Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1995, Blaðsíða 70

74
THE FAROESE WHALE NAMES
fy the species, Dan. bovhvidhval being sim-
ply an ad hoc adaptation of the Faroese
name, which he had used earlier in an arti-
cle ‘Om den færøske Marsviin-Fangst’, Det
almindelige Danske Bibliothek III (1779).
Here (pp. 39f.) he explains that ‘Marsviin’
can be conveniently used as a generic term
for various species, including the
‘Bovhvidhval’ defined as a subspecies of
‘Grindhval’ and characterised in these
words: den er hvid ved Forfinnerne...
Denne finder man ikke ifiokkenfor sig selv,
men kun undertiden imellem Grindhvalene,
og saa i fald giør man sig kun lidet Haab
om Fangst, da de ere uroelige og vil gierne
dukke, man forsøger da at udjage dem fra
den øvrige Flok, som undertiden lykkes. Nu
og da kan man fange enkelte Stykker af
disse ibland Grinden. But this is clearly not
a description of the Killer Whale, but rather
of the Whitesided Dolphin.
At this point we notice that Svabo’s arti-
cle formed the basis for a contribution ‘Um
Marsvína rekstr’, Rit Pess Islenzka Lær-
dóms-Lista-Felags II (1782), where on p.86
we find ‘Bovhvidhval’ reproduced as Icel.
‘Bóghvítuhveli’, accompanied by Svabo’s
description, whence Blondal’s tentative de-
fínition ‘Hvidskævning’ i.e. ‘Whitesided
Dolphin’. At any rate, the Icelandic is ulti-
mately a reflection of the Faroese and of no
further interest here.
Now although Svabo and, of course,
writers dependent on him — H. Chr. Lyng-
bye, Tidskrift for Naturvidenskaberne IV
(1826) 204, and (presumably) H.B. Mel-
chior, Den Danske Stats og Norges Pat-
tedyr (1834) 288 — were not adequately
informed, independent evidence eventually
provided the identification. Using notes
and sketches supplied by H.C. Miiller
shortly before, J. Reinhardt in ‘An Addi-
tional Note’ to D.F. Eschricht, ‘Northem
Species of Orca’, Recent Memoirs on the
Cetacea (Ray Society London 1866) 187f.,
scientifically identified the ‘Bovquite-
quealur/Bovhvidehval’ as the Killer
Whale.
We observe that the use here of bóg-
‘shoulder (of an animal)’ is peculiar since
whales have no obvious shoulders, and the
word plays no part in the relevant idiomatic
phraseology. Of course, one can imagine
the shoulder as that part of the body imme-
diately above the flipper. But the actual
markings on the Killer Whale hardly in-
volve that part of the body in any plausible
way, hence the embarrasment of writers en-
deavouring to account for the name. M. á
Ryggi declares:/ra eyganum aftur á bógvin
hevur hann ein stóran hvítan lit, while
Reinhardt finds a small triangle of white
behind the flipper. The truth lies elsewhere.
The epithet bóghvítur is properly used only
of sheep. Its application to characterise a
whale is a fanciful, secondary develop-
ment, not to be taken literally.
DØGLINGUR m. Bottlenose Whale (Hy-
peroodon ampullatus). On the strength of
the well-documented Old Norse name for
this species andhvalr, still present locally in
Icel. andhvalur and Norw. andehval, we
postulate a lost *andahvalur for Faroese
also. But this ancient term was replaced by
names unattested in Old Norse and there-
fore arguably younger, namely *nebba-
hvalur presupposed by NEBBAFISKUR,