Painting with words

While spending time among the extensive saga collection at Bókin, a memory resurfaced from an earlier discussion at Háskóli Íslands on the Eddas and the remarkable world of kennings.

Kennings, are dense and playful poetic metaphors of Old Norse verse that compress meaning, image, and emotion into a few charged words, transforming it into some riddle like new expression Revisiting them feels a like opening a long-forgotten treasure chest;

Eyes become the “heavenly bodies of the brain” (himintungl heila).
Air turns into the “vulture-path” (gammleið).
Fever burns as the “furious fire of sickness” (heiptuglig brími sóttar).
Angels appear as “people of the moon’s path” (þjóð mána stiettar).
And wine is called the “soothing balm of all torments” (heilivágr allra stríða). (We couldn't agree more :-))

These expressions do more than decorate language, they are highly sophisticated and one single kenning can hold cosmology, humor, and history knowledge at once. They us  how richly words can work.

Check out the Skaldic Project website (if you have time to get lost for hours in the beauty of words): https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=kennings and out our extensive Saga collection online and in the store!