Blood is "battle-sweat"
A ship is a "plank-horse"
The sea is a "whale-road"
A sword is a "battle-icicle"
Gold is "fire of the sea"
The sun is a "sky-candle"
And poetry itself? "Odin's mead." 2/7
#Kennings #OldNorse #Skaldic

This stanza is about one of the sons of Ragnarr Loðbrók, Bjǫrn Ironside. Some daring 'sons of [a feminine] Loðbrók' are mentioned in #Maeshowe runor.raa.se/inscription?.... Clearly a topic of discussion in #medieval #Orkney #runic #skaldic

Happy #Skaldic New Year to all who celebrate!

More #skaldic good news!

🕯️🐾 RUNE OF THE OTTER-BEAVER
Hear this, river-folk and watchers of the wild:
swift as current, steady as stone.
Builder of lodges, breaker of dams,
In their whiskers lives joy,
in their paws, the calm of flowing worlds.
River guardian of the Codex.
🙏🙂‍↕️

#Runes #Skaldic #PagansOfBluesky #WitchFolk

Hel and Charon

Hel of the Quiet Hall,
Charon of the Silent Oar—
death’s queen and death’s ferryman,
two lights in the dark.
He carries all; she keeps all.
Between them blooms a love
that outlives All. ❄️🛶💛

#Pagan #Witchcraft #FolkMagic #Norse #Underworld #DeathGoddess #MythicLove #WitchTok #PaganPoetry #Skaldic

Hoder's Song: An alliterative poem describing a scene from the Poetic Edda ... Our hostess sits, / Loki's daughter, lours at her guests, / the waifs and wanderers, the withered dead ...

Here's one of @mathjones.bsky.social's Norse-style poems about the gods of Asgard. Always, the mistletoe is waiting.

alliteration.net/poetry/hoders-song/ #alliterative #poetry #Norse #Viking #skaldic #alliterativeverse #poetrysky

In this #skaldic stanza from the 12th century, 'neighbour of the sausage' is used as a derogatory term for an Icelander skaldic.org/m.php?p=vers...

The poem as ship - nice! Even fragments can be interesting. #skaldic

The Death of Bowie Gizzardsbane: A Poem in Alliterative Verse by John Myers Myers Bowie, the war-wise winner of battles, Laid out by fever, lost his first combat,

I assume you know this one? @denniswise.bsky.social has said, I believe, that this poem from John Myers Myers' Silverlock may be the most popular alliterative poem of the 20th century.

alliteration.net/poetry/the-d... #aliteration #poem #skaldic #poetry #norse #poet #Silverlock #alliterativeverse

Recently, I’ve seen some controversy on the web about the relationship between #rap and #skaldic verse. Claim: The Vikings invented rap. Their version of rap battles were called flytings. Reaction: This is racist. There is absolutely no historical connection. So this is a thread about that …

Snorri Sturluson's (medieval #Icelandic poet) #kennings for

"poetry":
Yggr's booty
the waves of Harr's hall-barrel

"gold":
the gleam of the grip
otter-payment

"hand":
the many-meadowed elbow realm
the backward-bending feller of the lagoon

#skaldic #iceland #kenning
skaldic.org/m.php?p=kenn...

3 skaldic poems and a rant about form Knowing the rules of form isn't the same as knowing what it wants.

James Hart on Viking verse and the spirit of a poetic form.

pennywagers.substack.com/p/3-skaldic-...
#poetry #alliteration #poem #Skaldic #alliterativeverse

The three big books on the table are GKS 1015 fol., Tormod Torfæus' translation of #Flateyjarbók into Danish. Interesting to see that he chickened out of translating the #skaldic stanzas - the photo here is from ch. 20 of #Orkneyingasaga