the+etymology

Eg. 94.; Snorri (Hkr.) constantly uses the pl. form, but bautaðarsteinn, Fagrsk. 19, and bautarsteinn, Hm. 72; m. the stone monuments of the olden age, esp. in Sweden and Denmark; the Hávamál l. c. (sjaldan bautarsteinar standa brautu nær, nema reisi niðr at nið) tells us that these stones used to be placed along the high roads, like the sepulchral monuments of old Rome; cp. the standing phrase on the Swedish-Runic stones—hér skal standa steinn ‘nær brautu;’ or, má eigi ‘brautar-kuml’ ( a road monument) betra verða; the high roads of old Sweden seem to have been lined with these monumental stones; even at the present time, after the destruction of many centuries, the Swedish-Runic stones (of the nth and 12th centuries) are counted by thousands. A great collection was made and drawings executed during the 17th century (Buræus, etc.), but only published A. D. 1750, under the name of Bautil. The etymology of this word is much contested; some render it by ‘stones of the slain’ (bauta, to slay), but this is contradicted by the passage in Hm. l. c. and by the inscriptions themselves. The bauta stones were simply monuments erected by the piety of kindred and friends without any respect to sex or manner of death, either in war, on sea, or through sickness; some were even erected to the memory of living persons. They were usually tombstones; but many of them are memorial stones for men that died in foreign lands, Greece, Russia, the British Islands, etc. Neither is Snorri right in saying (Hkr. pref.) that the bautasteinar belonged to the old burning age (brunaöld), and were replaced by the cairns (haugar) in the subsequent cairn age (haugaöld)—þá skyldi brenna alla dauða menn ok reisa eptir bautasteina, en síðan er Freyr hafði heygðr verit at Uppsölum þá görðu margir höfðingjar eigi síðr hauga en bautasteina. Svíar tóku lík hans ok var hann brendr við á þá er Skúta heitir, þar vóru settir bautasteinar hans, Hkr. Yngl. ch. 17—the passage in Hávamál and the monuments refute this statement. The great bulk of the Scandinavian bauta stones seem to be of the nth and even 12th century. In Icel. no stones of that time are on record: var hann þá her heygðr skamt frá bsenum, ok settir upp bautasteinar, þeir er enn standa her, Hkr. i. 269; hávir bautasteinar standa hjá haugi Egils ullserks, 153,—where Fagrsk. reads, í þau skip var lagðr í valrinn, ok orpnir þar haugar utan at; þar stendr ok bautaðarsteinn (= bautarsteinn in Hm.?) hár sem Egill féll, p. 19;—en eptir alla þá menn er nokkut mannsmót var at, skyldi reisa bautasteina, ok hélzt sa siðr lengi síðan, Hkr. Yngl. ch. 8. It is worth remarking that the word ‘bautasteinn’ never occurs out of Icel. literature, and there only in the above passages, viz. once in the old Hm., once in the Fagrsk., four times in the Hkr., whence it has passed over to modern writers. The word is most probably only a corruption from brautarsteinar, lapides viae, (by dropping the r); cp. the analogous Swedish word, brautarkuml, monumentum viae, which occurs in the inscriptions themselves.

* * *

(-ða, -ðr), v., older form byggva;

1) to settle in a place, as colonist; sumar þat, er þeir Ingólfr fóru at byggja Ísland, when I went out to settle in Iceland; Ingólfr bygði fyrstr landit, was the first settler; absol., Helgi bygði norðr í Eyjafirði, settled in E.;

2) to people (eptir Nóaflóð lifðu átta menn, er bygðu heiminn) Ísland bygðist (was peopled) ór Norvegi;

3) to inhabit, live in a country (þá er landit hafði sex tigi vetra bygt verit); þess get ek, at menn byggi húsit, that the house is inhabited; byggja bœ, to settle on a farm (hann bygði bœ þann er í Eyju heitir); absol., kona, er bygði (lived) í einum afdal; hvar byggir þú, where dwellest thou?;

4) to dwell in, occupy (byggja höll, helli); byggja eina sæng, to share the same bed (of a niarried couple; also absol., byggja með erri); bygði hann í skipuin, he dwelt (lived) in ships.

(-ða, -ðr), v.

1) to let out (konungr má byggja almenning hverjum sem hann vill); nú byggir maðr dýrra (lets out at a higher rent) en vandi hefir á verit;

2) to lend money at interest (engi skal byggja dautt fé á leigu); Hrútr bygði allt féit, H. put all the money out at interest;

3) byggja frændsemi, sifjar, to enter into a marriage with a relation or one allied by by marriage (in such or such degree); þat var bannat at byggja svá náit at frændsemi, intermarriage between so near relations was forbidden.

* * *

older form byggva, ð, [for the etymology v. búa], gener. to inhabit, settle, people, always in a transitive sense—not neut. as. búa—but often used absol. or ellipt., land being understood:

α. to settle as a colonist; Hrollaugr bygði austr á Síðu, Ketilbjörn bygði suðr at Mosfelli, Auðr bygði vestr í Breiðafirði, Helgi bygði norðr í Eyjafirði, all these instances referring to the first settlers of Icel., Íb. ch. 1. 2; en þat vas es hann tók byggva landit, id.; sumar þat er þeir Ingólfr fóru at b. Ísland, the summer before Ingolf settled in Iceland, ch. 6; Íngólfr … bygði fyrstr landit, i. e. Ingolf was the first settler, id.; so in numberless instances, esp. of the Íb. and Landn., e. g. Landn. 42, 334, Eb. 8, Hrafn. 4, Eg. 99, 100; eptir Nóa-flóð lifðu átta menn þeir er heiminn bygðu ( peopled), Edda (pref.)

β. to inhabit, live in a country; þesskonar þjóð es Vínland hefir bygt, Íb. ch. 6; þá er landit hafði sex tigi vetra bygt verit, Landn. 321; þeir b. þat hérað á Vindlandi er Ré heitir, Fms. xi. 378, H. E. i. 494, Bret. 100: allit. phrases, á bygðu bóli, i. e. among men, where men live; bygðr bólstaðr, possessed land, Grág. ii. 214: the proverb, með lögum skal land byggja, with laws shall man build land, i. e. law builds (makes) lands and home; and some add, en með ólögum eyða; eyða ( to lay waste) and byggja are thus opposed to one another, Nj. 106; b. bæ, to settle on a farm; segi ek af því fyrst hversu bærinn hefir bygzk í Skálaholti … Ketilbjörn bygði þann bæ fyrstr er í Skálaholti heitir, Bs. i. 60; hann bygði bæ þann er í Eyju heitir, Gísl. 91, where it does not mean to build houses, as in the mod. use of this phrase, but to settle, Lat. inhabitare.

γ. in more special or law phrases, to dwell in, occupy; b. sæng, to keep one’s bed, sleep, Fas. i. 314; b. eina sæng, of married people, Fms. ii. 134; b. með e-m, to cohabit, Stj. 176; b. höll, to occupy a hall, Fms. vi. 147, x. 236; b. á skipum, undir tjöldum, to live aboard ship, in tents, vii. 138; b. hálfrými, a naut. term, viii. 199: metaph., cf Guð byggvir í þeim, Eluc. 52, cp. also the references from the N. T. above under búa, where most of the Icel. Edd. use byggja.

2. to build a house, ship, or the like, [Scot. and North. E. to big; Dan. bygge; Swed. bygga]: this sense, common over all Scandinavia and North Britain, seems not to occur in Icel. writers before the 15th century or the end of the 14th, but is freq. at the present time; it occurs in the Ann. 1401, 1405, etc. Old writers always say, reisa or göra hús, skip …, not byggja.

