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Sunday, June 17, 2018

'The Stifle' Is A Complex Hinge Joint In The Upper Hind Limb Of The Horse, And The Largest Joint In The Horse's Body. Its Role Is To Provide Unfettered Flexion







Cubism Era and the layered pastel 

search results for Cubism Era and the layered pastel:  There are basically two types of cubism.

      a.)  analytical cubism
           1.   Analytic cubism was mostly accomplished by Braque, and is very simple, with dark, almost        monochromatic colors.
      b.)  synthetic cubism (noun)
            [Sometimes initial capital letters {Fine Arts}]
           2.   The late phase of cubism, characterized chiefly by an increased use of color and the imitation or introduction of a wide range of textures and material into painting.
 
*What are the different types of Cubism?
There are basically two types of cubism i.e. analytical cubism and synthetic cubism. Analytic cubism was mostly accomplished by Braque, and is very simple, with dark, almost monochromatic colors.
*What is synthetic cubism in art?
synthetic cubism. noun, ( sometimes initial capital letters) Fine Arts. 1. the late phase of cubism, characterized chiefly by an increased use of color and the imitation or introduction of a wide range of textures and material into painting. Compare analytical cubism.
*Who are the founders of Cubism?
The movement was pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, joined by Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, and Fernand Léger. One primary influence that led to Cubism was the representation of three-dimensional form in the late works of Paul Cézanne.
*When did the cubist movement start and end?
Cubism. The Cubist art movement began in Paris around 1907. Led by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, the Cubists broke from centuries of tradition in their painting by rejecting the single viewpoint.
*Why is it called Cubism?
It is called Cubism because the items represented in the artworks look like they are made out of cubes and other geometrical shapes. Cubism was first started by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Analytical Cubism is the first type of cubism.
*What is the style of Cubism?
Cubism was a truly revolutionary style of modern art developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braques. It was the first style of abstract art which evolved at the beginning of the 20th century in response to a world that was changing with unprecedented speed.
*Which painter invented cubism?
Georges Braque was a modern French painter who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed analytic Cubism and Cubist collage in the early twentieth century.
 
 
 
 
Dictionary.com

analytical cubism

noun (sometimes initial capital letters) Fine Arts.
  1. the early phase of cubism, chiefly characterized by a pronounced use of geometric shapes and by a tendency toward a monochromatic use of color.

synthetic cubism

noun (sometimes initial capital letters) Fine Arts.
  1. the late phase of cubism, characterized chiefly by an increased use of color and the imitation or introduction of a wide range of textures and material into painting.
 

Equestrian statue

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The Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius on the Capitoline Hill was the prototype for Renaissance equestrian sculptures.
An equestrian statue is a statue of a rider mounted on a horse, from the Latin "eques", meaning "knight", deriving from "equus", meaning "horse".[1] A statue of a riderless horse is strictly an "equine statue". A full-sized equestrian statue is a difficult and expensive object for any culture to produce, and figures have typically been portraits of rulers or, more recently, military commanders.

Contents

History

Khosrow Parviz is standing here. On his left is Ahura Mazda, on his right is Anahita, and below is, Khosrau dressed as a mounted Persian knight riding on his favourite horse, Shabdiz, in the city of, Kermanshah, Iran

Ancient Greece

Equestrian statuary in the West goes back at least as far as Archaic Greece. Found on the Athenian acropolis, the sixth century BC statue known as the Rampin Rider depicts a kouros mounted on horseback.

Ancient Middle and Far East

A number of ancient Egyptian, Assyrian and Persian reliefs show mounted figures, usually rulers, though no free standing statues are known. The Chinese Terracotta Army has no mounted riders, though cavalrymen stand beside their mounts, but smaller Tang Dynasty pottery tomb Qua figures often include them, at a relatively small scale. No Chinese portrait equestrian statues were made until modern times; statues of rulers are not part of traditional Chinese art, and indeed even painted portraits were only shown to high officials on special occasions until the 11th century.[2]

Ancient Rome

This horse head from Suasa was once part of a large equestrian monument. ca. 40 AD. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.
Such statues frequently commemorated military leaders, and those statesmen who wished to symbolically emphasize the active leadership role undertaken since Roman times by the equestrian class, the equites (plural of eques) or knights.
There were numerous bronze equestrian portraits (particularly of the emperors) in ancient Rome, but they did not survive because they were melted down for reuse of the alloy as coin, church bells, or other, smaller projects (such as new sculptures for Christian churches); the standing Colossus of Barletta lost parts of his legs and arms to Dominican bells in 1309. Almost the only sole surviving Roman equestrian bronze, the equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius in Rome, owes its preservation on the Campidoglio, to the popular mis-identification of Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor, with Constantine the Great, the Christian emperor. The Regisole ("Sun king") was a bronze classical or Late Antique equestrian monument of a ruler, highly influential during the Italian Renaissance but destroyed in 1796 in the wake of the French Revolution. It was originally erected at Ravenna, but removed to Pavia in the Middle Ages, where it stood on a column before the cathedral. A fragment of an equestrian portrait sculpture of Augustus has also survived.

Medieval Europe

Equestrian statues were not very frequent in the Middle ages. Nevertheless, there are some examples, like the Bamberg Horseman (German: Der Bamberger Reiter), located in Bamberg Cathedral. Another example is the Magdeburg Reiter, in the city of Magdeburg, that depicts Emperor Otto I. There are a few roughly half-size statues of Saint George and the Dragon, including the famous ones in Prague and Stockholm. The Scaliger Tombs in Verona include Gothic statues at less than lifesize. A well-known small bronze in Paris may be a contemporary portrait of Charlemagne, although its date and subject are uncertain.

Renaissance

Donatello: Statue of Gattamelata (1444–53)
After the Romans, no surviving monumental equestrian bronze was cast in Europe until 1415–1450 when Donatello created the heroic bronze Equestrian statue of Gattamelata the condottiere, erected in Padua. In 15th century Italy, this became a form to memorialize successful mercenary generals, as evidenced by the painted equestrian funerary monuments to Sir John Hawkwood and Niccolò da Tolentino in Florence Cathedral, and the Statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni (1478–88) cast by Verrocchio in Venice.
Leonardo da Vinci had planned a colossal equestrian monument to the Milanese ruler, Francesco Sforza, but was only able to create a clay model. The bronze was reallocated for military use in the First Italian War.[3] Similar sculptures have survived in small scale: The Wax Horse and Rider (c.1506–08) is a fragmentary model for an equestrian statue of Charles d'Amboise.[4] The Rearing Horse and Mounted Warrior in bronze was also attributed to Leonardo.
Titian's equestrian portrait of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor of 1548 applied the form again to a ruler. The Equestrian statue of Cosimo I de' Medici (1598) by Giambologna in the center of Florence was a life size representation of the Grand-Duke, erected by his son Ferdinand I.
Ferdinand himself would be memorialized in 1608 with an equestrian statue in Piazza della Annunziata was completed by Giambologna's assistant, Pietro Tacca. Tacca's studio would produce such models for the rulers in France and Spain. His last public commission was the colossal equestrian bronze of Philip IV, begun in 1634 and shipped to Madrid in 1640. In Tacca's sculpture, atop a fountain composition that forms the centerpiece of the façade of the Royal Palace, the horse rears, and the entire weight of the sculpture balances on the two rear legs, and discreetly, its tail, a novel feat for a statue of this size.

