doubtless

(gen. -rs or -s, pl. -rar or -ar), m. apple-tree.

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rs, m. pl. rar, [O. H. G. aphaltrâ; A. S. apuldre; Dan. abild; Swed. apel], doubtless a southern word, the inflective syllable dr being a mutilation of ‘tré,’ arbor, a word now almost extinct in Germany, (for a homely, common word such as ‘tré’ could not have been corrupted in the native tongue);—apaldr thus, etymologically as well as properly, means an apple-tree; fruits and fruit-trees were doubtless imported into Scandinavia from abroad; the word appears only in the later heroic poems, such as the Hkv. Hjörv. 6; the verses in Sdm. 5 are in a different metre from the rest of the poem, and probably interpolated, Fas. i. 120; epli á apaldri, Sks. 106; tveir apaldar (with the radical r dropped), Fas. iii. 60; apaldrs flúr, Karl. 200, 311: as the etymological sense in the transmuted word soon got lost, a fresh pleonastic compound was made, viz. apaldrs-tré.

COMPDS: apaldrsgarðr, apaldrsklubba, apaldrstré.

f. chief defendantship or prosecutorship.

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older form aðilð, pl. ir, f. [root aðal], v. the following word aðili. It doubtless originally meant chiefdom, headship, but it only occurs in the limited legal sense of chief-prosecutorship or defendantship, and this only, as it seems, in Icel. not in Norse law. It is a standing word in the Icel. codes and histories of the Commonwealth. It became obsolete after the year 1272, and does not occur in the codes Jb. or Js. In early times there were no public prosecutions or lawsuits; the aðild devolved together with the erfð ( heirship) on the principal male heir, if of age; erfð and aðild go together, the first as a right, the last as an incumbent duty, like an English trusteeship; til erfðar ok aðiðar, Eb. ch. 38. In the year 993 a law was passed to the effect that male heirs under sixteen years of age should be exempted from aðild, neither should heiresses ever be aðili. In such cases the aðild devolved on the next male heir above sixteen years of age, who then got a fee for executing this duty, Bs. i. 675. The aðild also could be undertaken by a delegate, called at fara með handselda sök, sök handseld, vörn handseld, fara með sök, carry on a suit, etc., v. Grágás Vs. ch. 35, (of aðild in a case of manslaughter,) and in many other places ; Eb. ch. 38, Bs. i. 675 (Rs. in fine), Bjarn. (in fine), Njála, and many others: v. Dasent, Introd. to Burnt Njal.

COMPD: aðilðarmaðr.

að, [sifjar], a law term, to cut off from one’s ‘sib,’ alienate from one’s family, renounce; gefa má maðr vingjafir at sér lifanda, hest eða yxn, vápn eða þvílíka grfpi, ok afsifjar (Cod. A reads afsitjar, but doubtless wrongly) hann sér þó at sex skynsömum mönnum þyki eigi arfsvik gör við erfingja, Jb. 163, D. N. i. 141, Pál Vidal. p. 84. The word appears to be a Norse law term, and does not occur in the laws of the Icel. Commonwealth, but came into use with the code Jb.

n. [argr, craven, and fas = flas by dropping the l (?); flas, n. means praecipitatio, and flasa, að, precipitare, which are common words; this etymology is confirmed by the spelling of the word in Gþl. 188, where some of the MSS. have faas or fias, the last is perh. a false reading = flas; fas, n. gait, manner, is a modern word: v. Pál Vídal. in Skýr.; his etymology, however, is doubtless bad], a law term, a feint, a cowardly assault, an aiming at one’s body and drawing deadly weapons without carrying the threat into effect, termed ‘a coward’s assault;’ in Icel. it was punishable by fjörbaugsgarðr, cp. Grág.; ef maðr mundar til manns ok stöðvar sjálfr, ok varðar fjörbaugsgarð, ok á hinn eigi vígt í gegn ( the injured party must not kill the offender on the spot) skal stefna heiman ok kveðja til níu heimilisbúa þess á þingi er sóttr er, Vsl. ch. 90: ef maðr hleypr at manni, ok heldr hann sér sjálfr; þat er a. ok er þat sektalaust (liable to no punishment, only a dishonourable act; so the Norse law), N. G. L. i. 164, Gþl. 188.

n. bread; hleifr brauðs, a loaf of bread.

