NN 31-9.Indd
NAMN OG NEMNE 31 – 2014 7 Hǫrgr in Norwegian names of mountains and other natural features By Eldar Heide The cult site type horg (hǫrgr m., pl. hǫrgar) belongs to the unsolved problems of Old Scandinavian religion, because the information conveyed by Old Norse and other Old Germanic texts points in many different directions. Horg is mentioned as a cultic building, an altar, an idol, a sacred grove, an enclosure of hazel branches at the assembly site, a mountain, a cultic site constructed from piled- up stones, etc. In later dialects, horg refers to a heap of stones, or rocky ground, or impenetrable forest, or a mountain with steep sides and a flat top, etc. Most scholars believe that horg originally referred to ‘rocky ground’ or ‘heap of stones’. As the problem seems unsolvable based on the textual / lexical information alone, the present study attempts a new approach. It examines Norwegian place names containing horg, especially names of natural features, which have hitherto received little attention, and analyses their locations in the landscape. It turns out that places with horg names are strongly connected to landscape barriers and borders. Through individual, typologically datable names, this naming pattern can be dated to the Early Iron Age or even earlier. This counts against the established etymology – ‘ rocky ground’ / ‘heap of stones’ – which seems to form part of a circular argument and has, in fact, consti- tuted a filter through which the material has been viewed. Instead, the alternative etymological connection with Latin carcer ‘an enclosed place, prison, barrier or starting-place in the race- course’ suggested by Noreen should be preferred.
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