Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1977, Page 15

Some traces of Gaelic in Faroese
23
shines red in ocean’, one of a series of phrases with the same
meaning: sólin roðar í fjøll (líð, lund) ‘mountains (mountain
side, grove)’.
In the light of the above, one may consider that the phrase
sólin fer í kav could likewise be a secondary modification of
sólin fer í '-'hav, cf. sólin fer í havið (J. Chr. Poulsen, Føroysk
orðafelli og orðtøk, 88). Comparative evidence suggests that
this is not unlikely. Thus the Icelandic language employs the
expression sólin gengur í cegi ‘the sun sets’ (Bløndal, 773) lit.
‘the sun goes into ocean’, reflecting ON sól gengr í ægi (Fritz-
ner, iii, 474). Remarkably enough, the selfsame idiom occurs
in Irish: teann an ghrian i bhfarraige lit. ‘the sun goes into sea’
(older spelling teigheann an ghrian i bhfairrge, cf. Dinneen,
419: ó eirgheann an ghrian go dteigheann sí i bhfairrge ‘from
sunrise to sunset’).
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Norse and Gaelic
have been in contact here. One notes that ON cegir (lost in
Faroese except in ballad-style í ægin blá ‘into the blue sea’) is
essentially a poetic term. Ir. farraige, however, is an everyday
word. But this has not necessarily always been so; at any rate,
the word is prominent in the earliest poetry (cf. Thurneysen,
Reader, 39, J. Pokorny, Historical Reader, 17) and its original
meaning ‘open sea, ocean’, hence the distinct possibility that
here, too, was a stylistically elevated term comparable to ON
ægir.
It is well known that there was in former times a marked
antipathy towards any mention of the setting sun in so many
words, and accordingly evasive circumlocutions were com-
monly devised. Faroese instances include ballad-style sól til
viðar gekk lit. ‘sun went to wood’, paralleled in Icelandic and
going back to Old Norse, and such are known to have been
solemn expressions, cf. W. B. L., ‘Sonne und Mond in der fárð-
ischen Sprache’, Die Sprache, iii, 74f. It is hardly to be doubted
that the comparable Norse and Gaelic idioms discussed above
are euphemisms of the same sort.