To shed light on questions pertaining to the similarities and differences between kennings in Old English and in the Poetic Edda, a survey is undertaken of the density of kenning use in the two corpora. The likeliest conclusion to be drawn from a comparison of findings is that the two poetic traditions are rather similar in regard to kenning use. In both traditions, kennings are notably simpler and less riddle-like than in skaldic poetry, though the Edda contains a few kennings of sufficient complexity to suggest skaldic influence. Although kennings, on average, occur more frequently in Old English, the incidence is broadly similar to that in the Poetic Edda. Kennings are not uncommonly explained by the use of variation (apposition) in Old English, but less commonly in the Edda , although the difference does not specifically suggest discrepant attitudes toward kenning use in the two traditions, since variation is rare in the Edda under all circumstances. Although the possibility of the influence of one tradition upon the other cannot be ruled out, the similarities, in the main, are probably best explained as the result of common inheritance. This explanation garners support from the number of instances in which more or less precise cognate kennings appear in the two bodies of literature.

中文翻译：

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肯宁斯在古英语诗歌和诗意的埃达中

为了阐明与古英语和诗意的埃达语中的名词之间的异同有关的问题，我们对这两种语料库中的名词使用密度进行了一项调查。从发现的比较中得出的最可能的结论是，这两种诗歌传统在词缀使用方面相当相似。在两种传统中，肯宁语都明显比斯凯利特诗歌更简单，更不像谜语，尽管埃达包含了一些足够复杂的词根，以暗示斯凯利德的影响。虽然平均而言，语在古英语中更频繁地出现，但其发生率与诗意的埃达语大致相似。肯宁斯在古英语中并不经常通过使用变体（并置）来解释，但在爱达（Edda）中则较不常见，尽管这种差异并没有特别表明这两种传统中对肯宁使用的态度有所不同，但是由于在所有情况下Edda都很少出现这种差异。尽管不能排除一种传统对另一种传统产生影响的可能性，但从根本上讲，相似性最好是由共同继承的结果来最好地解释。这种解释在两个文献中都出现了或多或少精确的同源肯宁现象的实例中得到了支持。