Kennings

A kenning (Modern Icelandic pronunciation: [cʰɛnːiŋk]; derived from Old Norse) 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 Old Norse and later Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon poetry.

They usually consist of two words, and are often hyphenated. For example, Old Norse poets might replace sverð, the regular word for “sword”, with a more abstract compound such as “wound-hoe” (Egill Skallagrímsson: Höfuðlausn 8), or a genitive phrase such as randa íss “ice of shields” (Einarr Skúlason: ‘Øxarflokkr’ 9). Modern scholars have also applied the term kenning to similar figures of speech in other languages, especially Old English.

The word was adopted into English in the nineteenth century from medieval Icelandic treatises on poetics, in particular the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson, and derives ultimately from the Old Norse verb kenna “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”, and kenna til “qualify by, make into a kenning by adding”.

The corresponding modern verb to ken survives only in Scots and 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". Modern Scots retains (with slight differences between dialects) tae ken "to know", kent "knew" or "known", Afrikaans ken "be acquainted with" and " to know" and kennis "knowledge". Old Norse kenna (Modern Icelandic kenna, Swedish känna, Danish kende, Norwegian kjenne or kjenna) is cognate with Old English cennan, Old Frisian kenna, kanna, Old Saxon (ant)kennian (Middle Dutch and Dutch kennen), Old High German (ir-, in-, pi-) chennan (Middle High German and German kennen), Gothic kannjan < Proto-Germanic *kannjanan, originally causative of *kunnanan “to know (how to)”, whence Modern English can 'to be able' (from the same Proto-Indo-European root as Modern English know and Latin-derived cognition).

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