Kennings are found in Old Norse and Old English poetry. The more you look at them, the more elusive their definition becomes. Kennings aren’t just simple metaphors for this and that. They add layers of meaning to words for things that are well-known to people sharing a way of life or culture.
The word ken can mean the extent of your knowledge, or to know. If something is “beyond my ken,” I don’t understand it. The word kenning [cʰɛnːiŋg] in Old Norse means to know or make known. Kenna in Old English is to teach or make known. The word kenning was adopted into 19th century English from The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturlson (1179-1241), a medieval historian who wrote about the Icelandic sagas and the use of kennings in skaldic poetry. Skalds were court poets in Scandinavia and Iceland during the age of the Vikings.
Most kennings are highly evocative two-word compounds. For example, whale-road (hron-ráde, whale-road) or heath-stepper (hæð-stapa, hart or deer). You know one when you see or hear one. So, there’s more to kennings than their meaning – they usually have a recognizable structure. Linguists have studied the structure, or morphology, of kennings, even if they haven’t agreed on a definition yet.
The illustration is a drawing of the ash tree, Yggdrasil, by Oluf Olufsen Bagge for the 1847 edition of the Prose Edda. Yggdrasil is mentioned in the books, Gylfaginning and Skáldskaparmál. In Gylfaginning, Chapter 15, Yggdrasil is described as the biggest and best of all trees, with branches that extend over all the world and reach out over the sky. Three of the roots of the tree support it, and these roots also extend very, very far.
Learn more
Kenning from Book Rags. An excellent and accessible article on what you need to know about kennings, with links to related information.
Beowulf: Kennings from BeowulfTranslations.net. A very informative collection of excerpts of writings about kennings and wonderfully documented examples.
This creative Beowulf (Claymation) video on YouTube will make you laugh. It’s an AP English project that deserves to be seen beyond the classroom. An FandSproduction, the author, director, producer, and writer is Kenny Tyner.
A legendary warrior from Geatland rises up to defeat a seemingly unbeatable adversary. This claymation version is based on the epic poem and John Gardener’s [sic] “Grendel” and was created for my final theme project for AP English.
Harvard University officially inaugurated the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library on March 3, 2011, with the Beowulf manuscript, a volume containing two manuscripts of secular Latin poetry, and St. Jerome’s Latin translation of the Pentateuch paired with the 17th century Douay-Reims translation.
The Medieval Library is meant to fill the gap between the Loeb Classical Library and the I. Tatti Renaissance Library. The 512-volume Loeb Library is currently celebrating its 100th anniversary, and the Tatti Library, its 10th.
Harvard University Press will distribute the new series, making “the written achievements of medieval cultures more readily available to scholars and general readers in the English-speaking world.”
Classics Professor Jan M. Ziolkowski, the director of Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, initiated the new translation series and expressed hope that it will “foster an environment in which the works can be read and appreciated for their beauty.”
I miss all those red and green Loeb Classical Library volumes in the library stacks. To my surprise and delight, many of them are available on Amazon.com, along with a nice introductory volume (shown at left) that contains gems from 33 important texts. I acquired a few of the Latin Loeb Classics in grad school, but coveted the series. The Latin volumes have red covers, and Greek, blue covers. Each volume has the original text and English translation side-by-side on facing pages.
There’s a new section in the Beowulf-related page, Pre-Christian Epics of Northern Europe on Fiannaidheacht: The Fenian Cycle, which chronologically falls between the Ulster Cycle and the Historical Cycle of Irish Literature. While the Cattle Raid of Cooley from the Ulster Cycle is most similar to Beowulf, if you yearn for a little romance and [...]
In July 2009, an Englishman with a metal detector, named Terry Herbert, found the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever discovered. Treasures of the Staffordshire Hoard are as important as those of the history-making 1939 Sutton Hoo burial mound excavations. A recent reassessment of the find, according to Stoke-on-Trent Musuems, has shown that it contains [...]
I found this great Celtic warrior outfit on Fotolia while looking at images of Celtic ruins. It’s very well constructed and would be perfect for skewering dragons, charging into battle and yelling “Gaaaahh!” Perhaps it will inspire you to new heights for October’s Halloween revelries and any future Celtic re-enactments you may attend.
Sir Robert Cotton (1571-1631), collected manuscripts and antiquities. His private library included the Lindisfarne Gospels, two copies of the Magna Carta, the Beowulf manuscript, and other treasures. Cotton and his former teacher, William Camden, founded the Society of Antiquaries around 1586. He was influential in the antiquarian movement of early Stuart England, which sought to [...]
The Illustrated Beowulf by Jake has been restored to this site. The parody provides a student’s perspective on the poem and the project assignment from hell. The result is way too funny to leave out, even though half the students who view it will be too young to remember the "stars" of the retold story. [...]
The Sutton Hoo burial mound was excavated in 1939. Treasures from the same time period as the Beowulf story were discovered here. Because of their beauty and significance, many photos of the artifacts are available on flickr. Here is a sample using my new toy, Yahoo Pipes. Because the slideshow shows search results for "sutton-hoo," [...]
Resources for the Study of Beowulf has been honored by receiving a "Best of the Web" award from Shmoop. This recognition is especially meaningful because it reflects the opinions of students and teachers who use the site and took the time to vote. Your support is greatly appreciated. Thank you!
The word ken can mean the extent of your knowledge, or to know. If something is “beyond my ken,” I don’t understand it. The word kenning [cʰɛnːiŋg] in Old Norse means to know or make known. Kenna in Old English is to teach or make known. The word kenning was adopted into 19th century English from The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturlson (1179-1241), a medieval historian who wrote about the Icelandic sagas and the use of kennings in skaldic poetry. Skalds were court poets in Scandinavia and Iceland during the age of the Vikings. 
