Senna is a form of

Eddic poetry The ''Poetic Edda'' is the modern name for an untitled collection of Old Norse anonymous narrative poems, which is distinct from the ''Prose Edda'' written by Snorri Sturluson. Several versions exist, all primarily of text from the Icelandic med ...

consisting of an exchange of insults between participants, ranging from the use of expletives to accusing an opponent of moral or sexual impropriety. It traditionally existed in an oral form, with the

skald A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: , later ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry, the other being Eddic poetry, which is anonymous. Skaldic poems were traditionally ...

Þórarinn Stuttfeldr once describing the poetry of his opponent as being like ''leirr ens gamla ara'', 'the mud of the old eagle', literally claiming that his poetry was like dung. Moreover, Þórarinn Stuttfeldr makes a reference to the myth of the

Mead of Poetry In Norse mythology, the Poetic Mead or Mead of Poetry, also known as Mead of Suttungr, is a mythical beverage that whoever "drinks becomes a skald or scholar" able to recite any information and solve any question. This myth was reported by Snorri ...

, in which

Odin Odin (; from non, Óðinn, ) is a widely revered Æsir, god in Germanic paganism. Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about him, associates him with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, v ...

, in shape of an eagle, defecates a part of the stolen mead which becomes the mead of the rhymesters, and thus stands for bad poetry in general. There are also numerous written examples of ''senna'' in Old Norse-Icelandic literature, including ''

Ölkofra þáttr ''Ölkofra þáttr'' (also known as ''Ölkofra saga''), the "Tale of Ölkofri" or the "Tale of Ale-Hood", is a þáttr, a minor Old Norse prose genre related to the sagas of Icelanders. Preserved in the 14th-century manuscript known as ''Möðruvall ...

'' (''The Tale of the Ale-Hood'') in which a carpenter is accused of setting fire to the wood of six powerful chieftains while burning charcoal, and the eddic poem ''

Lokasenna ''Lokasenna'' (Old Norse: 'The Flyting of Loki', or 'Loki's Verbal Duel') is one of the poems of the ''Poetic Edda''. The poem presents flyting between the gods and Loki. It is written in the ljóðaháttr metre, typical for wisdom verse. ''Lo ...

'', which consists of a duel of words between

Loki Loki is a god in Norse mythology. According to some sources, Loki is the son of Fárbauti (a jötunn) and Laufey (mentioned as a goddess), and the brother of Helblindi and Býleistr. Loki is married to Sigyn and they have two sons, Narfi or Na ...

and several other

Norse gods Norse is a demonym for Norsemen, a medieval North Germanic ethnolinguistic group ancestral to modern Scandinavians, defined as speakers of Old Norse from about the 9th to the 13th centuries. Norse may also refer to: Culture and religion * Nors ...

, and in which Loki accuses the other gods of sexual misdeeds.

References

External links

Lokasenna (translation)
Eddic poetry {{poetry-stub