Gripla - 20.12.2006, Qupperneq 73

GÖRÓTTUR ER DRYKKURINN
Wimmer, Ludv. F.A. 1896. Oldnordisk Læsebog. Femte gennemsete udgave. Køben-
havn.
Wimmer, Ludv. F.A. 1903. Oldnordisk Læsebog. Sjætte gennemsete udgave. Køben-
havn.
Wimmer, Ludv. F. A. og Finnur Jónsson (útg.). 1891. Håndskriftet Nr. 2365 4to gl. kgl.
Samling på det store kgl. bibliothek i København (Codex regius af den ældre Edda)
i fototypisk og diplomatisk gengivelse. S.T.U.A.G.N.L.København.
Örnólfur Thorsson (útg.). 1985. Völsunga saga og Ragnars saga loðbrókar. Mál og
menning, Reykjavík.
SUMMARY
‘The drink is göróttur.’A Modern Icelandic borrowing from Old Icelandic.
Keywords: historical phonology, etymology, linguistic borrowing, medieval scribal
practice, Saga of the Volsungs.
This paper discusses the history of the adjective appearing in Modern Icelandic as
göróttur ‘poisonous, hazardous, contaminated’ (especially of beverages). Only two
instances of this word are on record in Old Icelandic, both in the narrative describing
the death of Sinfjƒtli, the son of Sigmundr Vƒlsungsson. Borghildr, Sinfjƒtli’s
stepmother, offers Sinfjƒtli a poisonous drink. Sinfjƒtli looks into the drinking horn and
says to Sigmundr, his father: “This drink is göróttr, father.” (For now the word is
rendered with the root gör- as in Modern Icelandic.) Sigmundr pays little attention to
Sinfjƒtli’s words of suspicion, and in the end Sinfjƒtli drains the horn and suffers
immediate death. This narrative is preserved in Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda, GKS
2365 4to, and (in a somewhat longer form) in Vƒlsunga saga. The precise meaning of
the adjective göróttr in its earliest occurrences is not altogether clear, as is apparent
from the differing explanations found in some of the standard dictionaries; nor do we
have a firm understanding of its etymology or phonological shape at the earliest stage
of Old Icelandic, as is evident from the various forms the word assumes in the different
print editions, including “gjƒróttr”, “gøróttr”, “gjöróttr”, and “göróttr”.
In this paper, therefore, an attempt is made to find an answer to the following
questions:
(1) a. What is the meaning of the adjective göróttr in its earliest attestations?
b. What was its form at the earliest stage of Old Icelandic?
c. What is its etymology?
d. What is its history from Old Icelandic to Modern Icelandic?
As is discussed in section 2, the standard dictionaries offer two interpretations of the
adjective göróttr in the account of Sinfjƒtli’s death in the Poetic Edda and Vƒlsunga
saga: ‘cloudy, muddy’ or ‘poisonous’. The longer description of this event in Vƒlsunga
saga contains Sinfjƒtli’s reactions to the three drinking horns offered to him by Borg-
hildr. Upon receiving the first horn, Sinfjƒtli uses the word göróttr to describe its
content; for the second horn he uses the adjective flærðr ‘deceptive’, and when Borg-
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