The ‘Wind of the Giantess’: Snorri Sturluson, Rudolf Meissner, and the Interpretation of Mythological Kennings along Taxonomic Lines

Abstract

A number of kennings in the extant corpus of skaldic poetry collocate a term for wind with a term for a giantess, the resultant referent identified by Snorri Sturluson in Skaldskaparmal as hugr, though that term is itself exemplified by Snorri in three wide-ranging lists of terms denoting desire, passion, and hostility. In his taxonomy of kenning types, Rudolf Meissner gathered together ‘wind of the giantess’ kennings and identified their referent as Sinn. A number of the examples in Meissner’s list, however, are based on Finnur Jonsson’s emended texts, necessitating a close examination of the manuscript evidence in each case. The analysis presented in this article places the ‘wind of the giantess’ kennings in the context of the well-attested kenning type ‘wind of the valkyrie’ in order to explore how the collocation of affect with a supernatural female figure appears to have operated in the skaldic imagination. While some of the examples in Meissner’s group suggest the referent ‘desire’, others seem to r...