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## B ATTLE AS A SACRED GAME

Flavia Teoc Aarhus University flaviateoc@yahoo.com

## Abstract

In my research, I propose a linguistic approach to skaldic praise poetry pursued and explained in the framework of Eugeniu Coseriu´s text linguistics. My study aims to demonstrate the different degrees of integration of battle 's proper meaning, from a calculated strategy in pre-Christian poems, to performing a sacred game in later Christian skaldic poems and eventually to the insertion in a ready-made structure as  a  unit  of  repeated  speech.  Considering  kenning  metaphors  as  sequences  of repeated  speech,  I  will  also  investigate  to  what  extent  the  idiocultural  class  of battle ,  employed  in  some  biblical  circumstances  (1  Corinthians  9:24.26;  2 Timothy:2-5; 2 Timothy 4-7, etc.), suggests a cultural model engaged in a semantic tension with the old Norse setting of the eleventh century. In my study, I will identify and discuss the sequences of repeated speech (kennings) which designate the battle and I will clarify these tensions. Taking the theory of repeated speech as a point of departure,  the  discussion  of  these  issues  will  be  structured  around  three  types  of kennings for battle: battle is storm, battle is senna (fierce verbal duels) ,  battle is a game to play .

Keywords :  Text  linguistics,  skaldic  praise  poetry,  repeated  speech,  kennings, semantic tension

## 1. The conceptual framework

The theory of language created by Eugeniu Coseriu provides all the main elements  for  analysing  a  language  at  all  its  levels.  The  foundation  of Coseriu´s  theory  on  language  is  given  by  the  tripartition  of  the  planes  of language and it includes three theories: of speaking, of the particular language, and of text (Kabatek and Murguía 1997:159). The linguistics of text is of great interest  for  the  linguists  who  studied  Coseriu´s  theory  on  language.  The specific object of linguistics of text, as a hermeneutics of understanding, is this superior level of meaning.

The starting point of Coseriu's integral linguistics lies in the insufficiency of the Saussurian dichotomy between langue and parole (Coseriu 2004/1962:44),  instead  of  which  Coseriu  proposes  a  three-part  approach  to

## Scandinavian Studies in Language, 14(2), 2023 (104-116)

language/speaking: (a) designatum , which constitutes the reference to reality; (b) significatum , which represents the content of a sign or expression in a given language; (c) sense , which defines the content of a text, meaning what the text expresses beyond designation and the signified. These three linguistic aspects converge simultaneously within the same act of speech, forming together the semantic content that is usually termed as proper meaning.

The units of the repeated speech have been classified by Coseriu, in order to render the possibilities of their varied combinations in accordance with the structural level at which they combine with one another, and according to the levels where they are commutable: the equivalence of words (which can be combined at the level of the discourse but they can also be replaced by more appropriate  words);  the  equivalence  of  syntagma , which  can  be  combined during  acts  of  speech.  They  are  commutable  with  other  expressions,  for example, 'early starts make easy stages' which is equivalent to 'the early bird catches  the  worm');  and  the  third  category,  equivalence  of  discourse,  which contains metaphorical expressions and proverbs, units of the repeated discourse which are compatible with other discourses or whole texts only at the level of the discourse or text (Coseriu, 2013:122).

## 2. What is a kenning?

I will address this problem with reference to literary examples from Old Norse  skaldic  poetry.  The  metaphors  in  question  are  called kennings ,  a poetical periphrase such as a battle being described as a storm. Roberta Frank (1978) underlined that only taken together do the two components of  a  kenning  reach  the  full  force  of  the  concept  they  are  to  replace.  As Bergsveinn Birgisson (2012) explained, pre-Christian examples within this classification are ingrained with an aesthetic concept independent of the Greco-Roman  aesthetic  tradition,  thus  rendering  the  oldest  corpus  of skaldic  poetry  a  unique  theoretical  value  in  terms  of  metaphor  theory. Understanding  the  nature  of  a  kenning  is  a  central  task  of  anyone  who wishes to achieve an understanding of the textual sense of a skaldic poem. As might be assumed in the case of a skaldic praise poem, the kenning metaphor  for battle is  an  overwhelming  presence.  In  approaching  the subject, we are immediately confronted by the challenge of the nature of language and the context in which talk about battle is found.

