Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1995, Page 78

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THE FAROESE WHALE NAMES
SPRIN GHVALUR m. was known to Sva-
bo e.g. Dict.fær. 808 Springarakveálur
»Spring-Hval, Springer«, and his descrip-
tion of prodigious leaps in Indb. 76 leaves
no doubt that the name primarily denotes
the Whitesided Dolphin (Lagenorhynchus
acutus). However, this whale so closely re-
sembles the admittedly less active and
slightly larger Whitebeaked Dolphin (L. al-
birostris) that the two species commonly
go under the same name. Our next source
(Dýralæra 17 lf.) uses SPRINGFISKUR
and SPRINGARI, from the latter creating
specific terms SJÓRUTI and KJAFTHVÍTI
SPRINGARIN »the pied and the white-jaw
dolphin« for the Whitesided and White-
beaked respectively.
SPRINGHVALUR etc. are borrowings
from Norw. springhval, -fisk, springer, the
dolphins concemed being common off the
coast of Norway. Kalkar first notices
springhval from 1599, springfisk from
1661. These terms cannot be very old, if
only for the fact that Norw. springe in the
sense ‘leap’ is a late development due to the
influence of Low German springen, see
Falk-Torp — the traditional verb here
would be ON hlaupa, as still in Far. leypa.
The dolphins in question will have been
familiar before the adoption of these fo-
reign names, and not only to seamen, for
they could sometimes be driven ashore and
there dispatched. The older, native term
was LEIFTUR.
STEYRHVALUR Killer Whale = BÓG-
HVÍTUHVALUR. For the first element
compare steyrur (ON staurr) ‘pole, stake’,
motivation as in MASTRARFISKUR. The
name was known to Svabo, our earliest wit-
ness: Indb. 76 Sterkveálur, though he was
unable to assign the name to a definite
species. The name is confmed to Faroese,
but the Norwegian synonyms, staurhyrning
and staurvagn, suggest that the two lan-
guages have been in contact. See NÝVIL,
VAGN.
TRØLLHVALUR. Recorded by Svabo,
Indb. 76 Trølkveálur: Saaledes kalder man
enhver, især ukjent Hvalfisk, som man for-
moder, at ville gjøre Skade eller er bange
for’, but doubtless older and lying behind
Debes 167 ‘Trold-Hvale’, described as a
term for species of whales, which can, how-
ever, be scared off by castoreum. His con-
temporary Resen 71 equates ‘TrodHval’
with ‘Sottebak’, manifestly a corruption of
‘Slettebag’ in the same text (i.e. Right
Whale, see SLÆTTIBØKA), and also
refers to cast oreum. A still earlier attesta-
tion takes the record back to 1584 in a re-
port on a marine animal stranded near the
village of Funningur and named ‘throld-
hval’, see under DØGLINGUR. In modem
times the name has been given as denoting
a whale which emerges form the depths
covered with bamacles and seaweed like a
troll (Orðabók2).
Such changing usage, with the nonsense
about castoreum, would indicate an essen-
tially non-specific term playing no part in
the workaday world, in which connection
we note that there is no trace of a variant
*trøllfiskur, see under FISKUR.
The name is paralleled elsewhere, cf.
Icel. trøllhvalur ‘Troldhval, stor Hval’