Gripla - 20.12.2006, Page 74

GRIPLA
hildr hands him the third drinking horn, Sinfjƒtli declares: Eitr er í drykknum ‘there is
poison in the drink’. Assuming that the three drinking horns offered to Sinfjƒtli all con-
tain the same (or a similar) beverage, it is argued that the two adjectives Sinfjƒtli uses
to describe the beverage, göróttr and flærðr, are closely related semantically. Thus,
göróttr could be taken to mean ‘deceptive’, which is also the established meaning of
flærðr.
The two earliest occurrences of the adjective göróttr are “giorotr” in Codex Regius,
GKS 2365 4to (26v28), from around 1270, and “giorottr” in NKS 1824 b 4to
(13v16), the principal manuscript of Vƒlsunga saga, dated to around 1400–1425. As
discussed in section 3, both manuscripts postdate the phonological merger ƒ + ø > ö in
the early 13th century; their orthography cannot, therefore, provide any information as
to whether the word in question contained the root vowel ƒ or ø at the earliest stage of
Old Icelandic. The spelling with “gio” in both manuscripts, on the other hand, is of
great importance. It suggests that the word contained the sequence gjö- (after the
merger ƒ + ø > ö), not gö-, in the language of the scribes. The sequence gjö- is of two-
fold origin, from earlier gø- or gjƒ- (not gƒ-). The scribe of NKS 1824 b 4to does not
distinguish original gø- and gjƒ- (indicating both sequences with “gi” before an ap-
propriate vowel symbol), but the orthography of Codex Regius, probably a little more
than a century older than NKS 1824 b 4to, shows an important distinction, since the
palatalization of g, resulting from the earlier front vowel ø (by then ö), is not re-
presented orthographically (that is, before ö from earlier ø, g is spelled “g” instead of
“gi”). As a rule, the scribe of Codex Regius denotes original gø- with “g” before a
vowel symbol, while “gi” before an appropriate vowel symbol is the regular spelling of
original gjƒ-. It is, therefore, clear that in the orthography of Codex Regius of the
Poetic Edda, “giorotr” (26v28) would be the typical representation of earlier gjƒróttr,
but not of gøróttr, much less gƒróttr. Based on this evidence, it is concluded in section
3 that the Modern Icelandic adjective göróttur can with overwhelming likelihood be
reconstructed as gjƒróttr (but not gøróttr or gƒróttr) for the earliest stage of Old
Icelandic.
The adjective gjƒróttr, containing the derivational suffix -ótt-, must be based on a
substantive with the root gjar- or gjƒr-. As discussed in section 4, which is devoted to
the identification of this base word and its origin, the standard dictionaries cite a neuter
substantive gjör, ger that could originate in either gør or gjƒr in the earliest Old
Icelandic; the shape of the root excludes the former as the possible base for gjƒróttr,
but from a morphological point of view the latter could be the base. This depends,
however, on the semantics of gjör, ger, which remain somewhat obscure. The word
appears in stanza 9 (or 10) of Egill Skallagrímsson’s Hƒfuðlausn, in Merlínusspá, and
in Konungs skuggsjá; in all three instances it could mean ‘food’ and in the last example
also ‘(food as) bait’. Based on comparison with the cognate Faroese gjar ‘small
crayfish used as bait’, Old Icelandic adjective gerr ‘greedy’ and other (early) Germanic
words meaning, for instance, ‘greedy’, ‘the greedy one’, and ‘greed’, it is argued that
gjör, ger originally meant ‘something desirable, to be coveted’, from which the mean-
ing ‘food’ and, importantly, ‘(food as) bait’ developed. Assuming that the meaning of
the adjective gjƒróttr can be reconstructed as ‘deceptive, containing bait’, it could be
derived from the base word gjör (or gjar), which consequently must have been gjƒr,
not gør, at the earliest stage of Old Icelandic.
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