Assessing  the  poetical  nature  of  the  kenning  starts  with  an understanding that the text of the poem is an expression of a particular

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historical  and  cultural  context  in  time.  Any  skaldic  poem  participates within this kind of a context but does not depict it all. It presents arguments and positions, but it does not provide the reader with the full vision of the mythical, religious, and cultural context. Our task becomes one of looking at  the  symbolic  language  used  in  speaking  of  battle.  In  dealing  with expressions, we reflect upon the way in which concepts are captured in language in a form that is necessarily symbolic due to the use of language itself.

## 3. What is repeated speech?

According to Coseriu all languages are historical techniques of discourse, and they belong to the tradition of each distinctive culture (Coseriu, 2013:120). Tradition also includes language already spoken - fragments of ready-made discourse that can be re-used, often as idioms distinct from the formal usage of the language. By approaching the repeated speech from a semantic perspective, I want to explore the creative potential of kennings for battle , as well as the procedures and functions on the basis of which these units contribute to the creation of meaning in skaldic poetry.

The steady point of any analysis regarding a cultural pattern is the axiom that in the deepest meaning of a text there is a stylistic matrix which represents  an  imprint  of  a  complex  vision.  As  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt asserted, sounds do not become words until a meaning has been placed into them, and this meaning encapsulates the mental map of a community (von Humboldt 2000/1836). In the broad field  of  Coserian  linguistics,  a  text represents the product of the individual level of speech (Coseriu 2013:121; Teoc 2013:147). Referring to the text linguistics as a hermeneutics of sense, Coseriu  suggested  that there is no universally valid technique for interpreting a text, since we are never capable of foreseeing what sorts of sign-relations are activated:

If we want to consider a particular text in its individuality, we can never know in advance what kind of sign-relations can be established within it. It is really possible just to draw up a list of the general possibilities at the disposal of the one who produces a text in order to make sense. But we are talking about an open  list.  We  will  always  be  able  to  record  in  our  list  completely  new possibilities of semiotic articulation in interpreting a new text, for there is no mechanical  method  to  enumerate  or  predict  all  imaginable  possibilities  of achieving the proper meaning. (Coseriu 2013:163)

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Coseriu  distinguishes  two  subcategories  of  repeated  discourse:  repeated speech  and  proverbial  words.  Repeated  speech  concerns  all  that  is communicated as phraseologisms (recurrent lexical idioms such as sayings, proverbs, catch phrases) within the linguistic community and is a form of communication appealing to previous contexts. Proverbial words are small fragments  from  literary  or  non-literary  texts  that  are  extremely  familiar within the linguistic community and can even be reproduced by heart. As for proverbial words, Coseriu holds that the allusion is achieved by relating to  famous  quotations  from  historically  identifiable  authors.  What  is relevant  for  the  purpose  of  this  study  is  the  possibility  to  create  a  new meaning by introducing, in a new text, a reference to already existing texts. In this case, the very familiar texts represent the basis for evocations, while frequently resorting to those texts allows speakers to create new meanings. Manifest in the language as discourse, a kenning substitutes itself for the class of famous quotations, which are framed by certain speech circumstances they evoke when the poetic sense is uttered. The fact that a kenning appears in different macro-texts, which generate multiple interpretations,  represents,  each  time,  an  act  of  re-creation.  Due  to  the reinsertion  processes  which  can  be  applied  to  them,  the  kennings  make possible  the  creation  of  sense  materialised  through  the  change  of  their originary textual functions and the acquisition of new semantic functions (relations), despite their conventional (repeated) nature.

