Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1977, Qupperneq 2

10
Some traces of Gaelic in Faroese
Fellow’, and indeed our word is actually so attested in Middle
Ir. cammán (<i*cambán) ‘crooked fellow’, also as a sobriquet
('Contributions to a Dictionary of the Irish Language). It is,
however, not a little surprising to learn that the viking who
pioneered the settlement of the Faroes in the rough-and-tumble
of the early 9th century should apparently have suffered from
a physical handicap severe enough to give rise to a nickname,
and one in a foreign language at that.
We therefore take a closer look at the philological side and
first of all observe that, in our context, Kamban does not
appear to be a personal name in its own right, but rather an
epithet quali^ying Grímr. Now if Kamban is interpreted as
meaning ‘Lame Fellow’ or the like, the syntactical arrange-
ment is seen to be peculiar; one would expect, not a noun, but
an adjective suitably assimilated to the Norse inflexional
system, i. e. Grímr *kambi, like e. g. Halfdan svarti. The same
consideration equally applies to Gaelic practice, where *Grím
camb would be the expected version.
The postulated *cambán, theoretically either ‘crooked fellow’
or ‘crooked thing’, descends regularly via Middle Irish cammán
to Mod. Irish camán with the meanings ‘bend; stick with
crooked head; hurley for ball-playing’ (P. S. Dinneen, Irish-
English Dictionary); the term similarly appears in Scots Gael.
caman ‘club for playing shinty, hurley, or golf’ (E. Dwelly,
Illustrated Gaelic-English Dictionary). It may be added that
many dialects have replaced this traditional suffix by a more
recent (Ir.) -óg or (Sc.) -ag, hence also practically synonymous
camóg, camag. Thus there is plenty of evidence for a basic
sense ‘crooked thing’ in addition to ‘crooked fellow’ already
mentioned.
At this point we may notice that Grímr Kamban is struc-
turally comparable to Óláfr Kváran, the name of a lOth-
century viking. As is well known, the source of the sobriquet
is Olr. cúarán ‘shoe’, which will be an allusion to this Dublin
viking’s preference for Irish-style footwear. The syntax is
clearly Norse, however, after such names as Haraldr Gráfeldr