Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1977, Qupperneq 9

Some traces of Gaelic in Faroese
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earlier ss (Thurneysen, 96) and this archaic spelling is oc-
casionally attested in Middle Ir. gass (Contributions, s. gas).
The most usual literal sense of the word in Irish today is
‘stem, stalk’ (Dinneen), and similarly in medieval texts ‘sprig,
shoot, twig, stalk’ (Contributions). In Scotland, however, other
meanings are also known, namely ‘bough, broom, bush’
(Dwelly). It requires no demonstration that the meanings
‘bough’ and ‘broom’ (apparently via ‘broom-stick’) bring us
semantically very close to the Faroese sense ‘cudgel’, and we
cannot fail to note that these meanings come from the Scottish
dialects, i. e. from that sort of Gaelic most likely to have in-
fluenced Faroese. We have thus no hesitation in postulating
Old Sc. Gael. gass m. ‘cudgel’ as the ultimate source of Far.
gassi. On being taken over into Norse, the word was evidently
assimilated to the already existing gassi ‘gander’, to all appear-
ances humorously. But in Faroese, the literal sense of the native
Norse word was eventually forgotten, leaving only the mean-
ing borrowed from Gaelic.
It is not hard to account for the borrowing as such. We
have, in the previous section, attributed the presence of the
loan word grúkur to the requirements of seal hunters’ parlance.
Identical considerations apply to gassi, and again a parallel
from the comparable sphere of the whale hunt is to hand for
the asking. The heavy lance with which the grind-whale is
despatched is called vákn, simply a variant of vápn ‘weapon’,
a name which by its non-specific character is at once identi-
fied as a one-time noa word. And having regard to the milieu,
the assimilation of Gael. gass ‘cudgel’ to ON gassi ‘gander’
is at once understandable — it can surely become a stock
example of this type of evasion in the service of word taboo.
Feitur sum selur
For the term ‘seal’ Faroese today uses kópur or kobbi, the
older name selur surviving only in two expressions (Jacobsen-