Comments by ssl

  • Kenning I now finally understand the lines from one of the stanzas of Michael Drayton's "Ode to the Virginian Voyage":

    In kenning of the shore,

    Thanks to God first given,

    O you, the happiest men,

    Be frolic then!

    Let cannons roar

    Frighting the wide heaven.

    In other words, as you come within sight of the shore, celebrate!

    I also remember examples of Norse and Anglo-Saxon kennings, such as "thong of the footpath" for snake, and "sorrow of the thong of the footpath" for winter, which snakes don't like.

    May 29, 2013

  • The fortune-teller's house and garden, or, as Marshall McLuhan once said, "The medium's is the messuage."

    January 30, 2013