Absolutism

The Bronze Horseman by Étienne Maurice Falconet (1768–1782)
During the age of Absolutism, especially in France, equestrian statues were popular with rulers; Louis XIV was typical in having one outside his Palace of Versailles, and the over life-size statue in the Place des Victoires in Paris by François Girardon (1699) is supposed to be the first large modern equestrian statue to be cast in a single piece; it was destroyed in the French Revolution, though there is a small version in the Louvre. The near life-size equestrian statue of Charles I of England by Hubert Le Sueur of 1633 at Charing Cross in London is the earliest large English example, which was followed by many. The equestrian statue of King José I of Portugal, in the Praça do Comércio, was designed by Joaquim Machado de Castro after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and is a pinnacle of Absolutist age statues in Europe. The Bronze Horseman (Russian: Медный всадник, literally "The Copper Horseman") is an iconic equestrian statue, on a huge base, of Peter the Great of 1782 by Étienne Maurice Falconet in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The use of French artists for both examples demonstrates the slow spread of the skills necessary for creating large works, but by the 19th century most large Western countries could produce them without the need to import skills, and most statues of earlier figures are actually from the 19th or early 20th centuries.

United States

See also: List of equestrian statues in the United States
In the colonial era, an equestrian statue of George III by English sculptor Joseph Wilton stood on Bowling Green in New York City. The 4,000-pound gilded lead statue was erected in 1770; but, on July 9, 1776, New Yorkers toppled the structure and cut it into pieces.[5] Some fragments survived and in 2016 the statue was recreated for a museum.[6]
In the United States, the first three full-scale equestrian sculptures were Clark Mills' Andrew Jackson (1852) in Washington, D.C., Henry Kirke Brown's George Washington (1856) in New York City, and Thomas Crawford's George Washington in Richmond, Virginia (1858). Mills was the first American sculptor to overcome the challenge of casting a rider on a rearing horse. The resulting sculpture (of Jackson) was so popular he repeated it for New Orleans, Nashville, and Jacksonville.
Cyrus Edwin Dallin made a specialty of equestrian sculptures of American Indians: his Appeal to the Great Spirit stands before the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial in Boston is a well-known relief including an equestrian portrait.

20th century

Equestrian statue of Charlemagne, boulevard d'Avroy, Liège
As the 20th century progressed, the popularity of the equestrian monument declined sharply, as monarchies fell and the military use of horses virtually vanished. The Statue of Queen Elizabeth II riding Burmese in Canada, and statues of Rani Lakshmibai in Gwalior and Jhansi, India, are some of the rare portrait statues with female riders. (Although Joan of Arc has been so portrayed a number of times.[7]) In America, the late 1970s and early 1980s witnessed something of a revival in equestrian monuments, largely in the Southwestern United States. There, art centers such as Loveland, Colorado, Shidoni Foundry in New Mexico, and various studios in Texas once again began producing equestrian sculpture.
These revival works fall into two general categories, the memorialization of a particular individual or the portrayal of general figures, notably the American cowboy or Native Americans. Such monuments can be found throughout the American Southwest.

Tallest and largest equestrian statue

The monument to general Jose Gervasio Artigas in Minas, Uruguay (18 meters tall, 9 meters long, 150,000 kg) was the world's largest equestrian statue until 2009. The current largest is the 40 meters tall Genghis Khan Equestrian Statue at Tsonjin Boldog, 54 km from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, the legendary location where Genghis Khan found the golden whip.
The world's largest equestrian sculpture, when completed, will be the Crazy Horse Memorial, in South Dakota, USA at a planned 641 feet (195 m) wide and 563 feet (172 m) high, even though only the upper torso and head of the rider and front half of the horse will be depicted. Also on a huge scale, the carvings on Stone Mountain in Georgia, USA are equestrian sculpture rather than true statues, the largest bas-relief in the world. The world's largest equestrian bronze statues are Juan de Oñate statue in El Paso, Texas (2006), statue in Altare della Patria in Rome (1911) and statue of Jan Žižka in Prague (1950).[8]

Hoof-position symbolism

Equestrian statue of Confederate General James Longstreet on his horse Hero in Pitzer Woods at Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg, PA
In the United States and the United Kingdom, an urban legend states that if the horse is rearing (both front legs in the air), the rider died in battle; one front leg up means the rider was wounded in battle or died of battle wounds; and if all four hooves are on the ground, the rider died outside battle. For example, Richard the Lionheart is memorialised, mounted passant, outside the Palace of Westminster by Carlo Marochetti; the former died 11 days after his wound, sustained in siege, turned septic.
In the United States, the rule is especially held to apply to equestrian statues commemorating the American Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg,[9] but there are at least nine instances where the rule does not hold for Gettysburg equestrian statues. One such statue was erected in 1998 in Gettysburg National Military Park, and is of James Longstreet, who is featured on his horse with one foot raised, even though Longstreet was not wounded in that battle. However, he was seriously wounded in the Wilderness battle the following year. This is not a traditional statue, as it does not place him on a pedestal. One writer claims that any correlation between the positioning of hooves in a statue and the manner in which a Gettysburg soldier died is a coincidence.[10] There is no proper evidence that these hoof positions are right, but people believe it to be. It is true in some instances but false too in others.[11][12][13]

Song

"Equestrian Statue" is the title of a 1967 song by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, in which a town square is enlivened by the presence of an equestrian statue of a former dignitary.
 
 

Prosody (linguistics)

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"Prosodic" redirects here. For other uses, see Prosody.
In linguistics, prosody is concerned with those elements of speech that are not individual phonetic segments (vowels and consonants) but are properties of syllables and larger units of speech. These contribute to linguistic functions such as intonation, tone, stress, and rhythm. Prosody may reflect various features of the speaker or the utterance: the emotional state of the speaker; the form of the utterance (statement, question, or command); the presence of irony or sarcasm; emphasis, contrast, and focus; or other elements of language that may not be encoded by grammar or by choice of vocabulary.

Contents

Attributes of prosody

In the study of prosodic aspects of speech it is usual to distinguish between auditory measures (subjective impressions produced in the mind of the listener) and acoustic measures (physical properties of the sound wave that may be measured objectively). Auditory and acoustic measures of prosody do not correspond in a linear way.[1] Most studies of prosody have been based on auditory analysis using auditory scales.
There is no agreed number of prosodic variables. In auditory terms, the major variables are
  • the pitch of the voice (varying between low and high)
  • length of sounds (varying between short and long)
  • loudness, or prominence (varying between soft and loud)
  • timbre (quality of sound)
in acoustic terms, these correspond reasonably closely to
  • fundamental frequency (measured in hertz, or cycles per second)
  • duration (measured in time units such as milliseconds or seconds)
  • intensity, or sound pressure level (measured in decibels)
  • spectral characteristics (distribution of energy at different parts of the audible frequency range)
Different combinations of these variables are exploited in the linguistic functions of intonation and stress, as well as other prosodic features such as rhythm, tempo and loudness.[1] Additional prosodic variables have been studied, including voice quality and pausing.

