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| 27 entries
found in Modern kennings |
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| Amazone river | Heimsósæð (The aorta of the world) |
| Appenines | Leggskóhryggur (The mountain ridge on the boot of Italy.) |
| big bang | ginnungahvellur |
| braille | haðarrúnir (The runes of the blind god Höður. The Icelandic word ‘blindaletur’ isn’t extreme enough.) |
| calcium | beinstál (bone-steel) |
| carbon nanotubes | gleipnishólkar, gleipniskol (The molecular-sized strong fibers made of carbon, which were discovered in 1992. Many scientist have stated that nanotubes are the strongest possible fibers. No element heavier or lighter than carbon can be transformed into a fibrous structure of similar strenght. The sunstance is named after gleipnir, the almost unbreakable and very fine thread used to chain the wolf Fenrir.) |
| Caucasian Mountains | Reyfisfjöllin (The mountains of the “Fleece”, the “Golden Fleece”) |
| Chinese | Yrmildabóndi (caterpillar-farmer) |
| chromium | brynskin (Means armour-shine. Chromium is the hardest metal (9 on Mohs scale) and has the brightest lustre. It is used as a protective outer layer.) |
| eskimo | Eiríkslappi (The laps of Eric the Red) |
| flash | þórsljós (Thor’s light, also in the sense of ‘lamp for providing momentary light to take a photograph’.) |
| fool’s gold | hræsnistár Freyju (the crocodile tears of Freyja, pyrite (FeS)) |
| Hailey’s comet | illsviti Haralds (The bad omen of Harald. The Bayeux Tapestry, an embroidery recording the events of the invasion and the eventual Battle of Hastings, featured the comet, shown in the top left-hand corner in the picture. The comet, described at the time as, ‘the comet-star’, was seen as a bad omen. On the tapestry, an attendant tells King Harold, who unrightfully claimed the English throne, of the appearance of the comet. He was defeated at Hastings later that year. It was believed that the comet was a sign of God's wrath at Harold.) |
| Himalayas | Gnæfagnípur |
| Iridiscence | ásbrúarglit (The shine of bifrost) |
| miss world | Freyja Miðgarðs |
| mister world | Baldur Miðgarðs |
| molotov-cocktail | múspellsmilska |
| natural selection | Nornasáldin (The norns decided the fates of all living beings. Natural selection is often compared to a sieve, the sieve of life.) |
| nuclear winter | agnarökkur (The obscuration by particles of dust.) |
| octopus | sleipnissmokkur (has eight tentacles) |
| ozone | 1) þórsblámi (Means ‘Thors blue’. Ozone is formed from oxygen by electrical discharges in the air and its fresh smell can sometimes be sensed at the place where ligtening impacted. In opposite to common diatomic oxygen, ozone is a blue gas.)
2) leifturangan (The smell of lightening. After a heavy thunderstorm, the fresh smell of ozone can be sensed) |
| plutonium | 1) heljarblý
2) kjarngull (Means ‘nuclear gold’. Substances, valuable to men are often compared to gold as appears from some alternative designations: e.g. the black gold (coal), the liquid gold (gasoline), the soft gold (fur) and so on. This way of name-giving is also applicable to plutonium for it was the first and still is the most important element used in nuclear power industry. Uranium was known before people knew about its fissionability.) |
| Sahara desert | Þurrgarður (Þurr = dry + garður, derived from Ásgarður, Miðgarður, Útgarður |
| sulphur | surtsgull (The gold of Surtr. (Surtr means ‘the black’ and for some time the christians of Iceland have been using the name to designate Satan. The christian idea of a buring after-world rather evokes the image of Múspellsheimr, the reign of the fire-giant Surtr, than the Hel of Nordic mythology.) |
| unicorn | geirfákur (spear-horse) |
| uranium | áablý (Means ‘forefather-lead’. Metallic element having the two heaviest of the three so-called parent isotopes, which could also be called forefathers in the radioactive series. I used the term ‘áablý’ (forefather lead) because the planet-name Uranus, from which the name of the element is derived, was originally the name of the forefather of all Greek gods.) |
