Íslenzk tunga - 01.01.1965, Page 54

52
HALLDÓR HALLDÓRSSON
as the Danish counterpart although the meaning ‘to be brave’ is not
used in Modern Swedish.49 The Scandinavian phrases seem to have
been borrowed from the German das Herz auf dem rechten Flecke
haben ‘to be brave’.50 The corresponding English phrase is one’s
heart is in the riglit place, which means “one’s sympathies are rightly
engaged, one means well.”51
The meaning ‘to be brave’ is, as already mentioned, more original.
It is probable that the phrase has been used with negation, as is the
case at least in Danish. But this is of minor importance hecause the
idea that the brave man has his heart in the right place presupposes
the belief that the faint-hearted has not.
b) As the first example of group 2 we can take the Old Icelandic
phrase hjarlal loðir við þjóknappa ‘the heart sticks fast to the pos-
teriors’, which is found in a strophe in Sturlunga saga, thought to
he comjDosed in 1217:
Sendir rann af Sandi
sundhreins frá bpr fleina
hræddr, svát hjartat loddi,
happlaust, við þjóknappa.52
The same idea is implied in the phrase að vera með hjartað í bux-
unum ‘shake in one’s shoes’ and its variants hjartað sígur (í bux-
urnar) hjá e-m, að bera hjartað í buxunum, and ha/a hjartað í hos-
unum. The last two are known from the 18th century,53 and the
49 Ordbok öjver svenska spriket utgifven af Svenska Akademien [SAOB]
(Lund 1898—1959), under hjárta.
60 Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm (Leipzig 1854—
1958) IV 2, c. 1218.
51 The Oxjord English Dictionary [OED] (Oxford 1933), under lieart.
52 SkjaJdedigtning B II, 149; cf. A II, 140, and Sturlunga saga (Reykjavík
1946) I, 266. One manuscript has loddit instead of loddi. This could be correct,
i.e., ‘so afraid that tlie heart did not even stick fast to the posteriors’.
63 Ludvig Holberg, Nikulás Klím. íslenzk þýðing eftir Jón Ólafsson úr
Grunnavík (Islenzk rit síðari alda III; Kaupmannahöfn 1948), 119 and 118.
The phrases haja buxur með e-ð ‘to be afraid of something’ and já buxur ‘be-