3. reflex. to be inhabited; Ísland bygðisk fyrst ór Noregi, Íb. ch. 1; Grænland fansk ok bygðisk af Íslandi, ch. 6; hundraði ára fyrr en Ísland bygðisk af Norðmönnum, Landn. (pref.); en áðr Ísland bygðisk, id.; þá er Ísland fansk ok bygðisk af Noregi, id.

II. [Goth. bugjan, by which Ulf. renders αγοράζειν, and once πωλειν, which is elsewhere rendered by frabugjan; A. S. bycgean; Engl. buy; Hel. buggean]:—to let out, esp. land or cottage; konungr má b. almenning hverjum sem hann vill, Gþl. 453; ef umboðsmaðr konungs byggir jarðar (acc.) konungs … því at svá skal konungs jarðir b. sem um aðrar jarðir skill í lögum, 336; nú byggir maðr dýrra ( lets out at a higher rent) en vandi hefir á verit, 337; Ingimundr bygði þeim Hrolleifi bæinn í Ási, Fs. 34; er þeir bygðu lönd sín eðr tóku sér hjú, Grág. i. 445; hann tók mikit af landnámi Una, ok bygði þat ( parcelled it out) frændum sínum, Landn. 244; byggja e-m út, to expel a tenant; b. e-m inn, to settle a tenant on one’s estate.

2. more properly, to lend money at interest; þat er ok ef menn b. dautt fé, eðr krefja framar af þeim hlutum er menn ljá, en innstæða, K. Á. 204; engi skal b. dautt fé á leigu, Bs. i. 684; um okr, er menn b. dautt fé, H. E. i. 459; Rútr … bygði allt féit, R. put all the money out at interest, Nj. 11.

3. the peculiar eccl. law phrase of the forbidden degrees; b. sifjar, frændsemi, to marry into such or such degree; this phrase may refer to buying (cp. brúðkaup), or to cohabitation; þat er nýmæli, at jafn-náit skal b. sifjar ok frændsemi at fimta manni hvárt, i. e. intermarriage in the fifth degree is allowed, according to the decision of the council of Lateran, A. D. 1215, Grág. i. 304; frændsemi er eigi byggjandi, i. e. is forbidden, 307, 308, 321, N. G. L. i. 350; en þat var bannat með Ásum at b. svá náit at frændsemi, Hkr. Yngl. ch. 4.

III. part. as subst.

a, m. [perh. akin to lokka], the evil giant-god of the Northern mythol., see Edda passim, Vsp. 39. Loka-senna, u, f. the banter of Loki, the name of an old poem: as a nickname, Landn. The name of Loki is preserved in a few words, Loka-sjóðr, m., botan. rhinanthus crista galli, Loki’s purse, the name for cockscomb or yellow rattle; and Loka-sjóðs-bróðir, m. bartsia alpina, Maurer’s Volks. 1: Loka-brenna, u, f. fire, the ‘blazing’ of Loki = Sirius, according to a statement of Finn Magnusson: Loka-ráð and Loka-heilræði, n. pl. Loki’s advice, i. e. ironical, misanthropic advice, see Snot 192; cp. the Ditmarscher-lügen in Grimm’s Märchen: Loka-lykt, f. a close smell, as from an evil spirit haunting the room, Ísl. Þjóðs. ii. 556.

II. as an appellative, a loop on a thread, Dan. ‘kurre paa traaden;’ opt er loki á nálþræði, Hallgr.

the name of the terrible fire-demon, half god, half giant, the friend and companion of the gods, and yet their most fearful foe. We have a new suggestion to make as to the origin of this name. The old Northern Loki and the old Italic Volcanus are, we believe, identical; as thus,—the old Teutonic form of Loki, we suppose, was Wloka, whence, by dropping the w before l, according to the rules of the Scandinavian tongue, Loki. A complete analogy is presented in Lat. voltus, vultus, A. S. wlits, but Icel. lit (in and -lit, a face); and, in point of the character of the two demons, the resemblance is no less striking, as we have on the one hand Vulcanus with Etna for his workshop (cp. the mod. volcano), and on the other hand the Northern legends of the fettered fire-giant, Loki, by whose struggles the earthquakes are caused. Of all the personages of the Northern heathen religion, the three, Oðinn, Þórr, and Loki, were by far the most prominent; but not even the name of Loki is preserved in the records of any other Teutonic people. Can the words of Caesar B.G. vi, x. xi, Solem ‘Vulcanum’ et Lunam. refer to our Loki? probably not, although in Caesar’s time the form would have been Wlokan in acc., a form which a Roman ear might well have identified with their own Vulcanus. The old derivation from loka, to shut, is inadmissible in the present state of philological science: a Wôdan from vaða, or Loki from loka, is no better than a ‘Juno a juvando,’ or a ‘Neptunus a nando.’ May not Loki (Wloka) be a relation to the Sansk. vrika, Slav. vluku, Lith. vilkas, Icel. vargr, álfr, meaning a destroyer, a wolf? it is very significant that in the Norse mythology Loki is the father of the world-destroying monsters,—the wolf Fenrir, the World-serpent, and the ogress Hel; and, if the etymology suggested be true, he was himself originally represented as a wolf.

n. the name of an abode of fire; in the old mythology peopled by Múspells lýðir, the men of Muspell, a host of fiends, who are to appear at Ragnarok and destroy the world by fire; the prose in Edda 3 may have been derived from some lost verses of the Völuspá, for the name appears at the end of that poem (Vsp. 51) as if it were already known; it occurs nowhere else in the Norse mythical songs, except in Ls. 42 (múspells-megir). Múspells-heimr, the abode of Muspell, Edda 4. This interesting word was not confined to the Norse mythology, but appears twice in the old Saxon poem Heliand—mutspelli cumit on thiustra naht, also thiof ferit, m. comes in dusky night, as a thief fares, i. e. but the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, 2 Pet. iii. 10; and, mutspellis megin obar man ferit, the main of m. fares over men, see Schmeller’s Edition; a third instance is in an Old High German poem on the Last Day—dâr ni mac denne mac andremo helfan vora demo muspille = there no man can help another against the muspell-doom. In these instances muspell therefore stands for the day of judgment, the last day, and answers to Ragnarok of the Northern mythology. The etymology is doubtful, for spell may be = the weird, doom, = Lat. Fatum; or it may be = spoil, destruction; the former part mut or muod is more difficult to explain. The Icel. mús is an assimilated form.

(-s, -ar), m.

1) step, = gráda;

2) the raised-floor along the sides of the hall, = ‘lang-pallar’;

3) a cross dais at the upper end of the hall, þverpallr, hápallr.

* * *

m. [the etymology of this word, as also the time when and place whence it was borrowed, is uncertain; the true Norse word is bekkr or flet; pallr may be of Norman origin, although it is frequently used in the Sagas referring to the Saga time (10th century); even the benches in the legislative assembly on the alþing were called pallar, not bekkir; but this cannot have been so originally. The word itself is, like páll, probably from Lat. palus, pala = stipes, Du Cange; Engl. pale, palings; in the Icel. it is used of high steps (Lat. gradus), esp. of any high floor or daïs in old dwellings, sometimes = flet (q. v.) or = lopt (q. v.), and lastly of the benches in the hall = bekkr (q. v.) The adoption of the word was probably connected with the change in the floor and seats of the halls, as mentioned in Fagrsk. ch. 219, 220, which arrangement of benches was adopted from Norman England, and is in fact still seen in English college-halls, with the raised high floor at the upper end. In Icel. the ladies were then seated on this daïs (há-pallr, þver-pallr), instead of being placed, according to the older custom, on the left hand along the side walls, see below, II. 2. As the Sagas were written after this had taken place, so the use of the word, e. g. in the Njála (ch. 34 and often), may be an anachronism.]