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n. [A. S. bread; Engl. bread; Germ. brod; Dan. bröd]. This word, which at present has become a household word in all branches of the Teutonic, was in early times unknown in its present sense: Ulf. constantly renders αρτος as well as ψωμίον by hlaibs; Engl. loaf; A. S. hlâf; the old A. S. poetry also has hlâf, and the old heathen Scandin. poems only hleifr, Hm. 40, 51, Rm. 4, 28. In Engl. also, the words lord, lady,—A. S. hlâford, hlâfdige, which properly mean loaf-warder, loaf-maid,—bear out the remark, that in the heathen age when those words were formed, breâd, in the sense of panis, was not in use in England; in old A. S. the word is only used in the compd beobreâd of the honeycomb (Gr. κηρίον), cp. Engl. bee-bread; O. H. G. bibrod; Germ. bienenbrod; and this seems to be the original sense of the word. The passage in which doubtless the Goths used ‘braud,’ Luke xxiv. 42—the only passage of the N. T. where κηρίον occurs—is lost in Ulf. Down to the 9th century this word had not its present sense in any Teut. dialect, but was, as it seems, in all of them used of the honeycomb only. The Icel. calls thyme ‘bráð-björg’ or ‘broð-björg’ (sweet food?); cp. the Lat. ‘redolentque thymo fragrantia mella;’ the root of ‘brauð’ is perhaps akin to the Lat. ‘fragrare.’ The transition from the sense of honeycomb to that of bread is obscure: in present usage the ‘bread’ denotes the substance, ‘loaf’ the shape; b. ok smjör, Eg. 204; b. ok kál, Mar.; heilagt b., Hom. 137; the Icel. N. T. (freq.)

2. food, hence metaph. living, esp. a parsonage, (mod.) The cures in Icel. are divided into þinga-brauð and beneficia.

1) always, ever, = ei, æ;

2) not, = ei, eigi;

ey manni þat veit, no man knows.

(gen. eyjar, dat. ey and eyju; pl. eyjar), f. an island.

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gen. eyjar; dat. eyju and ey, with the article eyinni and eyjunni; acc. ey; pl. eyjar, gen. eyja, dat. eyjum; in Norway spelt and proncd. öy; [Dan. öe; Swed. ö; Ivar Aasen öy; Germ. aue; cp. Engl. eyot, leas-ow, A. S. êg-land, Engl. is-land; in Engl. local names -ea or -ey, e. g. Chels-ea, Batters-ea, Cherts-ey, Thorn-ey, Osn-ey, Aldern-ey, Orkn-ey, etc.]:—an island, Fas. ii. 299, Skálda 172, Eg. 218, Grág. ii. 131, Eb. 12; eyjar nef, the ‘neb’ or projection of an island, Fb. iii. 316.

2. in various compds; varp-ey, an island where wild birds lay eggs; eyði-ey, a deserted island; heima-ey, a home island; bæjar-ey, an inhabited island; út-eyjar, islands far out at sea; land-eyjar, an island in an inlet, Landn.: a small island close to a larger one is called a calf (eyjar-kálfr), the larger island being regarded as the cow, (so the southernmost part of the Isle of Man is called the Calf of Man): it is curious that ‘islanders’ are usually not called eyja-menn ( islandmen), but eyjar-skeggjar, m. pl. ‘island-beards;’ this was doubtless originally meant as a nickname to denote the strange habits of islanders, Fas. i. 519 (in a verse), Fær. 151, 656 C. 22, Fms. ii. 169, viii. 283, Grett. 47 new Ed.; but eyja-menn, m. pl., Valla L. 228, Eb. 316 (and in mod. usage), cp. also Götu-skeggjar, the men of Gata, a family, Landn.; eyja-sund, n. a sound or narrow strait between two islands, Eg. 93, Fms. ii. 64, 298.

