Gripla - 20.12.2018, Qupperneq 146

GRIPLA146
2.2. aldrnari ‘the one who narrows’
Sophus Bugge, for one, was unable to accept the fire hypothesis, arguing
instead for a different meaning of the word aldrnari.23 He proposed that
it meant ‘the one who narrows, makes something narrow’. In support of
his view Bugge drew attention to the old English verb nearwian which
means ‘make narrow’:
...kaldes Ilden som den, der indsnævrer, hemmer Livsvirksomheden,
jfr. oldeng. nearwian, indsnævre, klemme, trykke, oldn. nara leve
et usselt Liv.
[...the fire is called ‘the one that narrows, inhibits life’s the activity’,
cf. old English nearwian ‘make something narrow, squeeze, press’,
Old Norse nara ‘live a wretched life’]
Karl Müllenhoff, who supported the fire hypothesis, expressly rejected
Bugge’s idea.24 He declared, not without a touch of irony, that the deriva-
tion of the word from old English nerwian ‘make narrow’ was worth no
more than Sveinbjörn Egilsson’s reference to words in Semitic languages
(arabic and aramaic). More importantly, Müllenhoff compared aldrnari
to the Old English forms *aldorneru and *feorhneru, both with the basic
meaning ‘saving of life’, which he, however, cited incorrectly as hav-
ing “-naru” as their second element. the old Icelandic word is an agent
noun, he asserted, which is ‘of course’ related to the action noun found
in old English. Müllenhoff concluded that ‘the one who maintains life’
here means ‘fire’ regardless of its role in this place in the poem. to quote
Müllenhoff:
Das ἅπαξ λεγόμενον [hápax legómenon] ‘aldrnari’ ist natürlich das
nomen agentis zu dem nomen actionis ags. aldornaru, feorhnaru
[sic], und ‘lebenserhalter’ heisst hier das feuer ohne rücksicht auf
die function die es nach der schilderung augenblicklich ausübt.
die herleitung des wortes von ags. nearvian [sic] ‘artare’ war nicht
23 Norræn fornkvæði, 391.
24 Karl Müllenhoff, Deutsche Altertumskunde, vol. 5, part 1 (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandl-
ung, 1908), 154.