ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2808 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2808 ************************************ 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 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 as a modern Swedish word for "dragonfly". The word is a compound of , which means "troll" or "hobgoblin", and , which means "distaff", and indicates the shape of a dragonfly's body. Since as far as we can tell is not found in other Scandinavian languages, we do not believe would be used in any language other than modern Swedish. [1] In particular, Icelandic does not use the letter , so cannot be a modern Icelandic word. You noted that the Norse used some insect bynames, such as for "horsefly" and for "fly or gnat". We also found the bynames , which means "beetle", and , 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. . [2] Though there has been some scholarly disagreement over the interpretation of the byname , "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 , though cognate with English , is certainly attested only in the compound . [4] E.H. Lind, _Norsk-Isla:ndska Personbinamn fra*n Medeltiden_ (Uppsala: 1920-21) s.v. . Lind notes a 10th c. <{TH}orsteinn vifill> in Landna/mabo/k but points out that the man is also given the nickname ; this would probably be '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 'beetle'. [6] Lind s.v. . Lind lists <{TH}orbiornn hvmla> or 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 , 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