B. A step = Lat. gradus; þessi steinn var útan sem klappaðr væri gráðum eða pöllum, Fms. i. 137; vindur upp at ganga, nítján pallar á bergit, Symb. 56; stíga pall af palli, from step to step, Hom. 140. palla-söngr and palla-sálmi, m. = the ‘graduale,’ chant, or responsorium ‘in gradibus’ in the Roman Catholic service, from its being chanted at the steps of the altar; sá söngr heitir pallasöngr þviat hann er fyrir pöllum sunginn, 625. 188, Hom. (St.), Mar.: metaph. degree, enn tólpti pallr ósóma, 677. 1: þrjátigi palla djúpr, Bév. palls-bók, f. ‘graduale,’ the service-book for the high mass, Játv. ch. 10.

II. a daïs with its set of benches; þar skulu pallar þrír vera ( three sets of benches) umhverfis lögréttuna, Grág. i. 4; pallinn þann inn úæðra, Eg. 303; Flosi gékk inn í stofuna ok settisk niðr, ok kastaði í pallinn ( he threw on the floor) undan sér há-sætinu, Nj. 175; konungr leit yfir lýðinn umhverfis sik á pallana, Fms. vii. 156; hann lá í pallinum, 325; konungr sat í pallinum hjá honum, xi. 366; gékk Þrándr í stofu, en þeir lágu í pallinum, Sigurðr ok Þórðr ok Gautr, Fær. 195.

2. the raised floor or daïs at the upper end of the hall, where the ladies were seated (= þver-pallr, há-p.), konur skipuðu pall, Nj. 11; konur sátu á palli, Ísl. ii. 250; hljópu þeir inn ok til stofu, ok sat Katla á palli ok spann, Eb. 94; hón fal sik í pallinum, she hid herself in the pallr, Landn. 121; var þar hlemmr undir ok holr innan pallrinn, … þá bað Geirríð brjóta upp pallinn, var Oddr þar fundinn, Eb. 96:—mið-pallr, the middle bench; krók-pallr, the corner bench, Skíða R. (where the beggar littered himself).

3. in mod. usage the sitting-room is called pallr, from being elevated a yard or two above the level ground; í hlýindin þar hjónin búa á palli. Snót: hence pall-skör, f. the ridge of the pallr: palls-horn, n. the corner of the pallr, Nj. 220, Sturl. iii. 141.

n. scald, poet.

* * *

n., pl. skáld; the word is in poetry rhymed as skald (with a short vowel), skald and kalda, aldri and skaldi, Kormak, and so on; but the plural is always spelt skáld, not sköld; the mod. Dan. skjald is borrowed from the Icel.: [the etymology and origin of this word is contested; Prof. Bergmann, in Message de Skirnir, Strasburg, 1871, p. 54, derives it from the Slavonic skladi = composition, skladacz = compositeur; but the earliest usages point to a Teutonic and a different root. In the ancient law skáldskapr meant a libel in verse, and was synonymous with flimt, danz, níð, q. v.; the compds skáld-fífl, leir-skáld (q. v.) also point to the bad sense as the original one, which is still noticeable in popular Icel. usages and phrases such as skálda (the verb), skáldi, skældinn ( libellous), see also skáldmær below. On the other hand, skálda, Germ. schalte, means a pole (sec skálda, skáld-stöng below); libels and imprecations were in the ancient heathen age scratched on poles, see the remarks s. v. níð, níðstöng. The word is therefore, we believe, to be traced back to the old libel-pole, ‘scald-pole;’ if so, Engl. scold = to abuse, Germ. schelten, may be kindred words; the old Lat. phrase (of Mart. Capella) barbara fraxineis sculpatur runa tabellis may even refer to this scratching of imprecations on pieces of wood.]

B. A poet, in countless instances; þeir vóru skáld Haralds komings ok kappar, Fas. i. 379; forn-skáld, þjóð-skáld, níð-skáld, hirð-skáld, leir-skáld, krapta-skáld, ákvæða-skáld, as also sálma-skáld, rímna-skáld; in nicknames, Skáld-Helgi, Skáld-Hrafn, Skáld-Refr, Landn., names given to those who composed libellous love-songs (?); Svarta-skáld, Hvíta-skúld. Some of the classical passages in the Sagas referring to poets, esp. to the hirð-skáld, are Har. S. hárf. ch. 39, Hák. S. Góða ch. 32, Eg. ch. 8, Gunnl. S. ch. 9, Ó. H. ch. 52–54, 128, 203, 205, O. H. L. ch. 57, 58, 60–62, Har. S. harðr. (Fms. vi.) ch. 24, 101, 108, 110. The Egils S., Korm. S., Hallfred. S., Gunnl. S. are lives of poets; there are also the chapters and episodes referring to the life of the poet Sighvat, esp. in the Fb., cp. also Sturl. 1. ch. 13, 9. ch. 16; for imprecations or libels in verse see níð.

COMPDS: skáldagemlur, skáldaspillir, Skáldatal.

1) mansion, house; byggja vé goða, to dwell in the homes of the gods;

2) temple, sanctuary (vega víg í véum).

n. pl. standard (poet.).

* * *

n. [a form vés would answer to Ulf. weihs or wehs, n. = κώμη, ἀγρός; Hel. uuih = templum; the identity of this word with the Lat. vicus and Gr. οικος is indubitable, the abbreviation being analogous to fé and pecu; whereas Goth. weihs = holy is prop. a different root word, see vígja; for the double sense of Lat. aedes and templum does not depend on the etymology, but is analogous to what has taken place in the word hof, q. v.]

A. A mansion, house, Lat. aedes, this is the original sense, then a sanctuary, temple, cp. hof; til vés heilags, to the holy mansion, Hdl. 1; alda vé, the home of men, i. e. the earth, Hm. 107; Út-vé, Üt-garðr, the outer-mansion, of the outskirt of the earth, where the giants live, Þd.; ginnunga vé, the mansion of the gods, the heavens, Haustl. 15; byggja vé goða, to dwell in the homes of the gods, Vþm. 51; hapta vé, the places of gods = holy places, Vellekla; vé mána, the moon’s mansion, i. e. the heavens, Edda i. 330 (in a verse); valda véum, to rule house, dwell, reside, Gm. 13; svá mikils virðu goðin vé sín ok griða-staði, at eigi vildu þau saurga þá með blóði úlfsins, Edda 20; öll Vandils-vé, the land of V., Hkv. 2. 33: allit., vé ok vangr, frá mínum véum ok vöngum skolu þér æ jafnan köld ráð koma (sec vangr), Ls. 51.

II. a temple; öll vé banda, all the temples of the gods, and hapta vé, id., Vellekla; granda véum, to violate the temples, Hkr. i. (in a verse); vés valdr, the lord of the vé, i. e. lord of the county, or = temple-lord (?), an epithet applied to the Earl Sigurd, Kormak.

2. the law phrase, vega víg í véum, to slay a man in a sanctuary (a temple, an assembly, or the like); hann vá víg í véum ok varð útlægr, Landn. 80; Özurr vá víg í véum á Upplöndum, þá er hann váf í brúðför með Sigurði hrisa, fyrir þat varð hann landflótti til Íslands, 304; Erpr lútandi vá víg í véum ok var ætlaðr til dráps, Skáldatal 252; vargr í véum (see vargr), Fms. xi. 40; Eyvindr hafði vegit í véum ok var hann vargr orðinn, Eg. 259: also in the obscure passage, Grág., Þ.Þ. ch. 24, ‘um vés úti,’ perh. ‘um vés útan,’ = outside the court, absent from court, of a judge prevented through sickness from being in his place in court, Grág. (Kb.) i. 76, l. 3.

