Orð og tunga - 01.06.2010, Page 131

Kirsten Wolf: Green and Yellow
3 Assessment of the data
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Despite the fact that gulr is the older color term, the data (tables 1-8)
show that grœnn is the more frequently used term, though often it ap-
pears seemingly without appreciation of the color and more in the ab-
stract meaning of fertile. The use of the adjective about fish and meat,
as in, for example, Þiðriks saga af Bern, which reports that the king's
men row out to sea with a net to catch "green" fish for the king's table
("konungsmenn róa á sjó með strandvprpu at fá grœna fiska til kon-
ungs borðs" 1:83.9),14 and Stjórn, which reports that she hurried and
killed the ox and made "green" meat to eat ("hon skundaði ok drap
uxann ok bjó grœnt kjgt til fœðu" 493.7), obviously does not indicate
color but freshness. The eddic poems (table 1) show a rather contextu-
ally restricted use of the color term and one that finds parallels in Old
English poetry. As Mead (1899:200) points out, "[t]he earth, the fields,
the grass, the trees, the hills, and other objects are mentioned, but the
color-word appears to be added in many cases as a mere epithet."15
In contrast to the eddic poems, the color term is, however, used freely
in Old English poetry (Mead 1899:205). The skaldic poems (tables 2-
4) reveal a slightly more varied use of grœnn to include also the sea,
armor, and clothing; the last-mentioned is the most common referent
in the Sagas of Icelanders (table 5). The evidence suggests that in the
oldest texts grœnn was contextually restricted and used to describe
fertility and growth.16
The absence of gulr in the eddic poems, the earliest skaldic po-
ems,17 Snorri's Edda, and the infrequent and contextually restricted
14Green (fresh) fish are mentioned also in, for example, Guðmundar saga biskups
and Guðmundar saga Arasonar (in Biskupa sögur): "nú skulu vér hafa í dag grœna fiska;
farið til enn ok it þriðja sinn, góð er guðs þrenning" (1:594.17) and "Herra Guðmundr
lofar guð fyrir, ok segir svá: nú megu vér hafa grœnan fisk í dag, en draga skulu þér
optarr" (2:144.32)
I5Mead (1899:200) points out that "[t]he favorite color in Old English poetry, taken
as a while is green, the color of growing plants. The extraordinary fondness for this
color in English ballads has often been pointed out. But, singularly enough, the exam-
ples in Old English poetry are found almost wholly in the religious poems, one-third
in the Genesis alone. Yet not a single example occurs in the Beowulf or in any other
heroic poem. In the religious poems the word is commonly used in a somewhat con-
ventional way."
16Indeed, in the íslensk orðabók, grœnn (grætin) is defined as "með lit gróandi grass
og plantna."
17Because of the lack of evidence of gulr in the early literary works, the occurrence