Dragons, Kennings & Competitions
Kennings
/ˈkɛnɪŋ/
Noun: a compound expression in Old English and Old Norse poetry with metaphorical meaning, e.g. oar-steed = ship.
A corpse-eater stalks the whale-road,
boat-breaker, bow-cracker.
Our sea-shawl calls for breath,
wave-floater, foam-chaser.
The chiefest calamity churns the ocean-noise,
wind-stealer, tail-eater.
King of the swan-road, plague of sea and sky,
fire-drinker, treasure-minder.
Triple all-steerer cuts the thread,
life-robbers, fate-weavers.
Our sail-steed fails, ever burning,
Hel-bearer, apple-eater.
Drowning ‘neath the slopes of our sea-queen,
soul-catcher, life-claimer.
Yet caught by the golden arms of shield-maidens,
battle-forged, slaughter-Syr.
We are made anew, offerings for the corpse-hall,
Odin-storm, Freyja-born
Kennings are a beautiful, Anglo-Saxon and Norse storytelling device which use folkloric metaphor to describe a person or thing. Mostly limited to epic sagas, today we are most familiar with the use of kennings through the Old English poem, Beowulf, and the timeless work of J.R.R Tolkien - most notably, The Hobbit.
"I come from under hill, and under the hills and over the hills my paths led... I am the clue-finder, the web-cutter, the stinging fly. I was chosen for the lucky number… I am the friend of bears and the guest of eagles. I am Ringwinner and Luckwearer; and I am barrel-rider." – J.R.R Tolkien, The Hobbit
For those who have read The Hobbit and Beowulf, you’ll know that both stories share a similar antagonist. Bilbo, trapped in a gold-filled cavern under The Lonely Mountain finds himself engaged in a battle of wits against The Greatest and Chiefest of All Calamities, Smaug. Meanwhile, Beowulf faces his own gold-hoarding wyrm in a battle to the death.
Both Smaug and Beowulf’s final foe are examples of March’s Penasium theme: Dragons!
"Then the sky-roamer... breathed out fire" – Beowulf
A Tourist’s Guide to Dragon Spotting
Our little workshop is based on the Herefordshire-Shropshire border, where the landscape has been built on the backs of dragons…
The Green-Scaled Dragon of the Stretton Hills
Legend has it that Earl’s Hill and Pontesford Hill in Shropshire are actually one 2,000 year old, sleeping green-scaled dragon whose slumber was so deep that the grass, rocks, and crags of the Stretton Hills grew on its back.
Scholars have generally agreed that it would be a bad idea to wake him up - tiptoeing is advised.
The Dragon of Mordiford
One day, a little girl was wandering the paths of Haugh Wood in Herefordshire when she stumbled across a tiny baby dragon. The dragon had been abandoned and was crying with hunger, so the child did what any rational little girl would: she stole a few buckets of sheep’s milk from town and decided to raise the dragon herself. They lived happily together in Haugh Wood for a time and the dragon loved the little girl - but as he grew, so did his hunger. Unable to exist on milk alone, he decided to supplement his diet by snacking on residents of the nearby town of Mordiford. This didn’t go down so well with the locals, who eventually decided enough was enough and sent a nobleman to deal with the dragon.
To this day, Haugh Wood remains an enchanted forest for little girls with big imaginations.
The Haunted Hoard of Wormelow Tump
In the small town of Wormelow, an ancient barrow (burial mound) which could have been the resting place of Amr, King Arthur’s son once existed. It was supposedly filled to the brim with gold which means, naturally, that it was haunted by a dragon. While evidence of the barrow itself has been lost over time, the existence of a spectral, gold-sick wyrm has been widely confirmed by visitors and folk writers alike.
Explore with caution (and leave your cash at home).
March’s Challenge: The Mynd Dragons of St. Lawrence’s Primary School
Recently, stories of dragon mischief and trickery have been lifted from the pages of folklore into reality for the students of St. Lawrence’s Primary School in Church Stretton. Teachers have reported puffs of smoke appearing from under doors, glowing, amber eyes appearing at windows, and signs of treasure-hoarding and nesting in the forest school.
The school is placed precariously on the edge of the Long Mynd - an infamous hotspot for dragon activity, with prominent geologists and historians offering strong arguments that several of its hills are not, in fact, natural rock formations, but rather further examples of sleeping dragons taking over the landscape.
Teachers have responded to this invasion by adapting the syllabus and including basic dragon lore into everyday learning. Here at Leather & Sage, we’re big fans of all things story and folklore so we’ve decided to team up with St. Lawrence’s School…
Flame-fiend, Treasure-Hoarder, Death-dealer, Sheep-Stealer…
So, in the interest of education (and dragon safety), we have challenged St. Lawrence’s courageous Year 4 class to write dragon poems composed of kennings for this month’s Penasium - and we’ve asked them to draw a picture to help us identify the naughty dragons terrorising the Long Mynd while they’re at it!
We will select two winners from the entries whose poems will be published on our website on March 11th.
We wish the brave students of year 4 the best of luck - and watch out for those fire-breathers. To everyone else, we hope you can get involved and send us your best draconic kennings!