B. Vé, in local names, Vé-björg = Vi-borg in Denmark, Fms.; Vis-torf, Thork. Dipl.: Véar, f. pl. (like Torgar, Nesjar), Munch’s Norg. Beskriv.: Vé-ey, an island in Romsdal in Norway, Edda ii. 492; Óðins-vé = Odense in Funen in Denmark, Fms. xi. (never in Icel. local names): freq. in mod. Dan. and Swed. local names, Vi-um, Vi-bæí, Vi-lund, Vis-by.

II. in names of persons, either from vé = aedes or from vé = Goth. weihs = holy, thus, e. g. Vé-laug may be = Heim-laug, which name also occurs: Vé-geirr (hann var kallaðr Végeirr því at hann var blótmaðr mikill), Landn. 149: Vé-gestr, Vé-dís, Vé-mundr (all these names in the same family), Landn.; as also, Vé-garðr, Vé-kell, Vé-brandr, Vé-freyðr, Vé-laug, Vé-leifr, Vé-ný, id.: or as in Véþ-ormr, Véþ-orn; cp. Widu-ric, Widu-kind, Wodu-rid, and other similar old Teut. pr. names.

(gen. völu; pl. völur), f. prophetess, sibyl, wise woman, witch (fóru þá um landit spákonur, er kallaðar vóru völur).

* * *

u, f., also spelt völfa, gen. völu, pl. völur; völfu. or also völfur or voluur; gen. pl. does not occur; the nom. Vala is erroneous: [the etymology as well as the origin of this word is uncertain; but may not the Norse Völva and the Gr. σίβυλλα be relations? the identity in sense at least is very striking; the Gr. word first occurs in Aristoph., and then in Plato; may it not have been adopted from some Scythian tribe, for a word like this, if Greek, could hardly fail to occur in Homer? in völva an initial s, we suppose, has been lost (qs. svölva); in the Greek the ĭ would be an inserted vowel]:—a prophetess, sibyl, wise woman; völva, seiðkona, spákona (qq. v.) are synonymous. The ancient Sagas contain many remarkable records of the heathen wise-women or sibyls, who were held in honour and reverence; at the great feasts and sacrifices in the autumn, the völva (often a woman of rank) went with her troop of maidens through the country, where she, so to say, crowned the feast; she was seated on a high seat (seiðhjallr) in the hall, where she wrought her spells and sang her ‘weird-songs’ (varðlokur), after which the guests went past her one by one, and she told each his fate, or whatever else one wanted to know, e. g. the course of the coming winter and the like. The former part of the Völuspá is evidently conceived as the inspired song of a völva, seated on her high seat, and addressing Odin, while the gods listen to her words; and the latter part of the poem appears to be a kind of necromancy, or the raising of a dead völva, as also is the lay Vegtamskviða; sú kona var þar í bygð er Þorbjörg hét, ok var kölluð lítil völva, hón hafði áttar sér níu systr, ok vóru allar spákonur, en hón var ein þá á lífi, þat var háttr Þorbjargar um vetrum, at hón fór á veizlur ok buðu þeir menn henni mest heim er forvitni var á at vita forlög sín eða árferð, Þorf. Karl. Names of such wise women, Gróa völva, Edda; Heimlaug völva, Gullþ.; Heiðr völva, Landn. 173; Huldr völva, Yngl. S., Hkr. i. 21; to which add the ‘Weleda’ of Tacitus: class. passages are Þorf. S. ch. 3 (exceedingly interesting), Örvar-Odds S. ch. 3 (Fas. ii. 506), Vd. ch. 10: völu vél-spá, Vsp.; eru völfur allar frá Víðólfi, Hdl.; völva ok vís kona. Vtkv.; þá kom til völva sú er Gróa hét, Edda 58; var á því landi spákona sú er sagði fyrir örlög manna, … þeir fara til móts við völunna, Fb. ii. 28; ek fór í skóg til þín í völvu líki, Fas. i. 135; þóttusk menn vita at þar mundi verst hafa völu-leiði, Ld. 328; þá reið Óðinn fyrir austan dyrr þar er hann vissi völu leiði, Vtkv.; úrsvöl Gýmis völva, of Rán the goddess, Edda (in a verse); at hás völva valdi því bölvi, Kormak; in a bad sense, völva and skollvis kona, Hkv. 1. 34; Tacitus (Germ. ch. 8, 46, and Hist. iv. 61, 65, v. 22, 24) speaks of these practices, as also does Plutarch, Caesar ch. 19,— τα μαντεύματα των ἱερων γυναικων.

COMPDS: Völuspá, Völvustaðir.

m. the god Thor.

* * *

m., gen. Þórs, dat. and acc. Þór, but Þóri dat., Bragi; in Runic inscriptions spelt Þur; [A. S. þunor; Engl. thunder; North. E. thunner; Dutch donder; O. H. G. donar; Germ. donner; Hel. thunar; Dan. Tor, in tor-den; cp. Lat. tŏno and tonitrus; the word Þór-r is therefore formed by absorption of the middle n, and contraction of an older dissyllabic Þonor into one syllable, and is a purely Scandinavian form; hence in A. S. charters or diplomas it is a sure sign of forgery when names compd with þur- appear in deeds pretending to be of a time earlier than the Danish invasion in the 9th century; although in later times they abound; the Engl. Thurs-day is a later form, in which the phonetic rule of the Scandin. tongue has been followed; perh. it is a North. E. form. There is a short essay by Jacob Grimm on the etymology of this word.]

A. The god Thor, the god of thunder, keeper of the hammer, the ever-fighting slayer of trolls and destroyer of evil spirits, the friend of mankind, the defender of the earth, the heavens, and the gods, for without Thor and his hammer the earth would become the helpless prey of the giants. He was the consecrator, the hammer being the cross or holy sign of the ancient heathen, hence the expressive phrase on a heathen Danish Runic stone, Þurr vigi þassi runar, ‘Thor, consecrate these Runes!’ Rafn 193. Thor was the son of mother Earth; blunt, hot-tempered, without fraud or guile, of few words and ready stroke,—such was Thor, the favourite deity of the ancients. The finest legends of the Edda, - and the best lays (the lays of Hymir, Thrym, and Harbard) refer to Thor, see the Edda passim, Eb. the first chapters—hann varðveitti þar í eyinni Þórs-hof, ok var mikill vin Þórs, … hann gékk til fréttar við Þór ástvin sinn …, Eb.; Helgi var blandinn í trú, hann trúði á Krist, en hét á Þór til sjófara ok harðræða, Landn. 206. For a head of Thor carved on the high-seat pillars, see Eb., Fbr.: or on a talisman, Fs. 97.