Phonology

Prosodic features are said to be suprasegmental, since they are properties of units of speech larger than the individual segment (though exceptionally it may happen that a single segment may constitute a syllable, and thus even a whole utterance, e.g. "Ah!"). It is necessary to distinguish between the personal, background characteristics that belong to an individual’s voice (for example their habitual pitch range) and the independently variable prosodic features that are used contrastively to communicate meaning (for example, the use of changes in pitch to indicate the difference between statements and questions).[2] Personal characteristics are not linguistically significant. It is not possible to say with any accuracy which aspects of prosody are found in all languages and which are specific to a particular language or dialect.

Intonation

Some writers have described intonation entirely in terms of pitch, while others propose that what we call intonation is in fact an amalgam of several prosodic variables. The form of English intonation is often said to be based on three aspects:
  • The division of speech into units
  • The highlighting of particular words and syllables
  • The choice of pitch movement (e.g. fall or rise)
These are sometimes known as Tonality, Tonicity and Tone (and collectively as "the three T's").[3][4]
An additional pitch-related variation is pitch range: speakers are capable of speaking sometimes with a wide range of pitch (this is usually associated with excitement), at other times with a narrow range. English has been said to make use of changes in key: shifting one's intonation into the higher or lower part of one's pitch range is believed to be meaningful in certain contexts.

Stress

From the perceptual point of view, stress functions as the means of making a syllable prominent; stress may be studied in relation to individual words (named "word stress" or lexical stress) or in relation to larger units of speech (traditionally referred to as "sentence stress" but more appropriately named "prosodic stress"). Stressed syllables are made prominent by several variables, by themselves or in combination. Stress is typically associated with the following:
  • pitch prominence, that is, a pitch level that is different from that of neighbouring syllables, or a pitch movement
  • increased length (duration)
  • increased loudness (dynamics)
  • differences in timbre: in English and some other languages, stress is associated with aspects of vowel quality (whose acoustic correlate is the formant frequencies or spectrum of the vowel). Unstressed vowels tend to be centralized relative to stressed vowels, which are normally more peripheral in quality[5]
These cues to stress are not equally powerful. Cruttenden, for example, writes "Perceptual experiments have clearly shown that, in English at any rate, the three features (pitch, length and loudness) form a scale of importance in bringing syllables into prominence, pitch being the most efficacious, and loudness the least so".[6]
When pitch prominence is the major factor, the resulting prominence is often called accent rather than stress.[7]
There is considerable variation from language to language concerning the role of stress in identifying words or in interpreting grammar and syntax.[8]

Tempo

Rhythm

Although rhythm is not a prosodic variable in the way that pitch or loudness are, it is usual to treat a language's characteristic rhythm as a part of its prosodic phonology. It has often been asserted that languages exhibit regularity in the timing of successive units of speech, a regularity referred to as isochrony, and that every language may be assigned one of three rhythmical types: stress-timed (where the durations of the intervals between stressed syllables is relatively constant), syllable-timed (where the durations of successive syllables are relatively constant) and mora-timed (where the durations of successive morae are relatively constant). As explained in the isochrony article, this claim has not been supported by scientific evidence.
Cadence may be subjectively experienced by the listener (an auditory, not acoustic measurement) by speech that shifts back-and-forth between words perceived as being grouped together, and words perceived as isolated or not grouped.

Pause

Although pausing is a natural phenomenon related to breathing, it is claimed that pauses may also carry some contrastive linguistic information. In English, pausing is more likely before a word carrying a high information content. Defining pause is not easy: it is necessary to distinguish between silent pauses and "filled" pauses where a hesitation is perceived but the speaker continues to emit sound. In the study of conversational interaction it is normal to note different lengths of pause.
Pausing or its lack is a factor in creating the perception of words being grouped together into a phrase, phraseme, constituent or other multi-word grouping, often highlighting lexical items or fixed expression idioms. For example, pausing before and after a multi-word grouping, but not within, groups words together and separates them from nearby words. Also, within a multi-word grouping, blending the sound of adjacent words together or speaking them faster than words outside the grouping contributes to the perception of the words as part of a group. A well-known example in English is "Know what I mean?" being said rapidly as if it is a single word ("No-whuta-meen?")

Cognitive aspects

Intonation is said to have a number of perceptually significant functions in English and other languages, contributing to the recognition and comprehension of speech.[9]

Grammar

It is believed that prosody assists listeners in parsing continuous speech and in the recognition of words, providing cues to syntactic structure, grammatical boundaries and sentence type. Boundaries between intonation units are often associated with grammatical or syntactic boundaries; these are marked by such prosodic features as pauses and slowing of tempo, as well as "pitch reset" where the speaker's pitch level returns to the level typical of the onset of a new intonation unit. In this way potential ambiguities may be resolved. For example, the sentence “They invited Bob and Bill and Al got rejected” is ambiguous when written, although addition of a written comma after either "Bob" or "Bill" will remove the sentence's ambiguity. But when the sentence is read aloud, prosodic cues like pauses and changes in intonation will reduce or remove the ambiguity.[10] Moving the intonational boundary in cases such as the above example will tend to change the interpretation of the sentence. This result has been found in studies performed in both English and Bulgarian.[11] Research in English word recognition has demonstrated an important role for prosody.[12][13]

Focus

Intonation and stress work together to highlight important words or syllables for contrast and focus.[14] This is sometimes referred to as the accentual function of prosody. A well-known example is the ambiguous sentence "I have plans to leave", where if the primary accent is placed on "plans" the meaning of the sentence is usually taken to be "I have some plans (drawings, diagrams) to leave" but if the main accent is on "leave" the typical interpretation is "I am planning to leave".[15]

Discourse

Prosody plays a role in the regulation of conversational interaction and in signaling discourse structure. David Brazil and his associates studied how intonation can indicate whether information is new or already established; whether a speaker is dominant or not in a conversation; and when a speaker is inviting the listener to make a contribution to the conversation.[16]

