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Dang it, Hrothgar! This is no time
for your fancy kennings! |
Kenning: A type of metaphor usually made of a compound noun, as in "Whale road," for sea or "battle-dew" for blood.
Kenning comes from
ken, "to know or understand," and that's exactly what a
kenning it, it's an understanding that the sea is to whales as a road is to travelers. Usually associated with Anglo-Saxon poetry, there are plenty of kennings around us today as in "eye candy" and "brain fart."
