\n\n"}\n\nOne of the distinctive features of Old Norse poetry is the use of kenning: a circumlocutory device in which a straightforward noun is replaced with an allusive phrase.
For example, a ship might be referred to as a \u201cwave\u2019s horse\u201d; a sword, a \u201cwound-serpent\u201d; a shield, \u201cthe shame of swords\u201d, and so forth. Sometimes, kennings could be embedded in other kennings - thus, one might have \u201cfeeder of war-gulls\u201d = \u201cfeeder of ravens\u201d = \u201cwarrior\u201d; this is known as a doubled or extended kenning.
Though many conventions of English literature can be traced back to Old Norse roots, kenning isn\u2019t much encountered these days - at least, not in most genres. There\u2019s one particular genre where the art of kenning is alive and well, though.
I\u2019m speaking, of course, of erotic fanfic.
Whether you\u2019re referring to a penis as a \u201cporn-truncheon\u201d or a vagina as \u201csquish-pocket\u201d (both examples I\u2019ve seen employed in all apparent seriousness, incidentally), that perfectly fits the form and function of a kenning. Indeed, these examples even adhere to the idiosyncratic grammatical structure of many Old Norse kennings, with the base word being modified by an uninfected noun determinant inserted as a compound prefix.
Euphemisms for sex acts, meanwhile, can be even more baroque, forming multi-level allusions in the manner of doubled/extended kennings. \u201cTo ride the baloney pony\u201d, for example, employs the act of riding a horse as an allusion to penetrative sexual intercourse - but the contained phrase \u201cbaloney pony\u201d is, itself, a kenning of the simple type, with \u201cpony\u201d as the base word and \u201cbaloney\u201d as the determinant, making the whole phrase a doubled kenning.
There are practical reasons for this sort of practice, of course; e.g., complex euphemisms can help sexually explicit works sneak through content filters. Still, it\u2019s kind of fascinating that smutty fanfic has managed to preserve - in virtually unaltered state - a poetic form that\u2019s otherwise been largely extinct in English literature for the better part of a thousand years.
amazing