I'm not certain of this particular case, but there are a number of kennings
that equate men
with trees or refer to undertakings of men in arboreal terms, with war host
as forest of spears, etc.

>From: "Eysteinn Bjornsson" <eysteinn@...>
>Reply-To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
>To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: [norse_course] Re: Dasent's Njal translation of a different
>manuscript
>Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 12:51:41 -0000
>
>"Fred and Grace Hatton" wrote:
>
> > including a line talking about Lord of the rings.
>
>Not exactly - it is "lord of rings" which would be
>a run-of-the-mill man-kenning. But actually, there
>is no such thing in the stanza - where Dasent uses
>"lord" the original actually says "elm-tree" ....
>
>Beware of translations of skaldic poetry, especially
>the old ones. Usually they only vaguely resemble the
>originals, and often contain serious blunders in
>translation.
>
>Best wishes,
>Eysteinn
>
>
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>
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