Emotion

Main article: Emotional prosody
Prosody is also important in signalling emotions and attitudes. When this is involuntary (as when the voice is affected by anxiety or fear), the prosodic information is not linguistically significant. However, when the speaker varies her speech intentionally, for example to indicate sarcasm, this usually involves the use of prosodic features. The most useful prosodic feature in detecting sarcasm is a reduction in the mean fundamental frequency relative to other speech for humor, neutrality, or sincerity. While prosodic cues are important in indicating sarcasm, context clues and shared knowledge are also important.[17]
Emotional prosody was considered by Charles Darwin in The Descent of Man to predate the evolution of human language: "Even monkeys express strong feelings in different tones – anger and impatience by low, – fear and pain by high notes."[18] Native speakers listening to actors reading emotionally neutral text while projecting emotions correctly recognized happiness 62% of the time, anger 95%, surprise 91%, sadness 81%, and neutral tone 76%. When a database of this speech was processed by computer, segmental features allowed better than 90% recognition of happiness and anger, while suprasegmental prosodic features allowed only 44%–49% recognition. The reverse was true for surprise, which was recognized only 69% of the time by segmental features and 96% of the time by suprasegmental prosody.[19] In typical conversation (no actor voice involved), the recognition of emotion may be quite low, of the order of 50%, hampering the complex interrelationship function of speech advocated by some authors.[20] However, even if emotional expression through prosody cannot always be consciously recognized, tone of voice may continue to have subconscious effects in conversation. This sort of expression stems not from linguistic or semantic effects, and can thus be isolated from traditional[clarification needed] linguistic content.[dubious – discuss] Aptitude of the average person to decode conversational implicature of emotional prosody has been found to be slightly less accurate than traditional facial expression discrimination ability; however, specific ability to decode varies by emotion. These emotional[clarification needed] have been determined to be ubiquitous across cultures, as they are utilized and understood across cultures. Various emotions, and their general experimental identification rates, are as follows:[21]
  • Anger and sadness: High rate of accurate identification
  • Fear and happiness: Medium rate of accurate identification
  • Disgust: Poor rate of accurate identification
The prosody of an utterance is used by listeners to guide decisions about the emotional affect of the situation. Whether a person decodes the prosody as positive, negative, or neutral plays a role in the way a person decodes a facial expression accompanying an utterance. As the facial expression becomes closer to neutral, the prosodic interpretation influences the interpretation of the facial expression. A study by Marc D. Pell revealed that 600 ms of prosodic information is necessary for listeners to be able to identify the affective tone of the utterance. At lengths below this, there was not enough information for listeners to process the emotional context of the utterance.[22]

Child language

Unique prosodic features have been noted in infant-directed speech (IDS) - also known as baby talk, child-directed speech (CDS), or motherese. Adults, especially caregivers, speaking to young children tend to imitate childlike speech by using higher and more variable pitch, as well as an exaggerated stress. These prosodic characteristics are thought to assist children in acquiring phonemes, segmenting words, and recognizing phrasal boundaries. And though there is no evidence to indicate that infant-directed speech is necessary for language acquisition, these specific prosodic features have been observed in many different languages.[23]

Aprosodia

An aprosodia is an acquired or developmental impairment in comprehending or generating the emotion conveyed in spoken language. Aprosody is often accompanied by the inability to properly utilize variations in speech, particularly with deficits in ability to accurately modulate pitch, loudness, intonation, and rhythm of word formation.[24] This is seen sometimes in persons with Asperger syndrome.[25]

Brain regions involved

Producing these nonverbal elements requires intact motor areas of the face, mouth, tongue, and throat. This area is associated with Brodmann areas 44 and 45 (Broca's area) of the left frontal lobe. Damage to areas 44/45 produces motor aprosodia, with the nonverbal elements of speech being disturbed (facial expression, tone, rhythm of voice).
Understanding these nonverbal elements requires an intact and properly functioning right-hemisphere perisylvian area, particularly Brodmann area 22 (not to be confused with the corresponding area in the left hemisphere, which contains Wernicke's area).[26] Damage to the right inferior frontal gyrus causes a diminished ability to convey emotion or emphasis by voice or gesture, and damage to right superior temporal gyrus causes problems comprehending emotion or emphasis in the voice or gestures of others. The right Brodmann area 22 aids in the interpretation of prosody, and damage causes sensory aprosodia, with the patient unable to comprehend changes in voice and body language.


Speech tempo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Speech tempo is a measure of the number of speech units of a given type produced within a given amount of time. A common measure is that of syllables per second. Speech tempo is believed to vary within the speech of one person according to contextual and emotional factors, between speakers and also between different languages and dialects. However, there are many problems involved in investigating this variance scientifically.

Contents

Problems of definition

While most people seem to believe that they can judge how quickly someone is speaking, it is generally said that subjective judgements and opinions cannot serve as scientific evidence for statements about speech tempo; J. Laver has written that analyzing tempo can be "dangerously open to subjective bias ... listeners' judgements rapidly begin to lose objectivity when the utterance concerned comes either from an unfamiliar accent or .. from an unfamiliar language".[1] Scientific observation depends on accurate segmenting of recorded speech along the time course of an utterance, usually using one of the acoustic analysis software tools available on the internet such as Audacity [2] or, specifically for speech research, Praat,[3] SIL Speech Analyzer [4] or SFS.[5]
Measurements of speech tempo can be strongly affected by pauses and hesitations. For this reason, it is usual to distinguish between speech tempo including pauses and hesitations and speech tempo excluding them. The former is called speaking rate and the latter articulation rate.[6]
Various units of speech have been used as a basis for measurement. The traditional measure of speed in typing and Morse code transmission has been words per minute (wpm). However, in the study of speech the word is not well defined (being primarily a unit of grammar), and speech is not usually temporally stable over a period as long as a minute. Many studies have used the measure of syllables per second, but this is not completely reliable because, although the syllable as a phonological unit of a given language is well-defined, it is not always possible to get agreement on the phonetic syllable. For example, the English word 'particularly' in the form in which it occurs in dictionaries is, phonologically speaking, composed of five syllables /pə.tɪk.jə.lə.li/. Phonetic realizations of the word, however, may be heard as comprising five [pə.tɪk.jə.lə.li], four [pə.tɪk.jə.li], three [pə.tɪk.li] or even two syllables [ptɪk.li], and listeners are likely to have different opinions about the number of syllables heard.
An alternative measure that has been proposed is that of sounds per second. One study found rates varying from an average of 9.4 sounds per second for poetry reading to 13.83 per second for sports commentary.[7] The problem with this approach is that the researcher must be clear as to whether the "sounds" s/he is counting are phonemes or physically observable phonetic units (sometimes called "phones"). As an example, the utterance 'Don't forget to record it' might in slow, careful speech be pronounced /dəʊnt fəget tə rɪkɔːd ɪt/, with 19 phonemes, each of which is phonetically realized. When the sentence is said at high speed it might be pronounced as [də̃ʊ̃ʔ fɡeʔtrɪkɔːd ɪt], with 16 units. If we are counting only units that can be observed and measured, it is clear that at faster speeds of utterance the number of sounds produced per second does not necessarily increase.[8]

Within-speaker variability

Speakers vary their speed of speaking according to contextual and physical factors. A typical speaking rate for English is 4 syllables per second,[9] but in different emotional or social contexts the rate may vary, one study reporting a range between 3.3 and 5.9 syl/sec,[10] Another study found significant differences in speaking rate between story-telling and taking part in an interview.[11]
Speech tempo may be regarded as one of the components of prosody. Possibly the most detailed analytical framework for the role of tempo in English prosody is that of Crystal.[12] His system, which uses terms mostly borrowed from musical usage, allows for simple variation away from normal in tempo, where monosyllables may be pronounced as "clipped", "drawled" or "held" and polysyllabic utterances may be spoken at "allegro", "allegrissimo", "lento" and "lentissimo". Complex variation includes "accelerando" and "rallentando". Crystal claims that "... tempo has probably the most highly discrete grammatical function of all prosodic parameters other than pitch ...". He cites from his corpus-based analysis instances of increased tempo in cases of speakers' self-corrections of speech errors, and in citing embedded material in the form of titles and names, e.g. "I'm sorry, but we won't be able to start So you think you know what's happening for a few moments" and "This is the I'll show you a picture and you tell me what it is technique" (where the italicized text is spoken at faster tempo).

