ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2808
http://www.s-gabriel.org/2808
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01 Feb 2004
From: Ursula Whitcher 


Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You asked whether a byname meaning "dragonfly" would be appropriate for a 
Norse woman.  You mentioned that you had found <trollsla"nda> as an 
Icelandic translation of "dragonfly".  (The quotation mark after the 'a' 
represents an umlaut or pair of dots over the 'a'.)

Dragonflies are not native to Iceland, the source of
most of our earliest Scandinavian written material, and we were not able to 
find a word meaning "dragonfly" in any medieval Scandinavian language. [7]

We found <trollsla"nda> as a modern Swedish word for "dragonfly".  The word 
is a compound of <troll>, which means "troll" or "hobgoblin", and 
<sla"nda>, which means "distaff", and indicates the shape of a dragonfly's 
body.  Since as far as we can tell <sla"nda> is not found in other 
Scandinavian languages, we do not believe <trollsla"nda> would be used in 
any language other than modern Swedish. [1]  In particular, Icelandic does 
not use the letter <a">, so <trollsla"nda> cannot be a modern Icelandic word.

You noted that the Norse used some insect bynames, such as <kleggi> for 
"horsefly" and <fluga> for "fly or gnat".  We also found the bynames 
<vi/fill>, which means "beetle", and <humla>, which means 
"bumblebee".  (We've used the slash '/' to represent an acute accent on the 
previous letter.) [2, 3, 4, 5, 6]  These suggest that a byname meaning 
"dragonfly" would be quite plausible if a word with that meaning had been 
in common use.  However, since we didn't find a word for "dragonfly" in any 
medieval Scandinavian language, we can't recommend a byname specifically 
meaning "dragonfly".

We hope this letter has been of some use to you.  Please write to us again 
if any part of it has been unclear, or if you have other questions.  I was 
assisted in researching and writing this letter by Maridonna Benvenuti, 
Talan Gwynek, Arval Benicoeur, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, and Juliana de Luna.

For the Academy,

Ursula Georges
1 February 2004

References:

[1]  Svenska Akademiens Ordbok (WWW: Svenska Akademien, 2002)m 
http://g3.spraakdata.gu.se/saob/ s.v. <sla"nda>.

[2]  Though there has been some scholarly disagreement over the 
interpretation of the byname <vi/fill>, "beetle" is the most 
straightforward interpretation and the one supported by our best source 
(see note [5]).

[3] G. Fleck (aka Geirr Bassi Haraldsson), _The Old Norse Name_, Studia 
Marklandica (series) (Olney, Maryland: Yggsalr Press, 1977). Note that 
<vi/fill>, though cognate with English <weevil>, is certainly attested only 
in the compound <tordy/fill>.

[4] E.H. Lind, _Norsk-Isla:ndska Personbinamn fra*n Medeltiden_ (Uppsala: 
1920-21) s.v. <Vi/fill>.  Lind notes a 10th c. <{TH}orsteinn vifill> in 
Landna/mabo/k but points out that the man is also given the nickname 
<vifl>; this would probably be <vi/fl> 'cudgel, bat, used in washing'.

[5] Gillian Fellows Jensen, _Scandinavian Personal Names in Lincolnshire 
and Yorkshire_ (Copenhagen: 1968), p. 334. Fellows Jensen accepts the 
byname as <vi/fill> 'beetle'.

[6] Lind s.v. <Humla>.  Lind lists <{TH}orbiornn hvmla> or <humla> in the
1180s, which he says seems to be the insect name "bumblebee".  The word is 
found in modern Swedish, and in Norwegian and Danish as <humle>, but the 
nickname seems to be the only known instance in Old Norse.

[7]  Odonates of Greenland/Iceland (ODO) (WWW: The Odonata-l Archives, 
1999), http://orion.ups.edu/pipermail/odonata-l/1999-April/000780.html