ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3279
http://www.s-gabriel.org/3279
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5 Jun 2008
From: Elizabeth Turner de Carlisle 

Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! 

You asked about the structure of Old Norse or Icelandic household 
names between the 8th and 12th centuries, and whether or not a 
translation of <Eagle's Hall> would be possible. Here is what we 
found. 

First of all, we'd like to apologize for how long it has taken us to 
complete this report.  We hope that the information is still useful 
to you.

You described your household as a 'mead hall'; unfortunately, the 
only examples of named halls we can find are either literary fiction 
or mythological. Of the first type, there is the hall in 'Beowulf', 
called <Heorot> [1]. Of the second type, we have of course <Valho,ll> 
(here the 'o' followed by a comma represents the Icelandic o-ogonek, 
an o with a backward-comma-shaped hook hanging from the bottom), 
which in English is <Valhalla> [2]. Several other lesser-known halls 
are mentioned in 'Gylfaginning', but these all refer to halls of gods 
rather than halls used by ordinary people [3].

One of the words for "hall" in Old Norse is <salr>, and this does 
appear as a second element in place names. However, we have not seen 
it in combination with a first element referring to an animal.  There 
are quite a few  places in Norway whose Old Norse names were 
<Uppsalir>,  meaning either 'halls, dwellings, farms on a height' 
or 'upper halls, dwellings, farms', and the other <salr> names that 
we've seen have as first elements the names or epithets of gods.  
Based on this evidence we would not expect to find a place-name like 
<Arnarsalr> 'eagle's hall'. [4]

Most of the places where people lived were farmsteads. In 
Landna/mabo/k (where the slash represents an acute accent over the 
preceding letter), the Icelandic Book of Settlement, the most common 
word we find for these is <sta{dh}ir> (here the {dh} represents the 
letter edh, which can be described as a backward <6> with a crossbar 
on the riser). A majority of these were named after individuals, for 
example <Egilssta{dh}ir> 'Egill's stead(s)', and far more were named 
for men than for women [5]. We have found no examples of farms named 
after animals of any sort in Landna/mabo/k.

In Norway we find the element <heimr> 'homestead, abode, dwelling-
place, home' in use for farms. An example of this is 
<Granheimr> 'spruce-home' [6]. Among Norwegian farm names, we have 
only found one that uses an animal as its first element. <Gjettum> is 
a farm-name recorded in 1394 in the  prepositional phrase <j G{ae}it
{ae}imi>, representing standard Old Norse <i/ Geitheimi> 'in/at 
Geitheimr'. (Here <{ae}> stands for the a-e-ligature, also known as 
the letter ash.)  The first element of this farm-name is Old Norse 
<geit> 'a she-goat'. There are some Norwegian farm-names that contain 
the names of wild animals and birds, but for the most part they seem 
to have been named for nearby topographical features that were 
themselves named for the animals.  The farm name <Ann{o|}l>, for 
example, is probably from Old Norse <Arnaho/ll> 'eagles' knoll' or 
<Arnarho/ll> 'eagle's knoll'.  (Here <{o|}> stands for an <o> with a 
slash through it.)  Similarly, the farm-name <Ekset> in  S{o|}r-Tr{o|}
ndelag is apparently from Old Norse <Ig{dh}usetr>, which is 
literally 'nuthatch's house', from <ig{dh}a> 'a nuthatch'; it is 
likely, however, that the name preserves a lost river-name <Ig{dh}a> 
and means 'house on the river Ig{dh}a'.  (The river itself would have 
been named after the bird.) [7]

<O,rn> was a relatively common masculine name at the time of the 
settlement of Iceland, and it is identical to the word for <eagle> 
[8]. Norse grammar requires that <O,rn> change to <Arnar> to become 
possessive, so the way that 'O,rn's stead' is <Arnarsta{dh}ir> in Old 
Norse. <Arnarsta{dh}ir> is an excellent Icelandic place name, even 
though in your period it would probably have been interpreted 
as 'O,rn's stead' rather than 'eagle's stead'.

I hope this letter has been useful. Please write 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 Talan Gwynek, Mari neyn 
Brian, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Adelaide de Beaumont and Ursula 
Georges. 

For the Academy, 
Elizabeth Turner de Carlisle
15 May 2008

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References

[1] "Heorot." (WWW:Wikipedia.org).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heorot 

[2] Valhalla." (WWW:Wikipedia.org).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valhalla

[3] "Gylfaginning." (WWW:Wikipedia.org).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gylfaginning

[4] Sandnes, J{o|}rn, and Ola Stemshaug, _Norsk Stadnamnleksikon_, 
4th ed. (Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, Oslo), s.v. sal.

[5] Ibid. s.v. stad.

[6] Olsen, Magnus. _Farms and Fanes of Ancient Norway. The Place-
names of a Country Discussed in their Bearings on Social and 
Religious History_. Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning. 
Oslo 1926, p. 188.

[7] Rygh, Olaf.  _Norske Gaardnavne_ Oplysninger samlede til brug ved 
matrikelens revision efter offentlig foranstaltning udgivne med 
tilfo|iede forklaringer af O. Rygh_, Volume 1-19 (W. C. Fabritius & 
sonners bogtrikkeri, 1897-1924). 
http://www.dokpro.uio.no/perl/navnegransking/rygh_ng/rygh_visetekst.pr
l?s=n&Vis
e=Vise&KRYSS22141%405026=on

[8] Lind, E.H., _Norsk-Isla:ndska Dopnamn ock Fingerade Namn fra*n 
Medeltiden_ (Uppsala & Leipzig: 1905-1915, sup. Oslo, Uppsala and 
Kobenhavn: 1931). s.v. O,rn.