Between-language differences

Subjective impressions of tempo differences between different languages and dialects are difficult to substantiate with scientific data.[13] Counting syllables per second will result in differences caused by the different syllable structures found in different languages; many languages have a predominantly CV (consonant+vowel) syllable structure while English syllables may begin with up to 3 consonants and end with up to 4. Consequently, it is likely that a Japanese speaker can produce more syllables in their language per second than an English speaker can in theirs. Counting sounds per second is also problematical for the reason mentioned above, i.e. that the researcher needs to be sure what objects it is that s/he is counting.
Howard Giles has studied the relationship between perceived tempo and perceived competence of speakers of different accents of English, and found a positive linear relationship between the two (i.e. people who speak faster are perceived as more competent).[14]
Osser and Peng counted sounds per second for Japanese and English and found no significant difference.[15] The study by Kowal et al., referred to above, comparing story-telling with speaking in an interview, looked at English, Finnish, French, German and Spanish [16]. They found no significant differences in rate between the languages, but highly significant differences between the speaking styles. Similarly, Barik found that differences in tempo between French and English were due to speaking style rather than to the language.[17] From the point of view of the perception of tempo differences between languages, Vaane used spoken Dutch, English, French, Spanish and Arabic produced at three different rates and found that untrained and phonetically trained listeners performed equally well at judging the rate of speaking for familiar and unfamiliar languages.[18]
In the absence of reliable evidence to support it, it seems that the widespread view that some languages are spoken more rapidly than others is an illusion. This illusion may well be related to other factors such as differences of rhythm and pausing. In another study, an analysis of speech rate and perception in radio bulletins, the average rate of bulletins varied from 168 (English, BBC) to 210 words per minutes (Spanish, RNE).[19]


Kenning

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Not to be confused with kerning.
For other uses, see Kenning (disambiguation).
A kenning (Old Norse pronunciation: [cʰɛnːɪŋg], Modern Icelandic pronunciation: [cʰɛnːiŋk]) is a type of circumlocution, in the form of a compound that employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun. Kennings are strongly associated with Old Norse and later Icelandic and Old English poetry.
They usually consist of two words, and are often hyphenated. For example, Old Norse poets might replace sverð "sword" with an abstract compound such as "wound-hoe" (Egill Skallagrímsson: Höfuðlausn 8) or a genitive phrase such as randa íss "ice of shields" (Einarr Skúlason: 'Øxarflokkr' 9). Modern scholars have also applied the term kenning to similar figures of speech in other languages, especially Old English.

Contents

Etymology

The word was adopted into English in the nineteenth century[1] from medieval Icelandic treatises on poetics, in particular the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson, and derives ultimately from the Old Norse verb kenna "know, recognise; perceive, feel; show; teach", etc., as used in the expression kenna við "to name after; to express [one thing] in terms of [another]",[2] "name after; refer to in terms of",[3] and kenna til "qualify by, make into a kenning by adding".[3]
The corresponding modern verb to ken survives only in Scots and highly remote English dialects, other than the derivative existing in the standard language in the set expression beyond one's ken, "beyond the scope of one's knowledge" and in the phonologically altered forms uncanny, "surreal" or "supernatural", and canny, "shrewd", "prudent". Modern Scots retains (with slight differences between dialects) tae ken "to know", kent "knew" or "known", Afrikaans ken "be acquainted with" and " to know" and kennis "knowledge". Old Norse kenna (Modern Icelandic kenna, Swedish känna, Danish kende, Norwegian kjenne or kjenna) is cognate with Old English cennan, Old Frisian kenna, kanna, Old Saxon (ant)kennian (Middle Dutch and Dutch kennen), Old High German (ir-, in-, pi-) chennan (Middle High German and German kennen), Gothic kannjan < Proto-Germanic *kannjanan, originally causative of *kunnanan "to know (how to)", whence Modern English can 'to be able' (from the same Proto-Indo-European root as Modern English know and Latin-derived cognition).[2]

Structure

Old Norse kennings take the form of a genitive phrase (báru fákr "wave's horse" = "ship" (Þorbjörn Hornklofi: Glymdrápa 3)) or a compound word (gjálfr-marr "sea-steed" = "ship" (Anon.: Hervararkviða 27)). The simplest kennings consist of a base-word (Icelandic stofnorð, German Grundwort) and a determinant (Icelandic kenniorð, German Bestimmung) which qualifies, or modifies, the meaning of the base-word. The determinant may be a noun used uninflected as the first element in a compound word, with the base-word constituting the second element of the compound word. Alternatively the determinant may be a noun in the genitive case placed before or after the base-word, either directly or separated from the base-word by intervening words.[4]
Thus the base-words in these examples are fákr "horse" and marr "steed", the determinants báru "waves" and gjálfr "sea". The unstated noun which the kenning refers to is called its referent, in this case: skip "ship".
In Old Norse poetry, either component of a kenning (base-word, determinant or both) could consist of an ordinary noun or a heiti "poetic synonym". In the above examples, fákr and marr are distinctively poetic lexemes; the normal word for "horse" in Old Norse prose is hestr.

Complex kennings

The skalds also employed complex kennings in which the determinant, or sometimes the base-word, is itself made up of a further kenning: grennir gunn-más "feeder of war-gull" = "feeder of raven" = "warrior" (Þorbjörn Hornklofi: Glymdrápa 6); eyðendr arnar hungrs "destroyers of eagle's hunger" = "feeders of eagle" = "warrior" (Þorbjörn Þakkaskáld: Erlingsdrápa 1) (referring to carnivorous birds scavenging after a battle). Where one kenning is embedded in another like this, the whole figure is said to be tvíkent "doubly determined, twice modified".[5]
Frequently, where the determinant is itself a kenning, the base-word of the kenning that makes up the determinant is attached uninflected to the front of the base-word of the whole kenning to form a compound word: mög-fellandi mellu "son-slayer of giantess" = "slayer of sons of giantess" = "slayer of giants" = "the god Thor" (Steinunn Refsdóttir: Lausavísa 2).
If the figure comprises more than three elements, it is said to be rekit "extended".[5] Kennings of up to seven elements are recorded in skaldic verse.[6] Snorri himself characterises five-element kennings as an acceptable license but cautions against more extreme constructions: Níunda er þat at reka til hinnar fimtu kenningar, er ór ættum er ef lengra er rekit; en þótt þat finnisk í fornskálda verka, þá látum vér þat nú ónýtt. "The ninth [license] is extending a kenning to the fifth determinant, but it is out of proportion if it is extended further. Even if it can be found in the works of ancient poets, we no longer tolerate it."[7] The longest kenning found in skaldic poetry occurs in Hafgerðingadrápa by Þórðr Sjáreksson and reads nausta blakks hlé-mána gífrs drífu gim-slöngvir "fire-brandisher of blizzard of ogress of protection-moon of steed of boat-shed", which simply means "warrior".

