Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1962, Qupperneq 26

32
Finna, peð og bekkur
SUMMARY
For ceniuries chess (Faroese: talv — Icelandic: tsfi) has been a favourite
pastime in the Faroes and in Iceland, and the game was much more
popular here than in any of the other Scandinavian countries. The
vivid interest in chess among people in the Faroes was for example
mentioned by Lucas Debes (1673) and J. C. Svabo (in the eighties of
the 18th century), and until recently chess was very popular here and
there in the Faroes during Lent, for people were allowed to play this
game, whereas dancing and card-playing were not permitted. In Faroese
a number of chess terms are identical with the Icelandic equivalents,
e. g. skák, mát, rókur, (Icel. hrókur), marmagangur (Icel. manngangur)
(the rules for) mowing the chessmen’, but when we come to the word
for ‘pawn’, the two languages do not agree: Modern Faroese has finna
(from Low German Vinne, cf. Older Swedish fínna, Older Danish fínde),
while Modern Icelandic has retained the mediaeval word peá (the me-
diaeval chess terms Latin pedes and pedo). In the present paper it is
demonstrated that the word peð for ’pawn’ has also been used in Older
Faroese, for a Faroese dictionary (in manuscript) from the end of the
18th century cites bekkja(r)peðini (spelt Bekkja Pei'ni) meaning’the pawns
in front of the castles'. It is shown that the first part of the compound
must be, at least formally, identical with Middle Icelandic beckr, used
in AM 152 fol. (a 15th century manuscript) f. 85v: »-----XVI tafl
menn uit huarn beck--------«. The Icelandic word is used here in a
sense closely related to one of its meanings in Modern Icelandic ’border,
edge (of cloth)’. Also in Modern Faroese bekkur is sometimes used to
indicate a part of the chess-board, in the phrase »at loysa frá bekki«
— ’to move the first of the pieces’. In the Faroese compound bekkja(r)=
peð, bekkur presumably refers to the two outer rows of squares on the
chess-board (a and h). It is probable that some of the Icelandic-Faroese
chess terms have existed in Middle Norwegian, even if it cannot be
proved for lack of evidence, since there is no living and uninterrupted
chess tradition in Norway.
BÓKMENTIR
1. G. Blomquist: Schacktavelslek och Sju vise mástare. Sthm. 1941.
2. Sigfús Blóndal: Islandsk-dansk Ordbog. Rvk. 1920—1924.
3. W. Fiske: Chess in Iceland. Florence 1905.
4. Johan Fritzner: Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. Kria. 1886—96.
5. Bjórn Flalldórsson: Lexicon Islandica-Latino-Danicum. Khn. 1814.