Íslenzk tunga - 01.01.1965, Side 59

1I.TARTA DREPR STALL
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hjarta drepr stall, and the age of the instances found in the texts
gives more support to this theory. But for my theory of the origin
of the phrase it does not matter which of these alternatives is given
the preference. Certainly the verh stallra, which means ‘to stop’
would not have been used for drepa stall, if that expression had not
had the meaning ‘to stop’. It is thus fairly certain that the expression
drepa stall means ‘to stop’. And this view gets a strong support from
a different direction, as will he shown. But before I come to that,
I shall discuss the various meanings of the word stalb in Old Ice-
landic and the etymology of the word.
2) According to Cleasby-Vigfússon the word slallr had the fol-
lowing meanings in Old Icelandic:
1) any block or shelf on which another thing is placed, 2) a
pedestal, 3) a stall, crib, 4) the step of a mast.
Very similar translations are found in other dictionaries, except
that Fritzner takes the word to mean “stööugleikr” in the phrase in
question. Professor Finnur Jónsson states in Lexicon poeticum
(under 2. stallr) that none of the meanings of the word known from
Old Icelandic can explain the phrase. I quite agree with this pro-
position and can add that the same applies to the meanings of the
word in Modern Icelandic. Most etymologists suppose that the Proto-
Germanic form of the word was *stalla- < *stalna-, Indo-European
*stholnó-. Various paronymous words in the Indo-European langu-
ages have the meaning ‘place’,68 e.g., Latin locus (from Old Latin
stlocus). This meaning is also found in Old High German, as I shall
show below. Thus there is no doubt that it has been preserved in
Proto-Germanic. It would be unnatural to assume that this meaning
of the word in Old High German was due to a later development
without connection with the meaning of the word in other Indo-
European languages.
88II. S. Falk nnd A. Torp, Nonvegisch-danisches etymologisclies Wörter-
huch (Heidelberg 1910—11), 1147.