## 4. Battle is storm

My argumentation will focus on an examination of the metaphors for battle, as presented by Snorri Sturluson in Skáldskaparmál (Brodeur trad., 1916), and it will develop to the study-case when the battle is  periphrased as a game  to play .  Contemporary  thought  has  come  to  recognise  that,  in considering  the  application  of  language  to  kenning  metaphors,  Snorri Sturlusson's Skáldskaparmál (The  language  of  Poetry)  reveals  a  pagan vision of the world expressed in kennings in which the terms mirror the knowledge of the Viking world and the general principles of its thought. As  we  know,  in  various  parts  of Skáldskaparmál narratives  are  also included to account for the origins of some of the kennings by recounting the myths and legends that were thought to have given rise to them.

In Skáldskaparmál , Snorri Sturluson is perfectly clear about what is a battle . The kennings collected by him under the heading

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Orrostukenningar are based on the notion of stormy battles and contain such  terms  as  veðr  vápna  (storm  of  weapons), gný  (din),  and  glym (clashing). Therefore, ' battle is Storm of Weapons or of Sheltering Shields, or  of  Odin  or  the  Valkyrs,  or  of  Host-Kings;  and  Din  and  Clashing' (Sturluson 1916:44).

According to this reading, what makes the poetic meaning of the kenning  is  the  way  in  which  the  skald  elaborates  the  mapping  of  the metaphorical structure: battle is storm . By exploring the proper meaning of each term battle is a hostile encounter between opposing military forces and, as storm is a heavy fall of rain, snow, or hail, or a violent outbreak of thunder  and  lightning,  we  are  able  to  account  for  the  emergence  of  the metaphor as being analogous to the experience of a routine in the Old Norse world.

One example adduced by Langeslag (2002), regarding the storms and  winters  in  Old  Norse  literature,  may  be  considered  to  illustrate  the point.  He  acknowledges  that  Old  Norse  literature  employs  storms  and winter as being closely related to the dangerous supernatural.

There is also a seasonal mythology describing an eastern Scandinavian  dynasty  headed  by  an  individual  named  Fornjótr,  whose descendants - the sea, the fire, and the wind - are said to have ruled the forces of nature referred to in their names. A comparative approach on the affective level regarding the battle as storm can be of some significance: courage, bravery, and heroism are all linked to the battle, while the feeling of  being  defenceless  in  front  of  a  blind  force  of  nature  establishes  a relationship between the hero himself and the dramatism of a fierce battle in  which he is already engaged. In this view, the metaphoric process is oriented towards the semantic specification of some concrete aspects of Old Norse experience, and thus the functional principle within language does not contradict the established cultural pattern.

## 5. Battle is senna

A kenning cannot be presumed to be only analogical or only in respect of the principle of likeness: there is always an additional meaning or a new quality to be revealed. Thus, for our purposes here, we may observe that the image of a battle as storm introduces the idea of battle as a blind force, without any spatial logic, where the main characteristics of the warrior as power, strength, or a calculated strategy are often overthrown. And as we

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will indicate further, in the expression of a kenning, the Viking ruler, due to  his  sacred  status,  is  believed  to  have  a  certain  control  over  the  blind forces of nature. Kingship has, in the Viking world, a sacred posture, where the king is directly responsible not only for the abundance of the harvest but also for the peace of the kingdom (Simek 1996:270).

Correspondingly, when referring to battle as din , by exploring the proper meaning of the term as a loud and violent sound, we are able to account for the emergence of the metaphor as being analogous to senna , the  verbal  duels  generally  assumed  to  originate  in  the  real  practice  of discourse similar to some modern abuse-games. Senna refers precisely to the harshness of this type of verbal duel, well known in the Viking world. The image of a battle as din or senna introduces the idea of battle as an angry linguistic dispute, where the main characteristics of the warrior are a high voice and the ability to make weapons shout.

