Indo-European Poetry and Myth

have ∆3σπαρι‘Ill-Paris’, in the OdysseyΚακοRλιο‘evil Troy’, in Alcman
Α!νο ́ παρι, in Euripides (Or. 1387, Iph. Aul. 1316) ∆υσελνα, and in Alex-
andrian poets Α!νελνη‘Bane-Helen’. In west and north Germanic tradition
the Goths were sometimes called Hreiþgotar, ‘the glorious Goths’.^18 Thor
appears in the Eddas with various prefixes: Vingþórr, Ásaþórr ‘Thor of the
Æsir’, O ̨ kuþórr ‘driving Thor’. Instances are common in Irish poetry.^19 The
individual examples are clearly not of Indo-European antiquity, but the type
may be, providing poets with a traditional means of enhancing a name.

Kennings

The term kenning comes from Old Norse (where the plural is kenningar). It
denotes a poetic periphrasis, usually made up of two elements, used in lieu
of the proper name of a person or thing. It may be riddling, picturesque, or
simply a trite alternative to the ordinary designation. The density of kennings,
often elaborate and artificial, is the dominant stylistic feature of skaldic verse,
which is intelligible only to those with the knowledge to decode them. But
they are to some extent a general phenomenon in Germanic and Celtic
poetry. Examples can also be quoted from early Indic and Greek, and a few
may have a claim to be in some sense Indo-European.^20
The simplest kind of kenning appears when a poet, instead of saying ‘X the
son of Y’, says simply ‘the son of Y’. This is common in many branches of
the tradition, for example RV 1. 92. 5 ‘Dyaus’ daughter’= Dawn; MBh. 7. 15. 9
(and often) ‘Dron
̇

a’s son’= As ́vatthaman; in Homer, Λητο κα? ∆ι: υTο ́ 
= Apollo, Τυδο υTο ́  or Τυδεδη = Diomedes, and so on; in Welsh,
Y Gododdin 1217 ‘Wolstan’s son’= Yrfai; in English, Beowulf 268 et al.
‘Healfdene’s son’= Hrothgar, 1076 ‘Hoc’s daughter’= Hildeburh; in Norse,
Vo ̨luspá 56 ‘Hlóðyn’s son’ and ‘Fio ̨ rgyn’s child’= Thor. Or another relation-
ship may be specified: RV 1. 114. 6 ‘the Maruts’ father’= Rudra; Α!ακδη
‘the descendant of Aiakos’ = Achilles; $ργδουπο πο ́ σι U Vρη ‘Hera’s
loud-crashing husband’= Zeus; Hymiskviða 3. 5 ‘Sif ’s husband’, 24. 1 ‘Móði’s
father’, both = Thor; Vo ̨luspá 32. 5 ‘Baldr’s brother’= Váli; Y Gododdin 975

(^18) First on the Rök stone (E. V. Gordon, Introduction to Old Norse, 2nd edn. (Oxford 1957),
188); Vafþrúðnismál 12. 3 with the commentary of Sijmons and Gering; Widsith 57; Elene 20.
(^19) Campanile (1988), 39; (1990b), 161 f.
(^20) On kennings see Wolfgang Krause, ‘Die Kenning als typische Stilfigur der germanischen
und keltischen Dichtersprache’,Schriften der Königsberger Gelehrten Gesellschaft (Geisteswis-
senschaftliche Klasse, 7(1); Halle 1930); Ingrid Wærn, ΓΗΣ ΟΣΤΕΑ.The Kenning in pre-
Christian Greek Poetry (Uppsala 1951); Schmitt (1967), 277–82; Campanile (1977), 108–10;
Watkins (1995), 44 f., 153. For a bibliography, especially on Germanic kennings, see Bader
(1989), 15 n. 5.

2. Phrase and Figure 81