Kenning construal as a criterion for the stemmatic analysis of the Codex Upsaliensis in the transmission of 'Snorra Edda'

This study analyses the "mead of poetry" idiom as having historically coalesced within a much broader analogical equation between semiosis and liquids. The rather rigid idiom of the kenning construction is contextualized amid an array of expressions both within Old Norse and within cognate Indo-European discursive genres. Archaic Greek and Vedic poetic genres both contain striking analogies to the cognitive and verbal components behind the analogy, particularly with regard to the intuitive acquisition of expert verbal skills within an a-literate cultural milieu.