Page "Kenning" Paragraph 12

Another factor aiding comprehension is that Old Norse kennings tend to be highly conventional.

Most refer to the same small set of topics, and do so using a relatively small set of traditional metaphors.

Thus a leader or important man will be characterised as generous, according to one common convention, and called an " enemy of gold ", " attacker of treasure ", " destroyer of arm-rings ", etc.

and a friend of his people.

Nevertheless there are many instances of ambiguity in the corpus, some of which may be intentional, and some evidence that, rather than merely accepting it from expediency, skalds favoured contorted word order for its own sake.