B. COMPDS OF PROPER NAMES.—The name of Thor has always been thought to sound well, and is much used in pr. names; (hann átti) son er Steinn hét, þann svein gaf Þórólfr Þór vin símim ok kallaði Þorstein, Eb.; uncompd only in the form Þórir of a man, Þóra of a woman, but common in compds, where in mod. usage the vowel is sounded long before a vowel, and before b and d, elsewhere short, but in old times it was no doubt ó throughout;—thus, as a prefix, Þór-álfr, Þórólfr, Þórarr, Þór-arinn, Þór-oddr, Þór-haddr, Þór-halli, Þór-hallr; but Þor-bergr, Þor-björn, Þor-brandr, Þor-finnr, Þor-gautr, Þor-geirr, Þor-gestr (Þórgestlingar, the family of Th., Eb.), Þor-grímr, Þor-gils, Þor-gnýr, Þor-kell (qs. Þorketill), Þor-lákr (sounded Þollákr, Bs. i. 356, l. 18, and so in mod. usage), Þor-leifr, Þor-leikr, Þor-ljótr, Þor-móðr, Þor-mundr (Dan. Runic stone), Þor-steinn (sounded Þosteinn, and often, spelt so in later vellums), Þor-valdr, Þor-varðr, Þór-viðr; of women, Þór-ey, Þór-arna, Þor-finna, Þor-gríma, Þor-gunna, Þór-halla, Þór-hildr, Þór-unn, Þór-dís, Þor-gerðr, Þor-björg, Þor-katla, Þór-ný, Þor-veig, Þór-vör. 2. as a suffix. -Þórr, -Þóra, -dórr, -dóra; Arn-órr, qs. Arn-þórr and Arn-óra, Stein-dórr, Hall-dórr and Hall-dóra, Berg-þórr and Berg-þóra, Ey-þórr and Ey-þóra, Haf-þórr. Of all these names, three demand special mention, viz. Þórðr, being a contr. qs. Þór-røðr (as Bárðr = Bár-röðr), the old uncontr. form occurs in poems of the 10th century, e. g. Þórröðr vinon óra, Korm. 132; so Sighvat calls his own father Þórröðr (dissyll.). yet he makes it rhyme as if contracted (Þorröðr er var forðum), so Þ orðr sk orðu, Bjarn. (in a verse): the other name is Þuríðr, a fem. name, a weakened form for Þóríðr, Íb. 363 (qs. Þór-ríðr, like Sig-ríðr); thirdly, Þyri, a fem. name, weakened from Þór-vé, or still older Þór-veig, mod. Dan. Thyra, see Landn. 309; Þurvi (Þiurvi), gen. Þurviar, on Runic stones.

II. in local names, Þórs-mörk, Þórs-nes, Þórs-á, Landn., Eb.; whence Þórs-nes-ingar, the men from Th., Landn.; and Þórs-ness-lönd, -þing, Eb., Landn., Korm.: Þórsnesinga-goðord, Landn., Eb., Sturl.: Þórs-engi, n., i. e. Þórs-vengi, = Thaasinge in Fünen, Denmark.

C. COMPDS: Þórsdagr, Þórshani, Þórshof.

(pl. -ir), f. thousand.

* * *

f.; sérhverja þúsund, Stj. 298; á þúsund (dat.), Sks. 705; tvær, þrjár … þúsundir, 623. 53: in mod. usage it is mostly neut. (influenced by Latin?), but also fem. It is spelt þús-hund, Barl. 53; þús-hundum, Fms. vi. 409 (v. l.), Geisli 49; another form þús-hundrað (q. v.) is freq., esp. in Stj., Barl.; this double form -hund and -hundrað answers to the equally double form of ‘hundred,’ see p. 292, and is a proof that þúsund is a compound word, the latter part of which is ‘hund’ or ‘hundred;’ the etymology of the former part ‘þús’ is less certain; it is, we believe, akin to þysja, þyss, þaus-nir (a lost strong verb þúsa, þaus, þusu); þúsund would thus literally mean a swarm of hundreds: [in Goth. the gender varies, þûsundi, pl. þusundjos = χίλιοι, or þusundja, neut.; A. S. þûsend; Engl. thousand; O. H. G. dusunta; Germ. tausend, qs. dausend; Swed. tusende and tusen; Dan. tusinde; Dutch tuysend: this word is also common to the Slavon. languages: again, the Lapp, duhat and Finn. tuhat are no doubt borrowed from the Slavon. or Scandin.; the Gr., Lat., and Sansk. use other words]—a thousand.

B. There is little doubt that with the ancient heathen Scandinavians (and perhaps all Teutons), before their contact with the civilised southern people, the notion of numbers was limited, and that their thousand was not a definite number, but a vague term, denoting a swarm, crowd, host (cp. the Gr. μυρίοι): in ancient lays it occurs thrice (Hkv., Em., Fas. i. 502), but indefinitely; hvat þrym er þar sem þúsund bifisk eðr mengi til mikit, what a din is there as if a thousand were shaking, or an over-mickle multitude, Em. 2; sjau þúsundir, Hkv. 1. 49, literally = seven thousands, but in fact meaning seven hosts of men.

2. the dat. pl. þúsundum is, like huudruðum, used adverbially = by thousands, in countless numbers, Fms. vi. 409 (in a verse), Geisli 49.

3. in the ancient popular literature, uninfluenced by southern writers, ‘þúsund,’ as a definite number, occurs, we think, not half-a-dozen times. As the multiple of ten duodecimal hundreds, ere the decimal hundred was adopted, ‘þnsund’ would mean twelve decimal hundreds; and such is its use in the Sverris Saga, Fms. viii. 40, where one vellum says ‘tvær þúsundir,’ whilst the others, by a more idiomatic phrase, call it ‘twenty hundreds.’

II. in ecclesiastical writers, and in annals influenced by the Latin and the like, it is frequent enough; tíu þúsundir, fjórtán þúsundir, Fms. i. 107, 108 (annalistic records); fimm þúsundir, xi. 386, Al. 111; tíu þúsundum, Sks. 705; tíu þúsundum sinna hundrað þúsunda, Hom.; þúsund þúsunda, a thousand of thousands, i. e. a million, (mod.); hundrað þúsundir rasta ok átta tigir þúsunda, … hundrað þúsund mílna, Fb. i. 31 (in the legend of Eric the Far-traveller and Paradise, taken from some church-legend); fjórar þúsundir, Þiðr. 234: or of the years of the world, sex þúsundir vetra, Fs. 197; sjau þúsundir vetra, Landn. 34.

C. REMARKS.—The popular way of counting high numbers was not by thousands, but by tens (decades) and duodecimal hundreds as factors; thus ten … twenty hundreds, and then going on three, four, five, six … tens of hundreds (a ‘ten of hundreds’ being = 1200). The following references may illustrate this—tíu hundruð, ellefu hundruð, tólf hundruð, þrettán hundruð, fimtán hundruð …, Íb. 17, Ó. H. 119, 201, Fms. vii. 295, xi. 383, 385. From twenty and upwards—tuttugu hundrað manna, twenty hundreds of men, Fms. vii. 324, viii. 40; hálfr þriðitugr hundraða skipa, two tens and a half hundreds of ships, i. e. twenty-five hundreds, Fas. i. 378; þrjá tigu hundraða manna, three tens of hundreds of men, Fms. viii. 311; var skorat manntal, hafði hann meirr enn þrjá tigu hundraða manna, vii. 204; þrír tigir hundraða, D. N. v. 18; user fjorir tigir hundraða manna, nearly four tens of hundreds of men, Fms. vii. 275; á fimta tigi hundraða, on the fifth ten of hundreds, i. e. from four to five tens of hundreds, viii. 321; sex tigir hundraða, six tens of hundreds, 311, xi. 390; sex tigu hundraða manna, Fb. ii. 518, D. I. i. 350,—all odd amounts being neglected. The highest number recorded as actually reckoned in this way is ‘six tens of hundreds’ (fimtán tigir hundraða, fifteen tens of hundreds, Fms. viii. 321, v. l., is a scribe’s error): it is probable that no reckoning exceeded twelve tens of hundreds. All high multiples were unintelligible to the ancients; the number of the Einherjar in Walhalla is in the old lay Gm. thus expressed,—there are ‘five hundred doors in Walhalla, and five tens beside (the ‘five tens’ are, by the way, merely added for alliteration’s sake), and eight hundred Einherjar will walk out of each door when they go out to fight the Wolf’ (on the Day of final Doom). There seems to have been some dim exaggerated notion of a definite thousand in an ancient lay, only preserved in a half alliterative prose paraphrase, Fas. i. 502, where a mythical host is given thus,—there were thirty-three phalanxes, each of five ‘thousand,’ each thousand of thirteen hundreds, each hundred four times counted. The armies in the battle of Brawalla, the greatest of the mythical age, are given, not in numbers, but by the space the ranks occupied, Skjöld. S. ch. 8. This resembles the story in Ó. H. ch. 59, of the two young brothers, king’s sons: when asked what they would like to have most of, the one said: ‘Cows.’ ‘And how many?’ ‘As many,’ said he, ‘as could stand packed in a row round the lake (Mjösen in Norway) and drink.’ ‘But you?’ they asked the other boy: ‘House-carles’ (soldiers), said he. ‘And how many?’ ‘As many,’ said he, ‘as would in one meal eat up all my brother’s cows.’ Add also the tale of the King and the Giant, and the number of the giant’s house-carles, Maurer’s Volksagen 306. No less elementary was the rule for division and fractions, of which a remarkable instance is preserved in an ancient Icelandic deed, called Spákonu-arfr, published in D. I. i. 305. See also the words tigr, hundrað, skor, skora, and the remarks in Gramm. p. xix. The Homeric numeration, as set forth in Mr. Gladstone’s Homeric Studies, vol. iii, p. 425 sqq., is highly interesting, and bears a striking resemblance to that of the ancient Scandinavians. We may notice that in Iceland land and property are still divided into hundreds (hundreds of ells = 120), see hundrað B; in this case a thousand is never used, but units and hundreds of hundreds as factors, thus, sex tögu hundraða, in Reykh. Máld, (a deed of the 12th century), and so still in mod. usage; a wealthy man of the 15th century is said to have bequeathed to his daughters in land, ‘tólf hundruð hundraða ok ellefu-tíu og tvau hundruð betr, en í lausafé fimm hundruð hundraða,’ i. e. twelve hundreds of hundreds and ‘eleventy’ and two hundreds, and in movables five hundreds of hundreds, Feðga-æfi 16 (by the learned Bogi Benidiktsson of Staðarfell in Iceland, A. D. 1771–1849); sjau hundruð hundraða og þrjátigi hundruð betr, 21; hann eptir-lét börnum sínum fjármuni upp á níu hundruð hundraða, 22,—a proof that in very remote times, when this valuation of land first took place, ‘thousand’ was still unknown as a definite number.