3. in local names: from the shape, Lang-ey, Flat-ey, Há-ey, Drang-ey: from cattle, birds, beasts, Fær-eyjar, Lamb-ey, Sauð-ey, Hrút-ey, Yxn-ey, Hafr-ey, Svín-ey, Kið-ey, Fugl-ey, Arn-ey, Æð-ey, Má-ey, Þern-ey, Úlf-ey, Bjarn-ey: from vegetation, Eng-ey, Akr-ey, Við-ey, Brok-ey, Mos-ey: from the quarters of heaven, Austr-ey, Norðr-ey, Vestr-ey, Suðr-ey (Engl. Sudor): an island at ebb time connected with the main land is called Örfiris-ey, mod. Öffurs-ey (cp. Orfir in the Orkneys): from other things, Fagr-ey, Sand-ey, Straum-ey, Vé-ey ( Temple Isle), Eyin Helga, the Holy Isle (cp. Enhallow in the Orkneys). Eyjar is often used κατ ἐξοχήν of the Western Isles, Orkneys, Shetland, and Sudor, hence Eyja-jarl, earl of the Isles (i. e. Orkneys), Orkn. (freq.); in southern Icel. it is sometimes used of the Vestmanna eyjar.

β. in old poets ey is a favourite word in circumlocutions of women, vide Lex. Poët.; and in poetical diction ey is personified as a goddess, the sea being her girdle, the glaciers her head-gear; hence the Icel. poetical compd ey-kona. For tales of wandering islands, and giants removing islands from one place to another, vide Ísl. Þjóðs. i. 209.

4. in female pr. names, Þór-ey, Bjarg-ey, Landn.: but if prefixed—as in Eyj-úlfr, Ey-steinn, Ey-mundr, Ey-vindr, Ey-dís, Ey-fríðr, Ey-vör, Ey-þjófr, etc.—ey belongs to a different root.

COMPD: eyjaklasi.

or fjorð, adv. [early Germ. fert, used by Luther, but obsolete in mod. Germ.; Swed. and Dan. fjord; cp. Sansk. parut]:—the past year; in Icel. this word is obsolete, and scarcely ever occurs in old prose writers; but the mod. ‘í fyrra’ is derived or corrupted from an older phrase ‘í fjörð,’ which is still used all over the Scandin. continent; in D. N. ‘í fjörð’ repeatedly occurs, cp. Fr.; the ‘fjörð’ in the following passages—Hkr. i. 186, Fms. ii. 328, vi. 88, Fs. 95 (Hallfred), all of them poems of the 10th and 11th centuries—is doubtless to be taken in this sense; and the explanation given in Lex. Pool., s. v. fjörð and following, cannot be right.

(pl. hundruð), n. hundred; tírœtt h. = 100; tólfrœtt h. = 120; hundruðum, by (in) hundreds; as value, one hundred and twenty ells of the stuff wadmal; h. frítt, a hundred paid in cattle; tólf hundruð mórend, twelve hundred in dark-striped wadmal; hundrað silfrs, ? the silver value of 120 ells (= 20 ounces).

