Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1964, Blaðsíða 81
Færeyinga saga, chapter forty
89
a stool milli elldz ok grindanna (plural), it would seem
impossible to maintain that the fire was within the grindr.
There is some divergence of opinion as to the precise
interpretation of the word reitr. Etymologically it is con*
nected with ríta ('lwritan), English write, etc., and its first
meaning would be incised mark, scratched line. Some people
have consequently translated reitar here merely as furrows
or Iines (Schrøter Rajnar, Olsen streker, Meissner Linien,
Lid strik, Strombáck streck, de Vries Striche).'') Other
people, however, have been suitably impressed by the fact
that the word reitr in Icelandic never appears to imply an
independent line but always a marked»off space, an area.2 * * * * 7)
Thus we find loculi distincti (Torfæus), indcirklede Pladser
(Rafn), Plátze (Mohnike), saakaldte Rejter eller Afsatser
(Munch), Pladser, Rejter eller Afsatser (Winther), rudcr
(Rygh), squares (York Powell), rutor (Reitan), rútar (Ham*
mershaimb), ruter (Grieg), Felder (Niedner), spaces (Press),
enclosures (Ellis).
There seems, in fact, no doubt but that the word reitr
early came to mean a line which joins itself to form a
') Rahbek differs entirely; he has Runer.
2) Only Norwegian seems to have reit, (., in the sense of line, furrow,
although cognate words in other Germanic languages have the same
sense (see A. Torp, Nynorsk etymologisk ordbok (1919), s. v ). Rut reit,
m., means »en liden Ager, et opspadet Jordstykke . . . en Rude, eller
Strimmel af opkastet Jord i en Myr« (I. Aasen, Norsk ordbog (1918),
s. v.); and Swedish vreter, vret has a similar sense of patch of ground.
Fritzner, Ordbog, s. v., begins his gloss with »Rids, Fure« but although
this sense must be etymologically correct, none of the examples of the
word’s usage quoted by him demands this meaning. Other dictionaries
give no such gloss as line or furrow at all, thus e. g. Bjórn Halldórs*
son, Lexicon Islandico-Latino-Danicum (1814), »area, pulvinus, porcu=
letum«, etc.; Cleasby-Vigfússon: »a square, a space marked out«, etc.;
Sigfús Blóndal, íslenzbdónsk orðabók (1920—24): safstukket Plads, afs
grænset Stykke Jord«, etc.; Árni Bóðvarsson, tslenzk orðabók (1963):
safmarkað svæði«, etc. On the whole question of the word’s etymology
and sense see especially N. Lindqvist, Bjarka-Saby ortsnamn (1926),
104 ff.
7 — Fróðskaparrit 1964