* * *

(pl. -ir), f.

1) quarter of the heaven, direction, = átt( flugu þau í brott bæði samt í sömu ætt);

2) one’s family, extraction, pedigree (hann var sœnskr at ætt); þaðan eru komnar þræla ættir, the race of thralls; telja ætt til e-s, to trace one’s pedigree to; e-t gengr í ætt, it is hereditary;

3) generation (í ina þriðju eða fjórðu ætt).

* * *

f., like sætt (q. v.), the forms vary between átt and ætt; in old writers the latter form is by far the more common; in mod. usage they have been separated, átt meaning a quarter in a local sense, ætt a family: [ætt is akin to Ulf. aihts = τα ὑπάρχοντα; A. S. æhte = property; Early Engl. agte; Germ. acht = patrimony; the root verb is eiga, átti, like mega, máttr; from this original sense are derived both the senses, ætt = a family, and ætt or átt = Scot. ‘airt,’ ‘regio caeli;’ the etymology of átt from átta ( eight), suggested at p. 47, col. 1, is too fanciful.]

B. An airt, quarter of the heavens, in gen. dat. pl. átta, áttum; eptir þat sá sól, ok mátti þá deila ættir, Fb. i. 431; átta ættir, eina ætt, Sks. 54; af suðr-ætt, … vestr-ætt, flugu brott í sömu ætt, … ór þeim ættum sem þér þóttu ernirnir fljúga, Ísl. ii. 195, 196; þá drífr snær ór öllum áttum, Edda i. 186 (so also Ub. l. c., but ættum Cod. Worm. l. c.); í allar áttir, Edda i. 182 (ættir Ub. l. c.); norðr-ætt, suðr-ætt, vestr-ætt, austr-ætt, qq. v.; hann skyldi auka ríki sitt hálfu í hverja höfuð-átt, Hkr. i. 49; af öllum áttum, from all ‘airts’ of heaven, Edda 40, Hkr. i. 33; ór ýmissum áttum, Orkn. (in a verse), and so on; see átt, p. 47.

II. prop. what is inborn, native, one’s own, Lat. proprium; one’s family, extraction, kindred, pedigree; áttir, Grág. i. 238, Haustl. 10; allt er þat ætt þín, Óttar heimski, Hdl.; telja, rekja ættir, to trace pedigrees, id.; jötna ætt, id.; órar ættir, Vþm.; komnir af ætt Hörða-Kára, Fms. i. 287; hitt veit ek eigi hvaðan þjófs-augu eru komin í ættir várar, Nj. 2; tvá menn er ættir eru frá komnar, Adam ok Evu, Edda (pref.); dýrra manna ættir, … enginn stærisk af sinni ætt, Landn. 357; er þaðan komin mikil ætt, Eb. 123 new Ed.; hann er orðinn stórum kynsæll, því at til hans telja ættir flestir inir göfgustu menn á Íslandi, 126; Háleygja-ætt, Landn. 255; jarla-ættir, konunga-ættir, biskupa-ættir, etc., passim; ór ættum er ef lengra er rekit, out of the ætt, not genuine, spurious, Edda 124; e-t gengr í ætt, to be hereditary, of habits, character, diseases, or the like, Ó. H. 122; cp. úr-ætta.

COMPDS: ættarbálkr, ættarbragð, ættarbætir, ættarferð, ættarfylgja, ættarfærsla, ættargripr, ættarhaugr, ættarhögg, ættarlaukr, ættarmenn, ættarmót, ættarnafn, ættarréttr, ættarskarð, ættarskjöldr, ættarskömm, ættarspillir, ættarstofn, ættarsvipr, ættartal, ættartala.

☞ Genealogies (ættir, ættar-tölur, ætt-vísi) form the ground-work of the old Icel. historiography; the ancient Saga-men delighted in them, and had a marvellous memory for lineages; in the Sagas the pedigrees give the clue by which to trace the succession of events, and supply the want of chronology. Whole chapters in the best Sagas, esp. at the beginning of a work, are set apart for genealogies, thus. Nj. ch. 1, 19, 20, 25, 26, 46, 57, 96, 97, 114, 115, 155, as also 47, 57, 58, 106 (begin.), Eb. ch. 1, 7, 8, 12, 65, Ld. ch. 1, 31, 32, Eg. ch. 23, Gullþ. ch. 1, Dropl. S. ch. 1–3, Þorst. hv. ch. 1–3, Þorst. Saga St. (the end), Rafns S. (the end-chapter), Flóam. S. ch. 1 (and esp. the end-chapter), Hænsa Þ. S. ch. 1, Gísl. S. pp. 8, 9, Vapn. S. ch. 3, Ísl. i. 353–362 (Biskupa-ættir), Guðm. S. ch. 1, Árna b. S. ch. 1, Þórð. S. hr. new Ed. (at the end), Fagrsk. 144–148, Orkn. S. ch. 39, 59. In the Sturlunga S. the initial chapters (Sturl. i. 44–55, with which the work of Sturla begins) are devoted to the tracing the families of that time; so also Sturl. i. 202–206, iii. 96, 97. But the chief store-house for genealogical knowledge is the Landnáma, which contains about 5000 pr. names, of which perhaps a third are names of women.

n. trouble, toil, labor; höfum erfiði ok ekki erendi, we have the toil, but no result.