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n. pl. hundruð; the form hund- (q. v.) only occurs in a few old compd words: [Goth. hunda, pl.; A. S. hund; O. H. G. hunt; the extended form in Hel. and old Frank, hundered; Germ. hundert; Dan. hundrede; Swed. hundra; the inflexive syllable is prob. akin to - ræðr in átt-ræðr]:—a hundred; the Scandinavians of the heathen time (and perhaps also all Teutonic people) seem to have known only a duo-decimal hundred (= 12 × 10 or 120); at that time 100 was expressed by tíu-tíu, cp. Ulf. taihun-taihund = ten-teen; Pal Vídalín says,—hundrað tólfrætt er sannlega frá heiðni til vor komið, en hið tíræða er líkast að Norðrlönd hafi ekki vitað af fyrr en Kristni kom hér og með henni lærdómr þeirrar aldar, Skýr. s. v. Hundrað (fine): but with the introduction of Christianity came in the decimal hundred, the two being distinguished by adjectives,—tólfrætt hundrað = 120, and tírætt hundrað = 100. But still the old popular duodecimal system continued in almost all matters concerned with economical or civil life, in all law phrases, in trade, exchange, property, value, or the like, and the decimal only in ecclesiastical or scholastic matters (chronology, e. g. Íb. ch. 1, 10). At the same time the word in speech and writing was commonly used without any specification of tírætt or tólfrætt, for, as Pal Vídalín remarks, every one acquainted with the language knew which was meant in each case; even at the present time an Icel. farmer counts his flocks and a fisherman his share (hlutr) by the duodecimal system; and everybody knows that a herd or share of one hundred and a half means 120 + 60 = 180. In old writers the popular way of counting is now and then used even in chronology and in computation, e. g. when Ari Frode (Íb. ch. 4) states that the year consists of three hundred and four days (meaning 364); the census of franklins given by the same writer (where the phrase is hundruð heil = whole or full hundreds) is doubtless reckoned by duodecimal, not decimal hundreds, Íb. ch. 10; and in the census of priests and churches taken by bishop Paul (about A. D. 1200) ‘tíræð’ is expressively added, lest duodecimal hundreds should be understood, Bs. i. 136. The Landn. (at end) contains a statement (from Ari?) that Iceland continued pagan for about a hundred years, i. e. from about 874–997 A. D. In the preface to Ólafs S., Snorri states that two duodecimal hundreds (tvau hundruð tólfræð) elapsed from the first colonisation of Iceland before historical writing began (i. e. from about A. D. 874–1115): levies of ships and troops are in the laws and Sagas counted by duodecimal hundreds, e. g. the body-guard of king Olave consisted of a hundred hirð-men, sixty house-carles and sixty guests, in all ‘two hundred’ men, i. e. 240, Mork. 126; the sons of earl Strút-Harald had a hundred men, of whom eighty were billetted out and forty returned, Fms. xi. 88, 89; hálft hundrað, a half hundred = sixty, Mork. l. c.

2. a division of troops = 120; hundraðs-flokkr, Fms. vi. (in a verse).

II. in indef. sense, hundreds, a host, countless number, see hund-, as also in the adverb, phrase, hundruðum, by hundreds (indefinitely), Fms. vi. 407, Þiðr. 275, 524: in mod. usage as adjective and indecl., except the pl. in -uð, thus hundruð ásauðum, Dipl. iv. 10.

