Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1978, Page 20

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Faroese Bird-Name Origins
be that its origin is to be sought in Viking-Age Norway. At
once, however, one is faced with an apparent dilemma, since
the godwit is hardly a Norwegian bird and hence not likely
to have had a traditional Norwegian name. It seems to us,
however, that philology has here something to contribute to
ornithology. If the godwit is rare in Norway today, that was
evidently not so in the past — our linguistic material implies
as much. In other words, the absence of a descendant of ON
jaðrakárn in the land of its origin is seen to be due to the fact
that the species it designated so much declined there that its
very name was forgotten.
Our material contains more evidence of ornithological inte-
rest, again implying that godwit populations have been any-
thing but stable. We have already spoken of the godwit as an
uncommon species in the Faroes today, and M. á Ryggi, Fugla-
bókin, 42, writes that the bird ‘er ikki ofta at síggja í Før-
oyum, og sera sjáldan hevur hann reiSrast’. It was not well
known two hundred years ago either, to judge from Svabo,
Indberetninger, 15: Jearakona (rallus aqvaticus) sees i Flokke.
Hvad Tid af Aaret den her opholder sig, er mig ubekjendt.
En eneste Flok lykkedes det mig at see paa Sandøen mod
Midten af Septembr. 1781. As Rischel and Skarup, loc. cit.,
point out, the definition rallus, i. e. ‘water rail’, is erroneous,
the description ‘sees i Flokke’ making it certain that Svabo
had the godwit in mind. But the godwit will not always have
been such an elusive bird in the Faroes; on the contrary, it
must once have been a quite common sight. We recall the two
idioms (above) alluding to the conspicuously long legs. Such
expressions could not have arisen had not the godwit at some
time been a familiar species.
Koparsnípa ‘godwit’
In FBN, 77, we (erroneously) stated that the godwit was
without a native name and observed that koparsnípa, adopted
from Dan. kobbersneppe, had been used to denote the species
in question before M. á Ryggi introduced the neologism reyð-