* * *

or erviði (ærfaði, N. G. L. i. 391; ærfuð, id. I. 10), n. [Ulf. arbaiþs = κόπος; A. S. earfoð; O. H. G. arapeit; mod. Germ. arbeit, which shews that mod. Dan. arbeide and Swed. arbete are borrowed from the Germ.; lost in Engl. The etymology of this word is uncertain; the Icel. notion is to derive it from er- priv. and viða = vinna, to work, but it is scarcely right; Grimm, s. v. arbeit, suggests it to be akin to Lat. labor; Max Müller refers it to the root AR, to plough, Science of Language, p. 258, 3rd Ed.; but arfiði (Björn, p. 41) instead of erviði is a fictitious form, and the statement that in old Norse or Icel. it means ploughing rests only on a fancy of old Björn (Dict. l. c.), to which he was probably led by the similarity between Lat. arvum to Germ. and mod. Dan. arbeit, arbeide: in fact the Icel., ancient or modern, conveys no such notion; even in the old heathen poems the word is used exactly in the present sense, which again is the same as in Ulf.]:—toil, labour, and metaph. toil, trouble; in the allit. phrase, e. en eigi eyrendi, toil but no errand, i. e. lost labour, Þkv. 10, 11, Hkv. Hjörv. 5; víl ok e., toil and trouble (of travelling), Hbl. 58, Skálda 163; kváðusk hafa haft mikit e. ok öngu á leið komið, Fms. v. 21, Post. 645. 58, Sks. 235, v. l., N. G. L. l. c.

2. metaph. distress, suffering; drýgja e., to ‘dree’ distress, Gm. 35 (heathen poem),—in N. G. L. i. 391 this phrase is used of a priest officiating; hungr, þorsti, e., Hom. 160: in pl., meðr mörgum erfiðum er á hana leggjask, Stj. 51: an old poet (Arnor) calls the heaven the erfiði of the dwarfs, vide dvergr. In the Icel. N. T. erfiði is often used in the very same passages as in Ulf., thus—yðvart e. er eigi ónýtt í Drottni, 1 Cor. xv. 58; í erfiði, í vökum, í föstu, 2 Cor. vi. 5; og hrósum oss eigi tram yfir mælingu í annarlegu erfiði, x. 15; og vort e. yrði til ónýtis, 1 Thess. iii. 5, cp. Ulf. l. c.

β. medic. asthma, difficulty in breathing; brjóst-erfiði, heavy breathing.

COMPDS: erfiðisdauði, erfiðislaun, erfiðisléttir, erfiðismunir, erfiðisnauð, erfiðissamr, erfiðissemi, erviðisverk.

(-ar, -ir), m. cloak.

pp. fitted;

vera vel (illa) feldr til e-s, to be well (ill) fitted for a thing; neut., þér er ekki felt at, it is not for thee to.

* * *

m., gen. feldar, pl. feldir, a cloak worn by the ancients, esp. one lined with fur; hvítr-f., a white cloak, Fbr. 145 sqq.; rauð-f., a red cloak, Landn. (a nickname); grá-f., a grey cloak, Hkr. i. 176; skinn-f., a skin cloak, Orkn. 326 (in a verse); bjarn-f., q. v., a bear-skin cloak; röggvar-f., a woollen cloak, Grett. 114; varar-f., a common cloak; loð-f., a shaggy cloak, a fur cloak, = loði; blá-f., a blue cloak, N. G. L. i. 74; feldr fimm alna í skaut, a cloak measuring five ells square, Korm. 86; a feld four ells long and two ells broad, Grág. i. 500, was in trade the usual size, but here the ell is a ‘thumb ell,’ measuring only about sixteen inches; stutt-f., a short cloak, Fms. vii. 152 (a nickname); feldr, kápa, and skikkja seem to be synonymous, cp. Ls. ch. 14, 15, Glúm. ch. 3, 8, Grett. ch. 23, Lv. ch. 17. Tac. Germ. ch. 17—‘tegumen omnibus sagum, fibulâ, aut, si desit, spinâ consertum;’ the cloaks were often made of (or lined with) costly furs, Glúm. ch. 6; breiða feld á höfuð sér, to wrap the head in a cloak, Nj. 164, Kristni S. ch. 11, Fms. vi. 43 (Sighvat), as a token of deep thinking: feldar-dálkr, m. a cloak-pin, Hkr., vide dálkr; feldar-röggvar, f. pl. the patches or ‘ragged’ hairs on the outside of a cloak, Lv. 55, cp. Grág. i. 500; feldar-skaut, n. (-blað, n., Finnb. 342), a cloak’s skirt, Fb. i. 416; feldar-slítr, n. pl. the tatters of a cloak, Grett. The etymology of feldr is uncertain, scarcely from Lat. pellis, but rather from falda, to fold, wrap; even Tacitus, l. c., makes a distinction between the ‘sagulum’ (= feldr) and ‘ferarum pelles,’ the latter being a mark of more savage habits, such as that of the berserkers; feldr is never used of a woman’s cloak (möttull, skikkja); the passage Fm. 43 is corrupt: the phrase, það er ekki með feldi, it is not right, something is wrong, is a corrupt form instead of með felldu, part. from fella, q. v.

n. an απ. λεγ. in the eccl. law of the county Víkin or Borgarþing, a coast district in the south of Norway, N. G. L. i. 339, 363, where the law orders that a monster child (i. e. an abortion, a birth without human shape) shall be brought to a place ‘forve,’ and buried where neither man nor beast comes by; þat skal á forve (forre, v. l.) fœra ok röyra ( put in a cairn) þar er hvárki gengr yfir menn né fénaðr, þat er forve (forfue, v. l.) hins ílla. In N. G. L. i. 13 it is ordered that felons (e. g. traitors, murderers, self-murderers, etc.) were not to be buried in consecrated soil, but in the ‘flood-mark where sea and green turf meet;’ cp. the curious story in Landn. 2. 19, where the Christian lady Auda ordered herself to be buried between high and low water mark (í flæðarmáli), as she would not rest in heathen earth; so, on the other hand, a monster child must not rest in Christian earth. Thus forve is probably derived from fyrva, q. v., to ebb, and denotes the flood-mark or beach in which the grave was to be dug; the concluding words, þat er forve hins ílla, probably mean this place is the forve of the evil one, i. e. an unhallowed place. The etymology given in H. E. i. 75 cannot be right.

a. pleasant (frýnlooking), inviting (only with negative, cf. úfrýnn).

* * *

or frýniligr, adj.; this word is never used but as compounded with the prefix ú- (except Fas. ii. 351 in a bad and late Saga), viz. ú-frýnn or ú-frýniligr = frowning. The sense as well as the etymology of frýnn is somewhat dubious; there is the Germ. fron or frohn or fran; but that word seems purely German and is by Grimm supposed to be qs. fro min = my lord (vide Hel.); neither does Icel. frýnn or Germ. frohn correspond properly as to the root vowel (cp. e. g. Germ. lohn = Icel. laun): on the other hand there is the Engl. frown, which in form answers to the simple frýnn, but in sense to the compd ú-frýnn; as no similar word is found in A. S. (nor in Germ. nor in Hel.), frown is most likely a Scandin. word; and we suppose that the Icel. prefix syllable ú- is not in this instance = un-, that is to say, negative, but = of-, that is to say, intensive (= too, very, greatly); the original forms of-frýnn, of-frýniligr were contr. and assimilated into ófrýnn, ófrýniligr, meaning very frowning, and these compds then superseded the primitive simple word: this is confirmed by the freq. spelling in MSS. with ‘ of-’ e. g. ofrynn, Ó. H. 144; all-ofrynn, Eg. Cod. Wolph.; heldr ofrynn, Ó. H. 167; but yet more freq. with ‘ú-’ e. g. Orkn. 440, Boll. 358, Fær. 50, Fms. i. 40, Fb. i. 73; the ekki frýnn, Fas. l. c., is again a variation of úfrýnn: the statement by Björn that frýnn is = bland, affable, is a mere guess by inference from the compd.

f. mid-winter night, about the time of Epiphany, when the heathen Yule began; a απ. λεγ.: hann setti þat í lögum at hefja Jólahald sem Kristnir menn …, en áðr var Jóla-hald hafit Hökunótt, þat var miðsvetrar-nótt (thus in Fms. i. 32, l. c.), ok haldin þriggja (þrettán?) nátta Jól, Hkr. i. 138 (Hák. S. Aðalst. ch. 15). The Scot. hogmaney, = the last day of the year or a feast given on that day, is a remnant of this ancient word. The heathen Yule seems among the Scandinavians to have been celebrated about three weeks later than Christmas; but the Norse king Hakon, who had been brought up in Christian England, altered the time of the festival, so as to make it correspond with the English Yule or Christmas; and so the heathen hökunótt came to represent our Christmas Eve. The etymology is not known.

