Alliteration
Kennings
Kenning Meaning
Goodman Götar of the
Great Mountain Freehold 5
*Has found his place here: East.
Helpful to hearth and home
Throughout the snakes terror WINTER
Thrown Weapons by him thrived
Friend of Freeholders: King KING
Fair, just Mohammad and
Confident of Crowds: Queen RULER
Corotica of Tyger’s Tred EAST KINGDOM
Awards Arms to Götar
And all that goes along
EK’s Event:Twelfth Night
E’er in January
The 7th, AS LVII
Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit, BLOG Rabbit
First scroll of the Mundane New Year!
I picked up this assignment from the EK Scribes Facebook group.
Ever continuing my understanding of the Dróttkvætt meter, I dropped the attempt at full hit or glancing hit rhyme. I am not sure I am able to replicate that in English, and I need to delve more deeply into the research.
I used The Skaldic Project, 89 Colorful Kennings and Old English Kennings
My method for a scroll in Dróttkvætt or Old English is to gather a bunch of kennings that I think will be pertinent. The recommendation listed the recipient’s Thrown Weapons prowess and that this event was happening in January. I searched for Kennings meaning axe, sun, weapons and land, as well as kennings for rulers. I even made up a Kenning of my own!
Goodman Götar of the
Great Mountain Freehold 5
When writing in this meter I am known to write many individual couplets and then rearrange them into a cohesive order. I was pleased that I could work the recipient’s name into the meter, but for the life of me, I could not figure out how to increase the second line to the proper six syllables. No doubt, reading this in the future, I will figure out a way and slap my forehead. As it stands, I let it go because it worked so well for the scroll.
*Has found his place here: East.
Helpful to hearth and home
This is the one verse that I feel hit the proper alliteration, with Here and Helpful.
(a) – (a) – A –
A – – – – –
As with most of the poetic forms that I am trying to use in my various works, I am using a different language from the original. From what I have observed, Norse languages seem to have a great deal of one-syllable words, which makes a six-syllable sentence easier to create. (It’s also easier to carve into a rock, where many of these words were found.)
Throughout the snakes terror WINTER
Thrown Weapons by him thrived
I did want to mention the weather in this piece. Events in winter can be chilly affairs even when inside a warm building. Two of the kennings for snake that I found were particularly evocative:
Distress of snakes - WINTER
Throughout The Entire Terror of the Adder Serpent’s Slayer - WINTER
I combined these into “Throughout the Snakes Terror” to be the kenning for Winter. There is some argument that it already was a complete kenning, but I cannot reconcile “th” and “t” as the same sound, so I cannot count it as a full example of the meter.
Friend of Freeholders: King KING
Fair, just Mohammad and
I was incredibly excited to find a Kenning for King that had the word, “Freeholders” in it. If there is one thing I have learned over my many years in the society, it’s that Freeholders love being Freeholders!
It was shy of the sixth syllable, so I decided to use a bit of a literary trick and define the kenning in the words itself. When I employ this technique, it’s either because of space or composition. Here I was thinking not only of the word count, but also that “friend” might not have been adequate enough in a description of His Majesty.
Confident of Crowds: Queen RULER
Corotica of Tyger’s Tread 7 EAST KINGDOM
“Confident of Crowds” is technically for a ruler and not specifically for a queen. To indicate this I mirrored the couplet for His Majesty that after the kenning I wrote Queen. I was particularly pleased that this kenning scanned with Her Majesty’s name. It was only when this came back from the C&I scribe that I realized it did not fit into Dróttkvætt correctly. Confident has three syllables, not two, and the extra “of” didn’t fit the meter either. In the end, I am glad I didn’t change it, as it’s appropriate in the description of Her Majesty.
I created a Kenning for the East Kingdom: Tyger’s tread.
This came from the kenning: pure elk-sea - LAND & the way of the wave elk - SEA. I replaced elk with Tyger, which became: the way of the Tyger, the footprint or tread mark, which led to Tyger’s tread.
Awards Arms to Götar
And all that goes along
The recipient has no arms that I could find, and as such I left no space for their inclusion. However there is room on the scroll for their arms to be written in after they register them, along with the shield shape drawn by the C&I scribe.
EK’s Event:Twelfth Night
E’er in January
I was pleased that I managed to include some of the event information in the Dróttkvætt meter! This almost never happens, and I love it when it does. I did have to use the standard abbreviation of East Kingdom to EK to make it work though.
The 7th, AS LVII
And finally the end sentence, with the rest of the date and the year. While I do like to make everything fit the form I am using, I recognize it is not always possible, but does not detract from the final product.
I am very happy with this scroll, and it’s a good way to get the mundane year off to a good start.
I cannot wait to see how far I will go this year!
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