Hermann Ptilsson Aspects of Norse Place Nallles in the Western Isles I St. Gregory the Great (d. 604) has long been recognized as an outstanding literary interpreter, particularly by those who acknowledge the principle of polysemy or multiplicity of meaning. In a striking passage (quoted here from memory) he suggests that the words of Holy Writ could be compared to square stones; since it is impossible to observe all the sides of such a stone simultaneously, we must turn it over in order to see each of its facets. The same applies, he argues, to the words of the Bible: individual expressions have several meanings and functions, which we cannot properly grasp without observing them from different viewpoints. The learned pope is here, of course, concerned with the 'literal', 'allegorical', 'moral' and 'anagogic' meanings which were supposed to be a special quality of the Bible, but in recent decades the basic principles involved have become fashionable in certain critical circles dealing with secular literature as well (Frye 1957, 72 and elsewhere). Like the multi-faceted or polysemous words of the Bible, Norse place names in the Western Isles have several aspects to them, and it seems desirable that no facet should be omitted from consideration. It is proposed to use St. Gregory's exegetical principle as an intellectual framework for the purpose of organizing a systematic and comprehensive programme for the investigation of those names. When I allude to the three-dimensional Gregorian model in this context, I have in mind that each facet of our notional stone represents a particular area of research, and that once we have satisfactorily dealt with all six aspects of a particular name, the investigation of it has been completed. As will be argued below in connection 7 NORTHERN STUDIES· 31 with the HISTORICAL a,spect, place names are not studied exclusively for their own sake but also in order to glean infonnation about the'people who created them. The six aspects of Norse place names in the Western Isles can be defined in the following terms: 1. First there is the strictly FORMAL aspect when we consider different manifestations of a name, not only its written forms but also the current pronunciation in Gaelic and English. Ideally, every traditional Hebridean name, irrespective of its linguistic background, should have a standardized written form; unfortunately, however, the spelling of many names on the Ordnance Survey maps leaves a lot to be desired. Phonetic transcripts of a name will serve as·an obvious starting point for researches into its origins, functions and meanings. The investigation of the Hebridean nomenclature is greatly hampered by the fact that numerous names in the is~ands still remain uncollected; others, through neglect, are irretrievably lost. Place names are either simplex, i.e. consisting of a single stem: Uig < ON V,K (f.) 'a creek, bay'; Siadar < ON Siftr (n.) 'a shieling, summer pasture', Stoth < ON StoO (f.) 'a natural harbour', or compounded, i.e. made up of two or more components: Bosta < ON B61-staar (m.) 'a farm'; Kirkebost < ON Kirkju-b61-staeJr 'a church farm'. The gender of place names is an important factor, and so is their grammatical number. As Magne Oftedal has rightly pointed out, some of the names appear to represent an ON oblique case rather than the nominative, as one would expect. 2. The PHONOLOGIC·AL aspect. At this stage we treat our place names essentially as Norwegian loanwords borrowed into Gaelic; the principal aim here is to identify the Norse elements that went into their making, and also to account for the phonetic changes involved. The sound systems of Norse and Gaelic are very different, and the process by which Norse words and names were adopted into Gaelic is still obscure in certain respects. Forty years ago, Magne Oftedal wrote in his monograph on the village names of Lewis: "It is impossible, with the limited amount of material yet available, to make anything like a complete survey of the phonetic changes that 8 HERMANN pALSSON have taken place from Old Norse to Modem Gaelic. It has been attempted by Watson in his Place Names of Ross and Cromarty and by Henderson in The Norse Influence on Celtic Scotland, but with little success, partly owing to the fact that both authors use the completely inadequate Gaelic spelling as their point of departure, instead of some kind of phonetic notation" (Oftedal 1954, 366-367). In this context, Oftedal refers to Carl Hj. Borgstrom's The Dialects of the Outer Hebrides which still remains an indispensable work for those who want to make sense of the phonology of Norse place names in the Western Isles. Notwithstanding the splendid work of more recent scholars such as W. F. H. Nicolaisen and Donald M~caulay, the situation has not improved very much since the Norwegian Celticists Borgstrom and Oftedal published their investigations of Gaelic dialects in the Western Isles. 