Below Lucifer Falls this quiet water flows beneath a bridge linking Gorge and Rim trails. The reflection of blue sky between river trees brings to mind the kenning “Swan-Road.” To me it is more fitting than the established meaning: “The Sea,” also associated more appropriately with Whale-Road.
The seldom used English verb “ken.” The Oxford English dictionary proposed the word was borrowed from Norse based on a confluence of meaning, i.e. to know. When it is turned into a noun with the -ing ending, it is a phrase that brings to mind and object described.
Other kennings from : “Whale road = sea (e.g., a place where whales travel); Treasure seat = throne (e.g., the source of treasure or reward, or the role of the king in rewarding his men); Ring giver, ring breaker = king (e.g., the person who bestows rings, or breaks off a piece of his golden bracelet as a reward); Sword sleep = death (e.g., a “sleep” caused by a sword wound); Rapture of heaven = sun (e.g., the sun, brightest of heavenly objects, the joy of heaven); Weaver of peace = wife (e.g., a person whose grace and mildness instills peace, or one who creates domestic tranquility); Earl’s defense = Beowulf (e.g., the one who defends Hrothgar); Mead seats = benches in Heorot (e.g., the places where people sit and drink).”
Click Me for a master work of English poetry that employs kenning forms, “The Porcupine” by Galway Kinnell.
References:
–text in italics and quotes is from the eNotes.com, “Beowulf.”
–Kinnell, Galway. “The Porcupine.” The Hudson Review 20, no. 2 (1967): 219–22.
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 
I, also, like the name, Swan Road.
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