<P> 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 . According to this view, all kennings are formally compounds, notwithstanding widespread tmesis . </P> <P> 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). 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). </P> <P> 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). 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). </P> <P> 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). </P>

Into which of these categories does kenning fall