“Kennings in Christian Skaldic Poetry”
Margaret Clunies Ross

Old Norse-Icelandic skaldic poetry is unique in the medieval European literary record and interesting for a number of reasons, sociological, conceptual, rhetorical and metrical. The matter I will address on this occasion is an aspect of the continuity of skaldic verse through the change in religion in medieval Scandinavia from paganism to Christianity. Of particular interest is the adaptation of the type of elaborate poetic periphrases, known as kennings, to the expression of Christian ideas and dogma. The conceptual world upon which the kenning system was originally predicated was closely based in the old religion and mythology, and for a time, it seems, Christian skalds were unable to adapt it to Christian purposes. However, they eventually succeeded in using kennings in the service of the new religion. This paper will examine the history of that adaptation, its changes over time, and its limitations and exclusions, with particular reference to examples of Christian skaldic poetry from the twelfth to the middle of the fourteenth centuries.