B. As value, a hundred, i. e. a hundred and twenty ells of the stuff wadmal, and then simply value to that amount (as a pound sterling in English). All property, real as well as personal, is even at present in Icel. taxed by hundreds; thus an estate is a ‘twenty, sixty, hundred’ estate; a franklin gives his tithable property as amounting to so and so many hundreds. As for the absolute value of a hundred, a few statements are sufficient, thus e. g. a milch cow, or six ewes with lambs, counts for a hundred, and a hundrað and a kúgildi (cow’s value) are equal: the charge for the alimentation of a pauper for twelve months was in the law (Jb. 165) fixed to four hundred and a half for a male person, but three hundred and a half for a female; cp. also the phrase, það er ekki hundrað í hættunni, there is no hundred at stake, no great risk! In olden times a double standard was used,—the wool or wadmal standard, called hundrað talið = a hundred by tale, i. e. a hundred and twenty ells as stated above, and a silver standard, called hundrað vegit, a hundred by weight, or hundrað silfrs, a hundred in silver, amounting to two marks and a half = twenty ounces = sixty örtugar; but how the name hundred came to be applied to it is not certain, unless half an örtug was taken as the unit. It is probable that originally both standards were identical, which is denoted by the phrase, sex álna eyrir, six ells to an ounce, or a hundred and twenty ells equal to twenty ounces (i. e. wadmal and silver at par); but according as the silver coinage was debased, the phrases varied between nine, ten, eleven, twelve ells to an ounce (N. G. L. i. 80, 81, 387, 390, passim), which denote bad silver; whereas the phrase ‘three ells to an ounce’ (þriggja álna eyrir, Sturl. i. 163, passim, or a hundred in wadmal equal to half a hundred in silver) must refer either to a double ell or to silver twice as pure: the passage in Grág. i. 500 is somewhat obscure, as also Rd. 233: the words vegin, silfrs, or talin are often added, but in most cases no specification is given, and the context must shew which of the two standards is there meant; the wool standard is the usual one, but in cases of weregild the silver standard seems always to be understood; thus a single weregild (the fine for a man’s life) was one hundred, Njála passim.

2. the phrases, hundrað frítt, a hundred paid in cattle, Finnb. 236; tólf hundruð mórend, twelve hundred in dark striped wadmal, Nj. 225; hundrað í búsgögnum ok í húsbúningi, Vm. 65; hundraðs-gripr, hestr, hross, kapall, hvíla, sæng, rekkja, psaltari, etc., a beast, a horse, a bed, etc., of a hundred’s value, Am. 2, 10, Vm. 25, 39, 60, 153, Jm. 3, 30; hundraðs-úmagi, a person whose maintenance costs a hundred, Vm. 156; hundraðs virði, a hundred’s value, 68. For references see the Sagas and laws passim, and for more information see Mr. Dasent’s Essay in Burnt Njal.

C. A hundred, a political division which in olden times was common to all Teut. nations, but is most freq. in old Swedish laws, where several hundreds made a hérað or shire; cp. the A. S. and Engl. hundred, Du Cange hundredum; old Germ. hunderti, see Grimm’s Rechts Alterthümer; the centum pagi of Caesar, Bell. Gall. iv. ch. 1, is probably the Roman writer’s misconception of the Teut. division of land into hundreds; this is also the case with Tacit. Germ. ch. 12: cp. the Swed. local names Fjaðrunda-land, Áttundaland, and Tíunda-land, qs. Fjaðr-hunda land, Átthunda land, Tíhunda land, i. e. a combination of four, eight, ten hundreds. The original meaning was probably a community of a hundred and twenty franklins or captains. This division is not found in Icel.

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n. a kind of curdled milk.

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a. [ skjör-ost in Fünen in Denmark], curdled milk, curds, stored up for food; þeir vóru þyrstir mjök ok supu skyrit, Eg. 204; askar fullir af skyri … tókn þeir askana ok drukku ákaft skyrit, 548, 549; graut, ost, ok skyr. Korm. 150; Rindill hafði (see hefja A. 2) skyr ok mataðisk skjótt þvíat skyrit var þunnt, … skyrit sprændi ór honum, Lv. 64; í skyrbúri skyr níu tigir skjólna, Dipl. v. 18, cp. Grett. 107; þeir höfðu skyr ok ost, curds and cheese (for supper), Eb. 244; ostr ok skyr var at náttverði, Bjarn. 53; skyr ok rjómi, curds and cream; berja-skyr, blackberries and curds: the saying, þeir verða að sletta skyrinu sem þat eiga. Skyr is quite a national dish of the Northmen and the Icelanders of the present day, as it was of the Teutons in more ancient times; for it doubtless was the ‘lac concretum’ of Tacit. Germ. ch. 23, cp. Virg. G. 3. 463.

COMPDS: skyraskr, skyrbúr, skyrhnakkr, skyrker, skyrkyllir, skyrkýll.