3. Next we proceed to the third side of our notional stone, which is the SEMANTIC aspect. The search for meanings and functions inevitably entails the comparison of Hebridean names with their counterparts in Norway and the insular settlements in Shetland, Orkney, the Faroes and Iceland. At the same time, we explore the etymology of each individual stem, not only in Germanic, but also in other branches of Indo­ European. The derivation of a word will often help to solve problems relating to its meaning. The basic meaning of the prolific lE root *per-, *por- was 'to force one's way through something, or to cross if, so it is not surprising that the original sense of fjorOr, whictl derives from this root, was 'a place where a ferry operates'; its cognates in other languages include E. ford 'a place in a stretch of water where it is possible to cross by wading', and Latin portus 'a harbour, haven'. The use of the term fj()rOr for 'a sound, channel' as in ON Pettlandsfj()rOr (E. Pentland Firth) is consistent with the original sense of the root. In this connection, Arne Kruse has drawn my attention to two other open-ended 'fjords': Vestfjorden in Nordland and Boknafjordcn in Rogaland. Elsewhere in Norway, fj()rOr usually means 'a long and narrow inlet of the sea, typically between high steep cliffs', but in Iceland it is also used about broad bays, such as Brcidifjoror, 0xarfjoror and l>istilfjororj it should be noted here that the proper tenn for a bay which is as wide as it 9 NORTHERN STUDIE.S· 31 is long is fl6i (cp. Hunafl6i, HeraOsfl6i, Faxafl6i in Iceland and Scapa Flow in Orkney); Floen occurs in Norway as the name of a lake (NSL, 111). Gruinard Bay west of Ullapool must represent ON Grunnafjorar 'the shallow bay' (the name occurs also in Norway and Iceland); here as in the case of the three Icelandic bays mentioned above, the" use of the term -fj()ror deviates from normal Norwegian practice. In Gaelic, the term 'loch' sometimes replaces fjorar; thus Loch Vatten in Skye is a rendering of ON Vatnsfj()rOr. In Old Irish, it should be noted, one of the meanings ofthe term loch was 'an inlet of the sea'. For the purpose of making sense of Hebridean names, it will often be helpful to use the Icelandic situation as a starting point. Most of the numerous Icelandic place names that are mentioned in the sagas and other early sources are lexically transparent. There are, however, some intriguing exceptions. Certain Icelandic names include archaic Norwegian components which had ceased to be intelligible by the twelfth century when the Icelanders began to record history, genealogy and other kinds of native tradition. Here it is worth noting that in medieval Icelandic texts, names which are not easily understood are often accompanied by an onomastic gloss. Thus the Book of Settlements (1972, 17) explains the origin ofthe name Faxa6ss (now Faxa-fl6i, see above) with an anecdote about a Hebridean called Faxi, after whom the bay is supposed to have been called: As they sailed round Reykjanes and the bay opened up wide so .they could see westwards to Snrefellsnes, Faxi had .this to say: "It must be a big country we have found: the rivers are big enough." After this the bay was called Faxaos [i.e. 'Faxi's estuary']. However, it is doubtful if the personal name Faxi, let alone such a Hebridean, ever existed, but Faxi (m. 'white with foam') was one of many uncompounded fjord names in Norway, corresponding to the river name Faxa (f.). Another legendary character of dubious onomastic origin is mentioned in Kjalnesinga saga; an Irish lady called Esja is said to have made her home at Esjuberg (see below). The ethnic background of 10 HERMANN pALSSON Faxi and Esja is a clear indication that their names, and hence the place names supposed to derive from them, were regarded as strange and unusual. In the north of Iceland there is a valley called Svarfaoardalr, the first element of which must be the old river name SV()rfuO (f. 'the sweeper'), but according to Svarfdrela saga the valley got its name from the first settler I>orsteinn svorfuor. The original name of the river is long forgotten; since the thirteenth century at least it has been known as Svarfaaardals-ti, 'the River of Svarfaoardalr'. One of the weaknesses in certain attempts to identify Norse stems in the Hebridean nomenclature has been the tendency to consult dictionaries rather than actual place names in Norway, Iceland and elsewhere. Here, I would· like to mention just three nouns which do not figure in ON texts although they are well established as place name elements: Rip (f.) 'a crag' occurs as a farm name in Iceland and is probably the first element in Loch Ribevat in Lewis.