Word order and comprehension

Word order in Old Norse was generally much freer than in Modern English because Old Norse and Old English are synthetic languages, where added prefixes and suffixes to the root word (the core noun, verb, adjective or adverb) carry grammatical meanings, whereas Middle English and Modern English use word order to carry grammatical information, so-called analytic languages. This freedom is exploited to the full in skaldic verse and taken to extremes far beyond what would be natural in prose. Other words can intervene between a base-word and its genitive determinant, and occasionally between the elements of a compound word (tmesis). Kennings, and even whole clauses, can be interwoven. Ambiguity is usually less than it would be if an English text were subjected to the same contortions, thanks to the more elaborate morphology of Old Norse.
Another factor aiding comprehension is that Old Norse kennings tend to be highly conventional. Most refer to the same small set of topics, and do so using a relatively small set of traditional metaphors. Thus a leader or important man will be characterised as generous, according to one common convention, and called an "enemy of gold", "attacker of treasure", "destroyer of arm-rings", etc. and a friend of his people. Nevertheless, there are many instances of ambiguity in the corpus, some of which may be intentional,[8] and some evidence that, rather than merely accepting it from expediency, skalds favoured contorted word order for its own sake.[9]

Definitions

Some scholars take the term kenning broadly to include any noun-substitute consisting of two or more elements, including merely descriptive epithets (such as Old Norse grand viðar "bane of wood" = "fire" (Snorri Sturluson: Skáldskaparmál 36)),[10] while others would restrict it to metaphorical instances (such as Old Norse sól húsanna "sun of the houses" = "fire" (Snorri Sturluson: Skáldskaparmál 36)),[11] specifically those where "[t]he base-word identifies the referent with something which it is not, except in a specially conceived relation which the poet imagines between it and the sense of the limiting element'" (Brodeur (1959) pp. 248–253). Some even exclude naturalistic metaphors such as Old English forstes bend "bond of frost" = "ice" or winter-ġewǣde "winter-raiment" = "snow": "A metaphor is a kenning only if it contains an incongruity between the referent and the meaning of the base-word; in the kenning the limiting word is essential to the figure because without it the incongruity would make any identification impossible" (Brodeur (1959) pp. 248–253). Descriptive epithets are a common literary device in many parts of the world, whereas kennings in this restricted sense are a distinctive feature of Old Norse and, to a lesser extent, Old English poetry.[12]
Snorri's own usage, however, seems to fit the looser sense: "Snorri uses the term "kenning" to refer to a structural device, whereby a person or object is indicated by a periphrastic description containing two or more terms (which can be a noun with one or more dependent genitives or a compound noun or a combination of these two structures)" (Faulkes (1998 a), p. xxxiv). The term is certainly applied to non-metaphorical phrases in Skáldskaparmál: En sú kenning er áðr var ritat, at kalla Krist konung manna, þá kenning má eiga hverr konungr. "And that kenning which was written before, calling Christ the king of men, any king can have that kenning.[13] Likewise in Háttatal: Þat er kenning at kalla fleinbrak orrostu [...] "It is a kenning to call battle 'spear-crash' [...]".[5]
Snorri's expression kend heiti "qualified terms" appears to be synonymous with kenningar,[14][15] although Brodeur applies this more specifically to those periphrastic epithets which don't come under his strict definition of kenning.[16]
Sverdlov approaches the question from a morphological standpoint. Noting that the modifying component in Germanic compound words can take the form of a genitive or a bare root, he points to behavioural similarities between genitive determinants and the modifying element in regular Old Norse compound words, such as the fact that neither can be modified by a free-standing (declined) adjective.[17] According to this view, all kennings are formally compounds, notwithstanding widespread tmesis.

Semantics

Kennings could be developed into extended, and sometimes vivid, metaphors: tröddusk törgur fyr [...] hjalta harðfótum "shields were trodden under the hard feet of the hilt (sword blades)" (Eyvindr Skáldaspillir: Hákonarmál 6); svarraði sárgymir á sverða nesi "wound-sea (=blood) sprayed on headland of swords (=shield)" (Eyvindr Skáldaspillir: Hákonarmál 7).[18] Snorri calls such examples nýgervingar and exemplifies them in verse 6 of his Háttatal. The effect here seems to depend on an interplay of more or less naturalistic imagery and jarring artifice. But the skalds weren't averse either to arbitrary, purely decorative, use of kennings: "That is, a ruler will be a distributor of gold even when he is fighting a battle and gold will be called the fire of the sea even when it is in the form of a man's arm-ring on his arm. If the man wearing a gold ring is fighting a battle on land the mention of the sea will have no relevance to his situation at all and does not contribute to the picture of the battle being described" (Faulkes (1997), pp. 8–9).
Snorri draws the line at mixed metaphor, which he terms nykrat "made monstrous" (Snorri Sturluson: Háttatal 6), and his nephew called the practice löstr "a fault" (Óláfr hvítaskáld: Third Grammatical Treatise 80).[19] In spite of this, it seems that "many poets did not object to and some must have preferred baroque juxtapositions of unlike kennings and neutral or incongruous verbs in their verses" (Foote & Wilson (1970), p. 332). E.g. heyr jarl Kvasis dreyra "listen, earl, to Kvasir's blood (=poetry)" (Einarr skálaglamm: Vellekla 1).
Sometimes there is a kind of redundancy whereby the referent of the whole kenning, or a kenning for it, is embedded: barmi dólg-svölu "brother of hostility-swallow" = "brother of raven" = "raven" (Oddr breiðfirðingr: Illugadrápa 1); blik-meiðendr bauga láðs "gleam-harmers of the land of rings" = "harmers of gleam of arm" = "harmers of ring" = "leaders, nobles, men of social standing (conceived of as generously destroying gold, i.e. giving it away freely)" (Anon.: Líknarbraut 42).
While some Old Norse kennings are relatively transparent, many depend on a knowledge of specific myths or legends. Thus the sky might be called naturalistically él-ker "squall-vat" (Markús Skeggjason: Eiríksdrápa 3) or described in mythical terms as Ymis haus "Ymir's skull" (Arnórr jarlaskáld: Magnúsdrápa 19), referring to the idea that the sky was made out of the skull of the primeval giant Ymir. Still others name mythical entities according to certain conventions without reference to a specific story: rimmu Yggr "Odin of battle" = "warrior" (Arnórr jarlaskáld: Magnúsdrápa 5).
Poets in medieval Iceland even treated Christian themes using the traditional repertoire of kennings complete with allusions to heathen myths and aristocratic epithets for saints: Þrúðr falda "goddess of headdresses" = "Saint Catherine" (Kálfr Hallsson: Kátrínardrápa 4).[4]
Kennings of the type AB, where B routinely has the characteristic A and thus this AB is tautological, tend to mean "like B in that it has the characteristic A", e.g. "shield-Njörðr", tautological because the god Njörðr by nature has his own shield, means "like Njörðr in that he has a shield", i.e. "warrior". A modern English example is "painted Jezebel" as a disapproving expression for a woman too fond of using cosmetics.
Sometimes a name given to one well-known member of a species, is used to mean any member of that species. For example, Old Norse valr means "falcon", but Old Norse mythology mentions a horse named Valr, and thus in Old Norse poetry valr is sometimes used to mean "horse". A modern example of this is an ad hoc usage by a helicopter ambulance pilot: "the Heathrow of hang gliders" for the hills behind Hawes in Yorkshire in England, when he found the air over the emergency site crowded with hang-gliders.[20]

