[Bards] Poetic Exercise #7

[Marie Adams]

Hi, I'm a bit behind here; our lives have been very crazy lately. But the
dog's outside, and baby's taking a nap, so I finally had time to do this.
Most are serious, but a few are humorous.

Sword - child of the forge
Rapier - instrument of dueling
Arrow- winged killer
Lady - grace and kindness personified
King - guiding hand of the kingdom
Queen - power behind the throne (hee hee!) OR helpmate to the King and
producer of heirs
Crown - golden royal seal for the head
Battle - a physical dispute
Blood - red liquid life OR the sign you lost the duel
Warrior - hand of the king
Tourney - a friendly, civilized battle
Armor - shield of death for the warrior
Shield - target for the sword (in the mind of him who holds the shield
anyway)
Honor - code of the knights
Knight - defenders of honor and of the realm
Don - hand of the queen, who defends her honor
Herald - the endless voice of court
Music - mead for the hearing
Bard - proclaimer of noble feats OR he who dispenses mead for the hearing,
and ingests mead for the drinking
Beer - child of the wheat and water
Wolf - black dog of the forest
Raven - the battle's clean-up crew
Ansteorra - home of the noble Black Star
SCA event - where past and present embrace
Internet - much knowledge in a magic box

	Lady Serena

On Mon, 27 Oct 2003, Ulf Gunnarsson wrote:

> My apologies for the delays here.  These exercises were meant to run
> about a week apart.  If anyone is wonder "Will he EVER stop!?", I plan
> on finishing this run with Exercise #10.  So hang in there another month
> or so.  On to Exercise #7.
>
>
> A kenning is an expression made of multiple words used in place of a
> single noun.  Kennings are well known mechanisms from Old English and
> Norse poetry, though we see them used to a smaller extent in almost all
> poetry.  A couple examples would be "horse of the sea" for ship and
> "bone house" for body.
>
> As you see, a ship is not a horse, and a body is not a house.  But you
> ride both ships and horses, and a body houses bones.  Kennings are a fun
> way to call something by a name it is not.
>
> The "whale road" and the "swan road" are fairly obvious kennings for the
> sea.  Some kennings, though, take special knowledge.  To refer to mead
> as "Kvaesir's blood" would leave the average non-Scandinavian audience
> clueless.
>
> Your assignment in this exercise is to come up with kennings for the
> following list of 25 words, or as many as you can.
>
> sword
> rapier
> arrow
> Lady
> king
> queen
> crown
> battle
> blood
> warrior
> tourney
> armor
> shield
> honor
> knight
> don
> herald
> music
> bard
> beer
> wolf
> raven
> Ansteorra
> SCA event
> internet
>
> Just to get you started, I'll do a few myself:
>
> arrow - winged snake of battle
> shield - the wooden anvil of the sword
> don - the sword of the queen
> bard - tapster of Odin's gift
> wolf - Sigmund's bread and water
> internet - time's black hole.
>
> Ulf Gunnarsson
>
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