Last week several comments came up regarding Tolkien's tendency to give
everything more than one name, and how confusing it is to keep them all
straight. (The mountain of Taniquetil was one example with at least four
names referenced.) As I was looking through Wikipedia for a reference to the
Norse god, Odin, I came across a reference to the Norse bardic tradition of
kennings, a poetic method where a person, a place or an object was
referred to indirectly, almost like a riddle. This is followed by three
paragraphs of alternate names for Odin!
Knowing of Tolkien's love of Nordic mythology, do you think that this might
have been at least part of the reason Tolkien indulged himself in coming up
with so many names for some entities? Can anyone comment on kenning for
us?
A fairytale is not an allegory. There may be allegory in it, but it is not an allegory. He must be an artist indeed who can, in any mode, produce a strict allegory that is not a weariness to the spirit. An allegory must be Mastery or Moorditch. A fairytale, a sonata, a gathering storm, a limitless night, seizes you and sweeps you away: do you begin at once to wrestle with it and ask whence its power over you, whither it is carrying you?
~"The Fantastic Imagination" George MacDonald 1893
