Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1995, Page 64

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A NOTE ON THE DERIVATION OF FAROESE GRIND
ently based on the report of a Faroese in-
formant from 1592 (Storm, 1881: 427). In
his account of whale hunting in the Faroes,
Claussøn Friis connects the use of grind for
schools of whales with the meaning of
grind as a kind of wooden or iron lattice-
work (Trelleverck) or grating (Riist), and
suggests that the formation of the whales as
they swim together resembles such a struc-
ture:
Alt hvad som er giort aff Træ eller Jæm udi
Trelleverck saa som en Riist (cratis) det kald-
is en Grind paa Norske, oc fordi at Hvaleme
løbe jeffnsidis hos hin anden oc store hobe,
naar de løbe paa læg, da kaldis den Hvalhob
en Hvalsgrind, saa som i den tractat om Fiske
mere er omrørt (Storm, 1881: 431-32).
(Anything which is made of wood or iron in the form
of a trellis/ latticework [Trelleverck], such as a grill
or gate, is called grind in Norwegian, and because
these whales swim side by side in large groups when
they are mating, then that group of whales is called a
Hvalsgrind, as was discussed in the treatise on fish.)
This simple yet rather perplexing explana-
tion has often been presented in later ac-
counts of grindadráp as the commonly ac-
cepted derivation of the word to refer to a
school of pilot whales, and is also the first
explanation offered by the Oxford English
Dictionary (1991). It has also become
something of a convention in many ac-
counts of grindadráp, from general de-
scriptions to scholarly works, ever since
Claussøn Friis (see Petersen, 1968: 46;
Wylie, 1981: 103). The latest example in
this long tradition, a description of the
Faroes from 1991, states in its chapter on
»The Grind«:
The word grind means gate. The whales will
sometimes stop for a while in a dense school,
and scholars believe the name may refer to
the fact that a school has the appearance
when pausing of a barred gate (Kjørsvik
Schei and Moberg, 1991: 123).
A second explanation for the derivation of
grind is also connected with the sense of
gate, but is linked rather to the methods of
capture than the characteristics of the
whales themselves. The Oxford English
Dictionary provides the following explana-
tion:
Others explain it as referring to the mode of
capture, the whales being fenced or penned
in by a line of boats (1991).
and Kjørsvik Schei also goes on in her ac-
count to explain this altemative:
It is also possible that the name simply refers
to the old method of chasing the whales into
a trap by closing some kind of gate behind
them (Kjørsvik Schei and Moberg, 1991:
123).
As concems the first interpretation of grind
as a kind of barrier formed by the whales
themselves, it seems unlikely that this is
what really lies behind its semantic devel-
opment to become a school of pilot whales.
Regardless of how motionless the whales
may seem when »pausing«, it is difficult to
conceive of a large group of whales as re-