Page:An Etymological Dictionary of the Norn Language in Shetland Part I.pdf/111

Rh

hāfatu wɩz o hâla fræm såkkətu dafa våggədu nöit æn rude krɩŋ de jāla.

This rhyme comes from Fetlar, but the contents point back to its northern neighbour, Unst. All conception of the meaning has been lost. is a in Unst, running north and south, and steep on its western slope; it is about half-way between the north and the south ends of the isle, but nearer to the west side than to the east.

Line 1. was , Valafjel (Valla-Field) was laborious and steep. As “tor-” is found only as a prefix attached to adjectives signifying difficult, it is doubtless unreasonable to explain Shetlandic from that source. , on the other hand, from which may have arisen by dissimilation (through influence of the following ), is more easily explained from tranten,, laborious, difficult.

Line 2. was or  was. The variants differ widely with respect to the first word in the line. might, if necessary, be thought to be the place-name “Hagdale”, preserved in the combination Hagdaleness in Westing, west of. But must then be left unexplained. “ was ”, on the other hand, can be explained as a *haftó vor áharða, there the damp sea-wind was violent. havto,, moist weather with wind from the sea (Aa.), and aahard,, of wind: very strong; violent. The connective vowel in, and the change r (rd) > l in (*) would be in full conformity with Shetland-Norn phonology.

Line 3. ,, or ,.

can be explained as to be awake, to watch by night, vaka nátt. , is by way of contrast to this: to search by day, an older: sœkja med (við) dag, sœkja dags. In variant b the order is inverted, must be the past tense : *, (they) searched, older “sóktu”,  (þeir) sóttu. is doubtless a corruption of *, day. In accordance with , is doubtless also past tense: vǫktu from vaka, , to be awake, watchful. But it does not appear from the connection what it is that is searched for, or why it is necessary to be awake or watchful. It might be reasonable, with reference to, to think of searching for cattle in the hill-pasture, but this would not explain why “to watch by night” is placed side by side with “to search by day”. Probably the reference is rather to rowing (out at the fishing), the seeking for a fishing-ground out at the “haaf”. , in “”, is best explained by: out at the haaf — far out from land, because the word is always found in this sense in Shetlandic