Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1977, Side 12

20
Some traces of Gaelic in Faroese
Hasgeir (<C ON Há Sker ‘High Skerry’) was known to the
Uistmen as Bualadb na sgeire ‘Battle (lit. Striking) of the
skerry’. One further learns that ‘on one occasion a hunter aim-
ing at a seal with his gun or bow heard the creature begin to
sing, in a voice of supernatural beauty, a song lamenting the
loss of her dear ones’. A verse of this song is quoted, as follows:
Cba robh mise m’ónar an raoir.
’S mise nighean Aoidh Mhic Eoghain,
Gur eólach mi air na sgeirean;
Gur mairg a dheanadh mo bhualadh,
Bean uasal mi a tir eile.
‘I was not alone last night.
I am the daughter of Aodh Mac Eoghain,
I am indeed acquainted with the skerries;
Woe to him who would s t r i k e me,
A noble lady I am from another land.’
We may first notice that the hunter is represented as armed
with a gun or bow. In such a case, however, the expression
bualadh ‘striking’ in the seal’s song is surely inappropriate.
The verse must therefore have arisen in connection with the
traditional hunt with the cudgel, as described by Martin
(above). We next notice that the seal bewails ‘the loss of her
dear ones’. Clearly these have been killed by the hunters. And
this, taken in connnection with the term Bualadh na sgeire,
apparently evasive, makes it probable that bualadh in our
context really means ‘striking dead’. And naturally the pre-
sumed parallelism with Far. at sláa will not be accidental, but
go back to the time when Norse and Gaelic were spoken side by
side in the Hebrides.