## 6. Battle is a game to play

What happens in the skaldic poetry starting with the first Christian concepts introduced in the skaldic verse is an unexpected change, which transforms the poems from otherwise fairly analogous to the Old Norse world to one that  is  more  problematic.  We  could  interpret  this  kind  of  change  as  a specific mark of Christian poetry and as a result of a tension. Furthermore, I would emphasise that what Christian skalds do in their poems is to replace the kennings battle is storm and battle is din or senna with the kenning battle is game . When the skalds make use of the metaphor battle is storm, they use it only as a departure point in building up a new poetic vision.

In my opinion, the kenning for battle expressed in the metaphorical structure battle is a game to play is  loaded with meaning by association with the Christian battle between good and evil, when the Kingdom of God has to triumph over all the kingdoms - 'The war between good and evil was not over after Satan's defeat in the premortal life' (Revelation 12) and, despite the violence of this game, it connotes a perfect, blissful state of existence, attainable by men while they are on earth: 'I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith' (2 Timothy 47).  There are also different degrees of integration of the sense from the earlier poems composed by converted skalds to the Christian skalds who composed poetry when they were safe as Christian believers.

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The Old Norse texts I refer to are: Óláfsdrápa (the praise poem for the missionary king Tryggvason), poem composed by Hallfreðr Óttarsson; Erfidrápa  Óláfs  helga (Memorial  drápa  for Saint  Óláfr)  by  Sigvatr Þórðarson; Magnússflokkr (a poem addressed to Magnús Óláfsson, better known as Magnús the Good at some point between 1044 and his death in 1047)  by  Þjóðólfr  Arnórsson;  and  Sturla  Þórðarson 's  Hákonarkviða , composed after the death of king Hákon.

## 7. Analysis of Old Norse texts

## 7.1. Óláfsdrápa

In the last stanza of Óláfsdrápa, the praise poem for the missionary king Olafr Tryggvason, we find one of the earliest occurrences of the kenning battle is a game , where the Norse skald describes Óláfr's Viking exploits before he challenged for rule in Norway.

If  we  consider  the  line:  'The  generous  man  made  sword-game ( sverðleik ) in  Man' (Whaley 2012:387), we must imagine a competitive activity or sport in which players compete with each other according to a set  of  rules.  In  this  context,  the  most  obvious  generic  features  are  a calculated strategy or approach, a schema, or a pattern.

The  point  I  wish  to  make  concerning  the  kenning  sword  game ( sverðleik) is that even if it seems textually unproblematic, semantically it is somewhat enigmatic. Leikr does not actually denote only a game to play but  also  a  competition  that  brings  happiness.  Anthony  Faulkes  (2007) underlines that, apart from a game to play, leikr also means pleasure and happiness.  Whatever  the  case  may  be,  the  compound sverðleik remains unusual because it contains an image in which the battle - defined in pagan poems as a blind storm or a fierce senna , known as the clash of swords and arrows - is mapped now onto the image of a happy game. The genius of this kind of metaphor can be appreciated if we analyse the position of the king regarding the battle.

If  we  take  a  look  at  the  first  line:  'the  generous  man  (set  as  the diminisher of gold) made sword-game ( sverðleik )' we observe that the king is the prime mover, the inducer, the one who provoked the battle as a game to his pagan enemies. We could also assume in the kenning sword game, that battle is a superimposition of the image of a game onto the image of a battle  by  virtue  of  their  rules.  But  what  presents  difficulty  for  our understanding of this metaphor is our conventional knowledge of the kings