Ellipsis

A term may be omitted from a well-known kenning: val-teigs Hildr "hawk-ground's valkyrie/goddess" (Haraldr Harðráði: Lausavísa 19). The full expression implied here is "goddess of gleam/fire/adornment of ground/land/seat/perch of hawk" = "goddess of gleam of arm" = "goddess of gold" = "lady" (characterised according to convention as wearing golden jewellery, the arm-kenning being a reference to falconry). The poet relies on listeners' familiarity with such conventions to carry the meaning.[21]

Old Norse kennings in context

In the following dróttkvætt stanza, the Norwegian skald Eyvindr skáldaspillir (d. ca 990) compares the greed of King Harald Greycloak (Old Norse: Haraldr) to the generosity of his predecessor, Haakon the Good (Hákon):
Bárum, Ullr, of alla,
ímunlauks, á hauka
fjöllum Fýrisvalla
fræ Hákonar ævi;
nú hefr fólkstríðir Fróða
fáglýjaðra þýja
meldr í móður holdi
mellu dolgs of folginn
— Eyvindr skáldaspillir, Lausavísa, 8
A literal translation reveals several kennings: "Ullr of the war-leek! We carried the seed of Fýrisvellir on our hawk-mountains during all of Haakon's life; now the enemy of the people has hidden the flour of Fróði's hapless slaves in the flesh of the mother of the enemy of the giantess."
This could be paraphrased as "O warrior, we carried gold on our arms during all of King Haakon's life; now the enemy of the people has hidden gold in the earth." The kennings are:
Ullr ... ímunlauks, "warrior", from Ullr, the name of a god, and ímun-laukr, "sword" (literally "war-leek"). By convention, the name of any god can be associated with another word to produce a kenning for a certain type of man; here "Ullr of the sword" means "warrior." "War-leek" is a kenning for "sword" that likens the shape of the sword to that of a leek. The warrior referred to may be King Harald.
Hauka fjöllum, "arms", from hauka "hawk" and fjöll mountain. This is a reference to the sport of falconry, where a bird of prey is perched on the arm of the falconer. By convention, "hawk" combined with a term for a geographic feature forms a kenning for "arm."
Fýrisvalla fræ, "gold", from "Fýrisvellir", the plains of the river Fýri, and fræ, "seed." This is an allusion to a legend retold in Skáldskaparmál and Hrólfs saga kraka in which King Hrolf and his men scattered gold on the plains (vellir) of the river Fýri south of Gamla Uppsala to delay their pursuers.
Fróða fáglýjaðra þýja meldr, "flour of Fróði's hapless slaves", is another kenning for "gold." It alludes to the Grottasöngr legend.
Móður hold mellu dolgs, "flesh of the mother of the enemy of the giantess." "earth." Here the earth is personified as the goddess Jörð, mother of Thor, enemy of the Jǫtnar or "giants".

Old English and other kennings

The practice of forming kennings has traditionally been seen as a common Germanic inheritance, but this has been disputed since, among the early Germanic languages, their use is largely restricted to Old Norse and Old English poetry.[11][22] A possible early kenning for "gold" (walha-kurna "Roman/Gallic grain") is attested in the Proto-Norse runic inscription on the Tjurkö (I)-C bracteate.[23][24] Kennings are virtually absent from the surviving corpus of continental West Germanic verse; the Old Saxon Heliand contains only one example: lîk-hamo "body-raiment" = "body" (Heliand 3453 b),[25] a compound which, in any case, is normal in West Germanic and North Germanic prose (Old English līchama, Old High German lîchamo, lîchinamo, Dutch lichaam, Old Icelandic líkamr, líkami, Old Swedish līkhamber, Swedish lekamen, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål legeme, Norwegian Nynorsk lekam).
Old English kennings are all of the simple type, possessing just two elements, e.g. for "sea": seġl-rād "sail-road" (Beowulf 1429 b), swan-rād "swan-road" (Beowulf 200 a), bæð-weġ "bath-way" (Andreas 513 a), hron-rād "whale-road" (Beowulf 10), hwæl-weġ "whale-way" (The Seafarer 63 a). Most Old English examples take the form of compound words in which the first element is uninflected: "heofon-candel" "sky-candle" = "the sun" (Exodus 115 b). Kennings consisting of a genitive phrase occur too, but rarely: heofones ġim "sky's jewel" = "the sun" (The Phoenix 183).
Old English poets often place a series of synonyms in apposition, and these may include kennings (loosely or strictly defined) as well as the literal referent: Hrōðgar maþelode, helm Scyldinga ... "Hrothgar, helm (=protector, lord) of the Scyldings, said ..." (Beowulf 456).
Although the word "kenning" isn't often used for non-Germanic languages, a similar form can be found in Biblical poetry in its use of parallelism. Some examples include Genesis 49:11, in which "blood of grapes" is used as a kenning for "wine", and Job 15:14 where "born of woman" is a parallel for "man".[26]

Modern usage

Figures of speech similar to kennings occur in Modern English (both in literature and in regular speech), and are often found in combination with other poetic devices. For example, the Madness song "The Sun and the Rain" contains the line "standing up in the falling-down", where "the falling-down" refers to rain and is used in juxtaposition to "standing up". Some recent English writers have attempted to use approximations of kennings in their work. John Steinbeck used kenning-like figures of speech in his 1950 novella Burning Bright, which was adapted into a Broadway play that same year.[27] According to Steinbeck biographer Jay Parini, "The experiment is well-intentioned, but it remains idiosyncratic to the point of absurdity. Steinbeck invented compound phrases (similar to the Old English use of kennings), such as 'wife-loss' and 'friend-right' and 'laughter-starving,' that simply seem eccentric."[28]
Kennings remain somewhat common in German (Drahtesel "wire-donkey" for bike, Feuerstuhl "fire-chair" for motorcycle, and so on).
The poet Seamus Heaney regularly employed kennings in his work; for example, 'bone-house' for "skeleton"

