields can also be called sun, moon, leaf, lustre, or fence of the ship, using ship as the other component in the kenning. Another possibility is to call the shield the ship of Ull or to allude to Hrungnir’s feet, since he used a shield to stand on. On old shields it was the practice to decorate the rim, which was called the ring, and this ring becomes another way of identifying shields in kennings. Cutting weapons, such as axes and swords, are called the fires of blood or wounds. Swords are referred to as the fires of Odin. In kennings for axes the name of a troll woman is used, combined with an expression for blood, wound, forest or wood. Thrusting weapons can appropriately be referred to as snakes or fish. Thrown weapons are frequently referred to as hail, snowfall or rainstorm. There are numerous variations on all these kenning types because so much poetic composition is in the form of praise poems, which make particularly heavy use of such kennings.’