Skaldic poetry uses a variety of circumlocutions, such as kennings. A kenning uses a phrase as a metaphor to represent an idea. The usual form is a noun, qualified by another noun in the genitive case. For instance sweat of the sword is used to mean blood, or horse of the sea to mean ship. Some of the kennings can only be understood by someone with an extensive knowledge of the culture and of the great stories.
Kennings can have multiple levels.
Some kennings take the form of puns, such as using sky of the eel to represent ice in identifying someone as an Icelander. The form of Norse poetry is complicated. The need to fit strict rules of alliteration and rhyming and rhythm result in verses in which multiple ideas are being formed simultaneously. This concept is illustrated on the skaldic stanza page. Norse visual arts share this property.