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of those times. If we were to see those kings in the way the pagan Vikings did, we would probably create with less effort a mental image of a king inducing the battle - not only being the leader of it. The idea of the ruler having a sacred status in a pre-Christian Scandinavia already mentioned above was still active at the time when this poem was composed, despite King  Olaf  Tryggvason's  conversion  to  Christianity.  The  verses  are composed by Hallfredr vandredaskáld Ottarsson, a skald who seemed to be most dramatically affected by the conversion: 'We must renounce many an anciently-held decree of norns' he complains to the missionary king, Olafr Tryggvason; but the two religions cannot ultimately be reconciled, as Diane Whaley (2000) observes, and the skald makes it clear that one cannot serve Christ and Odin. A closer glance at the other five stanzas of the poem will serve to introduce an additional three kennings for battle: a storm of spears , a storm of the missile-shower , and spear-breeze . In the two last cases, the kennings  are  double  kennings, tvikent, in  which  the  source  is  either  a warrior or a raven; therefore, they are not active as kennings for battle. The first case reveals a passive participation of the skald, in a situation when he learned about the battle, and the battle was described to him as a storm.

I would call this the first stage of integration of the kenning battle is a game to play when the Christian king is inducing both a battle as a storm and a battle as a game to play.

## 7.2. Erfidrápa Óláfs helga

A quarter of a century after Hallfreðr's death, Sighvatr Þórðason - of whose work  nothing  survives  prior  to  his  acceptance  of  Christianity  and  who almost totally renounced mythological allusions in his verse, making him perhaps the first skald to have worked only in a Christian milieu - creates the kenning ísarnleiki : the iron-game in Erfidrápa Óláfs helga (Memorial drápa for Saint Óláfr) (Jesch 2012). The poem covers Óláfr Haraldsson's accession to power, his bringing of order to Norway, and it concentrates on his final battle at Stiklastaðir. Several stanzas remind us of his miracles and the effects of his sanctity. The kenning the iron-game is identified in the second stanza of the memorial poem, when the battle gets fiercer and the king presses forward in the hand-to-hand fighting. Within this context, the contestation between the traditional pagan vedr (storm) and the incoming leik (game) as being at the conceptual heart of a Christian vision of the battle hereby commences.

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While one of the most intriguing yet complicated aspects of this issue  is  the  mental  adaptation  of  Christianity  by  these  northern  pagans (what  did  the  Vikings  know  of  Christianity,  how  did  they  appreciate Christian teaching per se ?) the context of this happy game provides several elements  regarding  the  unicity  of  the  Norse  perception  of  Christianity during the period of conversion. By assessing the image of a Christian king involved  in  the  happy  game  of  a  fierce  battle,  the  opposition  between happiness  and  death  is  solved  by  the  new  metaphorical  structure  that emerges. The additional meaning, or the new quality to be revealed in the newly emergent metaphor, is that King Olafr himself - as a ruler and as saint to be - is involved in the happy game of death, the only gate to the endless and heavenly afterlife.

If  we  are  to  find  such  a  metaphor  explained  in  a  prose  verse, Thorleik Fagri provides an example in his praise poem for Svein Ulfsson 'Yet God can decide again which one will deprive the other of life or lands' (Gade 2017:484) - where he acknowledges that the outcome of the battle is a result of a collaboration between the bravery of the hero and the grace of God, thereby creating the image of a battle as a sacred game. A new mythology of the afterlife, much more potent and formalised than the old beliefs related to battle as a storm controlled by the king, had captured the imagination of Scandinavian poets. This clash seems to gain more contrasttension if we examine other parts of the network.

## 7.3. Magnússflokkr

It is not possible to decide, on the basis of one metaphor, whether the skald Þjóðólfr Arnórsson knew Þórðason's Memorial drapa for Saint Óláfr or not, but the third occurrence of battle as a happy game to play is found in his poem Magnússflokkr, a poem addressed to Magnús the Good, the son of  Saint  Óláfr. The stanza depicts the action in the sea-battle at Aarhus (Áróss, in 1043). In this context, the king Magnús urged his men to clash their shields in the biting sword game. Apparently, the happy game of the biting  sword (Whaley  2009:70)  is  also  a  unique  metaphor  in  his  time, although there is a conceptual rule that a sword is biting. At first glance, the metaphor makes no sense: a battle is likened to a game in which the warriors  are  happy  to  be  bitten.  What  we  rather  sense  is  the  material contrast of happiness and pain bringing forth the association of being cut with  a  sword.  The  analogy  emerges  when  we  visualise  movements  of

