Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1995, Page 67

A NOTE ON THE DERIVATION OF FAROESE GRIND
71
(Matras, 1966 - »holde sig i vandskorpen
(om Marsviinflokke, naar de hvile sig«).
However, under grindast Matras includes
in his edition an entry from Mohr’s manu-
script with the same sense found in Ice-
landic sources: »være i Rid, coire (de
cetis)« (»mating (of whales)«), a sense
which we may presume was also known to
some extent in the Faroes at the time these
compilations were made in the eighteenth
century. In this connection it is also inter-
esting to note a recorded metaphorical use
of the term grindast to refer to people:
Tá menn standa tættir í flokki og óstillir og
nakað yvrisligir ella fyrisligir: teir standa og
grindast (Orðasavnið, Fróðskaparsetur Før-
oya).
(When men stand close together in a group, restless
and somewhat excited or agitated, they are said to
stand and grindast)
This example shows the use of grindast,
not in the sense of resting, but in the sense
of agitated or excited movement within a
group, rather than the outward appearance
of the group as forming any kind of barrier-
like structure. In this respect it is more sug-
gestive of the description Claussøn Friis
gives to large whales in a Hvalsgrind than
any association with gates.
How can all this be explained in connec-
tion with the meaning of grind as a school
of pilot whales today? To offer an altema-
tive to the hitherto common explanations
for the derivation of grind, I would suggest
the word derives from expressions such as
grindast associated with the characteristic
behaviour of whales themselves rather than
to their outward appearance as a single en-
tity, or to the methods by which they are
hunted. It is therefore unlikely that the
word developed from grind in the sense of
a framework or gate-like stmcture. Rather,
it was associated with schools of whales in
the sense outlined by Blondal Magnússon
as large groups of (mating) whales, the be-
haviour of which was characterised by their
agitated movement within the group. As is
characteristic of pilot whales when they
grindast, the adoption of an upright posi-
tion in the water (possibly associated with
mating activity, although this has not been
verified), would easily have accommodated
its connection with expressions such as
hlaupa or ganga (mnning or walking) in
Icelandic, and løbe in Danish, and their use
in expressions connected with the mating
behaviour of land animals. Various species
of baleen whales and toothed whales have
been observed to adopt an upright position
during courtship and mating behaviour
(Evans, 1987: 186-7).
In its Faroese usage, then, the noun grind
was more likely related to grindast in the
sense of »whales congregating in large
groups to mate«, and the subsequent gener-
al meaning of »a large group of whales«,
for example in the compound Hvalsgrind
mentioned by Claussøn Friis, and then
came to refer more specifically to that large
group of whales most commonly found off
the Faroes, namely »a school of pilot
whales«, through a normal process of se-
mantic narrowing. Claussøn Friis’s simple
equation of two quite distinct meanings
may reflect the fact that the latter meaning