Painting with words

After a class on the Eddas in a course on Icelandic culture at Háskóli Íslands, I followed a thread of curiosity that led me to the Skaldic Project - a website briefly mentioned while discussing kennings, those layered metaphors woven through Old Norse poetry.

What I thought would be a quick peek turned into an hour of fascination. The deeper I went, the more it felt like opening a treasure chest filled with dazzling, poetic expressions.

Kennings turn the familiar into something vivid and strange. Eyes become “the heavenly bodies of the brain” (himintungl heila). The sky above is not just air, but “the vulture-path” (gammleið). Fever becomes “the furious fire of sickness” (heiptuglig brími sóttar). Angels are “the people of the moon’s path” (þjóð mána stiettar). And wine—perhaps most memorably—is “the soothing balm of all torments” (heilivágr allra stríða). I couldn’t agree more.

What struck me most was how these compact images transform ordinary words into something unforgettable. Each kenning feels like a small, polished jewel, glimpses of imagination that remind me why I fell in love with words in the first place.