List of kennings

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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A kenning (Old Norse kenning [cʰɛnːiŋɡ], Modern Icelandic [cʰɛnːiŋk]) is a circumlocution, an ambiguous or roundabout figure of speech, used instead of an ordinary noun in Old Norse, Old English, and later Icelandic poetry.
This list is not intended to be comprehensive. Kennings for a particular character are listed in that character's article. For example, the Odin article links to a list of names of Odin, which include kennings. Only a few examples of Odin's kennings are given here. For a scholarly list of kennings see Meissner's Die Kenningar der Skalden (1921) or some editions of Snorri Sturluson's Skáldskaparmál

Source language abbreviations

  • OE – Old English
  • D – Danish
  • G – Germanic
  • Ic – Old Icelandic
  • N – Norse
  • ON – Old Norse
  • S – Swedish

List of Kennings

Primary Meaning Kenning Translated Original Kenning Explanation Source Language Example
axe blood-ember

N
battle spear-din

N Snorri Sturluson Skaldskaparmal
blood Dead-Slave

N
blood battle-sweat
One reference for this kenning comes from the epic poem, Beowulf. As Beowulf is in fierce combat with Grendel's Mother, he makes mention of shedding much battle-sweat. N Beowulf
blood wound-sea svarraði sárgymir
N Eyvindr Skillir Hákonarmál 7.
chieftain or king breaker of rings
Alludes to a ruler breaking the golden rings upon his arm and using them to reward his followers. OE Beowulf
death sleep of the sword

OE Beowulf
death flame-farewelled
Implicitly honourable death N
fire bane of wood grand viðar
ON Snorri Sturluson Skáldskaparmál 36
wife girl of the houses sól húsanna
ON Snorri Sturluson Skáldskaparmál 36
gold seeds of the Fyris Wolds Fýrisvalla fræ Hrólf Kraki spread gold on the Fyris Wolds to distract the men of the Swedish king N Eyvindr Skáldaspillir Lausavísa 8
gold serpent's lair
Serpents (and dragons) were reputed to lie upon gold in their nests N Skáldskaparmál
gold Sif's hair
Derived from the story of when Loki cut off Sif's hair. In order to amend his crime, Loki had the dwarf Dvalin make new hair for Sif, a wig of gold that grew like normal hair. N Skáldskaparmál
gold Kraki's seed
Hrólf Kraki spread gold on the Fyris Wolds to distract the men of the Swedish king. Can also be used to imply generosity; q.v. Hrólf Kraki N Skáldskaparmál
gold, sometimes amber Freyja's tears
Derived from the story of when Freyja could not find Óðr, her husband, the tears she shed were gold, and the trees which her tears fell upon were transmuted into amber. N
honour mind's worth weorðmyndum
OE Beowulf
hook bait-gallows

Ic Flateyjarbok
kill enemies Feed the eagle
Killing enemies left food for the eagles S Gripsholm Runestone
Loki wolf's father
an allusion to Loki's fathering of Fenrir N Lokasenna
Loki father of the sea thread
Loki was the father of Jörmungandr, the Midgard serpent N Þórsdrápa
mistletoe Baldr's bane
The kenning derives from the story in which all plants and creatures swore never to harm Baldr save mistletoe, which, when it was overlooked, Loki used to bring about Baldr's death by tricking Hodur. N
Mjollnir, Thor's hammer Hrungnir's slayer
Hrungnir was a giant whose head was smashed by a blow from Mjollnir N Lokasenna
Odin Lord of the gallows
See the separate page List of names of Odin for more Odin kennings N
Odin Hanged god
Odin hung on the Tree of Knowledge for nine days in order to gain wisdom. N
poetry Grímnir's lip-streams
Grímnir is one of the names of Odin N Þórsdrápa
raven swan of blood
ravens ate the dead at battlefields N
the sea whale-road hron-rād
N,OE Beowulf 10: "In the end each clan on the outlying coasts beyond the whale-road had to yield to him and begin to pay tribute"
the sea sail road seġl-rād
OE Beowulf 1429 b
the sea whale's way hwæl-weġ
N,OE The Seafarer 63 a; Beowulf
serpent valley-trout

N Skaldskaparmal
shield headland of swords sverða nesi There is a connection to the word "nesa" meaning subject to public ridicule/failure/shame, i.e. "the failure/shame of swords", not only "where the sword first hits/ headland of swords" Kennings can sometimes be a triple entendre. N þorbjörn Hornklofi: Glymdrápa 3
ship wave-swine unnsvín
N
ship sea-steed gjálfr-marr
N Hervararkviða 27; Skáldskaparmál
sky Ymir's skull Ymis haus
N Arnórr jarlaskáld Magnúsdrápa 19
the sun heaven-candle heofon-candel
OE Exodus 115 b
the sun heaven's jewel heofones ġim
OE The Phoenix 183
the sun glory of elves álf röðull álf röðull (alfrodull), meaning "glory-of-elves" refers both to the chariot of the sun goddess Sól and to the rider (the sun herself). N Skírnismál Vafþrúðnismál
sword blood-worm

N
sword icicle of blood

N
sword wound-hoe ben-grefill
N Egill Skallagrímsson: Höfuðlausn 8
sword leek of battle ímun-laukr
N Eyvindr Skáldaspillir Lausavísa 8
Thor slayer of giants, basher of trolls felli fjörnets goða flugstalla felli fjörnets goða flugstalla is a compound kenning. Literally feller of the life webs (fjörnets) of the gods of the flight-edges, i.e. slayer of giants, life webs (fjörnets) is a kenning in its own right since it refers directly to the operations of the Norns in severing lives, flight-edges (flugstalla) being the high and dangerous places inhabited by eagles and hawks, i.e. the icy mountains of Jotunheim. N Þórsdrápa Norse Mythology
war weather of weapons

N Skaldskaparmal
warrior feeder of ravens grennir gunn-más "feeder of war-gull" = "feeder of raven" = "warrior" Ravens feed on dead bodies left after a battle. N Þorbjörn Hornklofi: Glymdrápa
warrior destroyers of eagle's hunger eyðendr arnar hungrs "destroyers of eagle's hunger" = "feeders of eagle" = "warrior" Eagles, also, feed on dead bodies left after a battle. N Þorbjörn Þakkaskáld: Erlingsdrápa 1
waves Ægir's daughters
Ægir had nine daughters called billow maidens who were personifications of the waves. N
wind breaker of trees

N
wolf Gunnr's horse
Gunnr is a valkyrie S Rök Stone
wrist wolf's-joint úlfliðr An allusion to Tyr's loss of his hand when fettering the wolf Fenrir Ic Gylfaginning

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