Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1977, Page 11

Some traces of Gaelic in Faroese
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Hebridean Gael. carr (Dwelly) which similarly contrasts with
the general term feoil. There is no such distinction in Irish,
where only the latter word is used.
At sláa kópar
At Álmanakki, 29, attention is drawn to the Faroese ex-
pression at sláa kópar ‘to kill seals’, where sláa lit. ‘strike’ is
an obvious euphemism for drepa ‘kill’. This usage is, of course,
standard in Faroese, thus kópasláttur ‘seal killing’ contrasting,
for instance, with synonymous Icel. seladráp — or with Far.
grindadráp ‘grind-whale killing’. Chr. Matras reminds us that
the traditional Faroese seal hunt was also practised in the
Gaelic area, e. g. in the Blasket Islands, so that the expression
at sláa kópar could conceivably have a parallel in Gaelic. An
account of such a seal hunt in the Blasket Islands is to be found
in T. Ó Criomhtháin, An t-Oileánach, in a chapter entitled
Lá na Róinte lit. ‘Day of the Seals’, 108ff., and sundry re-
marks on the same subject occur in the work of another Blasket
Islander, M. Ó Suilebháin, Fiche Blian ag Fás, 302f. But in
neither case is there any expression comparable to Far. at sláa
kópar; the Irish Gaelic term in these texts is invariably marbhú
‘killing, slaughtering’.
The traditional seal hunt is also known from Scotland, and
was described in English as early as 1703 by M. Martin,
Western Islands, 62f. But, as K. D. MacDonald, editor of the
projected Historical Dictionary of Scottish Gaelic, obligingly
informs us, there may be no printed accounts of these matters
in Scottish Gaelic. It is doubtful, too, if any are now alive who
remember these things. Nevertheless, there is some indication
that the Faroese expression at sláa kópar was probably parall-
eled in Hebridean usage. G. Henderson, Norse Influence on
Celtic Scotland, 261 f., quotes from the introduction to A. Mac-
Donald, Poems and Songs of John MacCodrum, pp. v-vi, from
which one learns that the annual slaughter on the seal rock on