Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1982, Qupperneq 110

118
Om det fároiska ordet baraldur
SUMMARY
The Faroese Word baraldur ’Juniper’
In Faroese there are two words for ‘juniper’: one is einir (masc.) or eini
(neutr.), with compounds like einirunnur and einiviður; the other is bar-
aldur. einir belongs to the stem ein-, which occurs in the whole of Scandi-
navia, while baraldur looks like a Faroese innovation.
The uncertainty reflected in the use of different names and forms due
to the fact that the juniper is now very rare in the Faroes. It was formerly
used for several purposes, among other things for smoking meat and it is
therefore nearly extinct. The word baraldur, which is probably a compara-
tively late a/d-derivative (for which see Alexander Jóhannesson in Árbók
Háskóla tslands 1926—27) to barr (OI barr, Norw. dial. bar) ‘needle’, is,
as I see it, a noa term of the same type as bruse, brisk, brakje etc. ’juniper’
in Norway (for these see O. A. Høeg, Planter og tradisjon, p. 413).