Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1991, Page 115

ETYMOLOGICAL NOTES
119
poem arose in Northumbria, though in-
dubitable proof has not been forthcoming
(Doane, op. cit.). Nevertheless it now seems
possible to claim a Northumbrian origin on
the following grounds.
Northumbria was first effectively chris-
tianised by the Celtic (i.e. Gaelic) mission
emanating from Iona in Scotland in 634.
This mission eventually found itself in con-
flict with its Roman counterpart centered in
the south at Canterbury, until the latter
resolved the dispute in its own favour in 663.
As we now see, the revised chronology of
Beowulf allows us date Genesis A to the peri-
od of Celtic ascendency, and in using, in fact
we believe coining, scurboga the poet was
surely reflecting the preferences of the Celtic
mission, for in this word we recognise the
spirit of the Gaelic tradition. The term
stands in marked contrast to other usage in
English which knows only rainbow, first
recorded as renboga c. 1000 (Ælfric, also
Genesis text), this doubtless the expression
employed by the victorious Roman mission,
soon to prevail also in Germany, hence OHG
reganbogo, and later generally in Scandina-
via, as evidenced by ON regnbogi, which
replaced the heathen bifrost — clear indica-
tion of the importance attached to terminol-
ogy in religious rivalries.
Returning to Far. ælabogi, it can scarcely
be doubted that here is a loan translation
from Gaelic. But what force can have been
so potent as to enable it to withstand pres-
sures from regnbogp. We believe we can find
the answer by taking into consideration
another matter relating to Gaelic influence.
In his essay on Irish words in Faroese (above,
p. 31), Chr. Matras drew attention to Páturs-
messudagur ’Pátur’s (mass) Day’, formerly
kept on Mykines as a half holiday on March
17th. But this is also ’Patrick’s Day’, the
most solemn festival in the Irish calendar, so
that Pátur must here stand for *Pátrik (Olr
Pátric) under the influence of Pætur ’Peter’.
Seeing that the cult of st Patrick has no roots
elsewhere in Scandinavia (Kulturhistorisk
Leksikon for nordisk Middelalder xviii,
135), it must have reached the Faroes directly
from the British Isles.
We now endeavour to place these to com-
plementary pieces of evidence into historical
perspective. Dicuil relates that the Irish an-
chorites left the Faroes when the Norsemen
arrived, so that their rituals can have had no
affect on the newcomers. However, among
the newcomers were some who had already
lived in the western colonies, indeed the first
settler Grímr c. 825 had himself an Irish
nickname Kamban (Fróðskaparrit xxv, 9-11).
Such people had naturally been in touch
with Celtic Christianity, some of whom will
have been open to the beliefs of that creed.
So it came about that, even in the heathen
period, there were people in the Faroes who
kept alive Christan practices, at any rate on
out-of-the-way Mykines. Such people had
coined the term ælabogi. We imagine that
this new term, having the advantage of
semantic transparency over the inherited
bifrost, became general throughout the is-
lands and thus able to resist regnbogi, un-
questionably the official term of the decisive
mission sent over from Norway c. 1000.