(-s, -ar), m. king.

* * *

m.; since the 14th century in a contracted form kóngr, and so in the poems and ballads of that time, Lil., Ól. R., Skíða R., Völs. R., as also in the best mod. poets, Hallgrim, Eggert, cp. Pass. xxvii. 8, 9, 13, 15, Bb. 2. 15, 3. 96, 100, passim: the old vellums mostly abbreviate thus, kḡr, kḡ, kḡs; the contracted form occurs in MSS. of the 14th century or even earlier, e. g. Cod. Fris., and this is also the usual mod. pronunciation: [this word is common to all Teut. languages except Goth., where þiudans = Icel. þjóðan is used; A. S. cynig; Engl. king; O. H. G. chuninc; Germ. könig; Swed. kung and konung; Dan. konge; the word is prop. a patronymic derivative from konr, = Gr. ἀνηρ γενναιος = a man of noble extraction; the etymology Konr ungr ( young Kon) given in the poem Rm. is a mere poetical fancy]:—a king; hvárki em ek k. né jarl, ok þarf ekki at göra hásæti undir mik, Nj. 176; jarl ok konungr, N. G. L. i. 44; Dyggvi var fyrstr k. kallaðr sinna ættmanna, en áðr vóru þeir dróttnar kallaðir, Hkr. i. 24, passim: the saying, til frægðar skal konung hafa, meir en til langlífis, Fms. iv. 83, vii. 73; cp. fylki skal til frægðar hafa, Mkv.; mörg eru konungs eyru, Hkr. i. 287; langr er konungs morgin, Sighvat: þjóð-konungr, a king of a þjóð, = Gr. βασιλευς μέγας; sæ-konungr, a sea king; her-k., a king of hosts, both used of the kings of old, whose sole kingdom was their camp or fleet, and who went out to conquer and pillage,—þat var siðr víkinga, ef konunga synir réðu fyrir herliði, at þeir vóru kallaðir konungar, Fms. i. 98; lá hann þá löngum í hernaði ok var kallaðr konungr af liðsmönnum, sem víkinga siðr var, 257; þá er Ólafr tók við liði ok skipum, þá gáfu liðsmenn honum konungs-nafn, svá sem siðvenja var til, at herkonungar þeir er í víking vóru, ef þeir vóru konungbornir, þá báru þeir konungsnafn, þótt þeir sæti hvergi at löndum, Ó. H. 16; Konungr konunga, King of kings, the Lord, 656 C. 32: also of an emperor, Nero k., king Nero, 26; Girkja-k., the king of the Greeks = the Emperor of Constantinople, Fms. passim; Karlamagnús k., king Charlemagne, etc.

B. COMPDS: Konungabók, konungafundr, Konungahella, konungahús, konungakyn, konungamóðir, konungaskipti, konungastefna, konungasætt, konungatal, Konungaæfi, konungaætt, konungsatsetr, konungsborg, konungsbréf, konungsbryggja, konungsbú, konungsbær, konungsdómr, konungsefni, konungseiðr, konungseign, konungaeigur, konungseyrendi, konungsfundr, konungsgarðr, konungsgata, konungsgipta, konungsgjöf, konungsgæfa, konungsgörsemi, konungsheiti, konungsherbergi, konungshirð, konungshús, konungshöfn, konungshöll, konungsjörð, konungskveðja, konungslauss, konungsleyfi, konungslið, konungslúðr, konungslykill, konungslægi, konungsmaðr, konungsmörk, konungsnafn, konungsnautr, konungsníðingr, konungsorð, konungsreiði, konungsréttr, konungsríki, kóngsríki, konungssetr, konungsskip, konungsskrúði, konungssmiðr, konungssómi, konungssteði, konungssveit, konungssverð, konungssýsla, konungssæti, konungstekja, konungstign, konungsumboð, konungsumboðsmaðr, konungsvald, konungsvinr, konungsvígsla, konungsþing, konungsþræll, konungsæfi.

f. (often spelt Sviðioð), dat. Svíþjóðu, Gs. 13, Fas. ii. 485 (in a verse); Svíþjúðu, Rafn 181, 189: [Svíar and þjóð; the d in the forms Suede, Schweden, Sweden is from the þ in þjóð: the etymology (Edda 107) from Odin’s name Sviðrir is quite fanciful, for even Tacitus calls the people Swiones, not Swithones]:—the people, land of the Swedes, i. e. Sweden, orig. only of Sweden proper as opp. to Gothland; í Danmörku, Gautlandi eðr í Svíþjóð, N. G. L. ii. 277; afterwards used as a general name for the later Swedish empire, including Gothland (Svía-veldi, Svía-ríki): again, Svíþjóð in Kalda or in Mikla, Svíþjóð, ‘the Cold, the Great,’ was the old name of the east of Europe, ‘Scythia,’ see Hkr., Yngl. S. ch. 1; Symb. (begin.), Al. 131: the European Svíðjóð was therefore Svíþjóð in minni, or Swecia Minor,’ Symb. 13.

εὐνοῦχος, ου, ὁ (s. prec. entry; Hdt., Aristoph. et al.; Vett. Val. 18, 19; 86, 34; BGU 725, 14; 29; LXX, Test12Patr; AscIs 3:11; Philo; Jos., Bell. 1, 488, Ant. 17, 44; Ath. 34, 1)

① a castrated male person, eunuch. Mt 19:12b. Eunuchs served, esp. in the orient, as keepers of a harem (Esth 2:14) and not infreq. rose to high positions in the state (Hdt. 8, 105; AscIs 3:11 τῶν εὐνούχων καὶ τῶν συμβούλων τοῦ βασιλέως): the εὐ. δυνάστης of Queen Candace Ac 8:27, 34, 36, 38f.—S. on Κανδάκη.—Diod S 11, 69, 1 Mithridates is physically a εὐνοῦχος and holds the position of κατακοιμιστής (=the chamberlain; note the etymology of εὐ.: εὐνή ‘bed’ + ἔχω) τοῦ βασιλέως (Xerxes). In 17, 5, 3 Βαγώας as χιλίαρχος bears the title of a high official at the Persian court (18, 48, 4f). Since he is also described as εὐνοῦχος, the word must be understood literally. Similarly in Ac 8:27ff, the man baptized by Philip performs the function of δυνάστης Κανδάκης βασιλίσσης. Here also ‘eunuch’ refers primarily to his physical state, but Luke’s interest in showing the broad outreach of the Gospel, esp. through the arrival of an important personage from a distant locality, prob. comes into play (for OT perspectives contrast Dt 23:1 Mt and Is 56:3). FSpencer, The Ethiopian Eunuch and His Bible—A Social-Science-Analysis: BTB 22, ’92, 155–65.

② a human male who, without a physical operation, is by nature incapable of begetting children, impotent male (Wsd 3:14) εὐ. ἐκ κοιλίας μητρός Mt 19:12a.

③ a human male who abstains fr. marriage, without being impotent, a celibate Mt 19:12c (cp. Ath. 34, 1).—s. εὐνουχίζω.—JBlinzler, ZNW 48, ’57, 254–70; Pauly-Wiss. Suppl. III/2, 1772f; B. 141. New Docs 3, 41. Schmidt, Syn. IV 35–37. DELG s.v. ἐυνή. M-M. EDNT. TW.