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elements . Compressing the two situations into one emergent structure - the swords are biting, and the warriors are happy to play the game of life and death  -  would  inevitably  reveal  both  the  meaning  and  the  intended emotional target of the kenning. In my opinion, the perceived allegorical intent behind the naming of the battle as a happy game of the biting sword is to denominate a common action of the king and his warriors. There is a progression from a reconstruction of battle as a happy game, provoked by a converted Viking king, to a sacred game played by a saint and eventually to  a  happy  game  played  by  the  king  and  his  men  -  all  of  them  sharing Christian beliefs.

These three occurrences together imply that the kenning metaphor battle  is  game takes  hold  only  as  the  Vikings  grew  accustomed  to  a Christian  vision  over  battle,  taking  into  consideration  that  there  are relatively few references of any kind to battle as game before the eleventh century.

## 7.4. Hákonarkviða

The example of leiki hjarar, the game of the sword, from Sturla Þórðarson, Hákonarkviða, works  in  much  the  same  way:  'The  frightful  corpselightnings (SPEARS) flew (...) in the game of sword (BATTLE)' (Gade 2009).  Sturla  Þórðarson  composed Hákonarkviða ' Kviða about  Hákon after the news of Hákon's death, on 16 December 1263. The context creates the scene of the battle when Hakon's men were defending themselves in a churchyard,  throwing  rocks  and  spears  and  shooting  arrows  at  their enemies, many of whom were wounded. The poem is composed in a new literary trend (Gade ibid.) having emerged in skaldic literature during the twelfth  century,  when  authors  were,  as  I  mentioned  above,  secure  in  a Christian ideology.

Moreover, being the fourth occurrence in a skaldic poem, we step on the steady ground of the repeated speech. When the skald used a settled kenning in a new context, they effectively increased their wisdom in a twofold process: first, they allowed themselves to understand a new situation in the context of a previous one; and secondly, since the kenning will not exactly match the new situation, the kenning's meaning will have to be revised and semantically expanded.

Due to the reinsertion processes which can be applied to them, the kennings make possible the creation of sense through a change in their

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original textual functions and through new semantic functions, despite their conventional or repeated nature.

The kenning battle is a happy game , then, is less about itself than about its application to different contexts. Being aware that these kennings demand and characterise an audience that plays a productive part in the interpretive process, these metaphors represent a community's ideals; and these ideals, by their nature, create, according to Humboldt's theory, a new vision.

## 8. Conclusions

Although  the  terms weapon and storm so  often  seem  to  go  together  in skaldic poetry, the kenning metaphor battle is game , already articulated in some  biblical  circumstances  (1  Corinthians  9:24.26;  2  Timothy:2-5;  2 Timothy 4-7, etc.), suggests a new cultural pattern engaged in a semantic tension with the pagan corpus of kennings for battle. In this framework, the kenning battle is game becomes the ground for a new cultural pattern in which the warrior mirrors the fight between good and evil, a pattern built upon the already established cultural model fighting a battle is surviving a storm .

Even if it is easy to identify the common characteristics of the terms that give rise to the kenning battle is a game , the schemas involved reveal different images from within: a Viking king provokes the battle, a Christian king is fighting the battle hand-to-hand, the subjects of a Christian king are playing the game of life and death together with their king, and, finally, the kenning battle is game is repeated as a poetic stereotype or as an allusion to an already existing sequence of known facts. It can also be repeated in a more or less identical form, as a piece of ready-made discourse; and, as a unit  of  skaldic  poetry,  it  will  always  evoke  a  sacred  text  with  a  history which belongs to a Christian cultural tradition. By approaching the repeated speech from a semantic perspective, I have explored the creative potential of kennings for battle ,  as  well as the procedures and functions on the basis of which these units contribute to the creation of meaning in skaldic poetry.

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## Flavia Teoc

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