Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1977, Blaðsíða 14

22
Some traces of Gaelic in Faroese
a parturient woman is said in euphemism to be air na suip
‘on the straws’ One notices that the careful folklorist subtly
employs the unusual plural ‘straws’, here quite unidiomatic, in
order to convey something of the special character of the
original. The Gaelic term is, of course, not the ordinary word
for ‘straw’, but is rather ‘wisp’, cf. sop fodair ‘wisp of straw’,
which naturally gives all the more point to the explanation that
the term was used as a euphemism. This will equally have
applied in Faroese at one stage. It is further of some interest
that this new evidence comes from the Hebrides (£the Isles’
above), i. e. that part of the Gaelic word which has most
influenced the Faroes.
Fara í gólv
The temporary bed for the parturient woman in the Gaelic
crofter’s cabin, mentioned in the previous section, was ordin-
arily called leaba Idir lit. ‘floor bed’ (lar ‘floor’), Carmichael,
224. We notice for what it may be worth that Faroese idioms
of the type fara í gólv (= fara á soppin), paralleled in Nor-
wegian, become understandable if they presuppose ON *golf-
ból ‘floor bed’, conceivably a translation of the Gaelic, sub-
sequent truncation of the compound being explained as a
euphemistic device. If this is so, then Icelandic usage, as fara
á gólf (Chr. Matras, 23) must be due to secondary rationali-
sation.
Sólin fer í kav
The expression sólin fer í kav ‘the sun sets (in the sea)’ lit.
‘the sun sinks’ appears entirely appropriate and, at first sight
at least, unproblematic, í kav being obviously ‘down under
the surface’. The same, however, will not be true of its opposite
sólin roðar í kav ‘the sun rises’ which is only intelligible as a
development of synonymous sólin roðar í hav lit. ‘the sun