Andros, 136; Ausumunder, 125; Bjarni, 869; Einer, 878; Eiriken, 351; Gísli, 681; Gunnar, 150; Halldor, 428; Johann, 494; Johannus, 498; Jón, 4827; Magnus, 1007; Odin, 169; Olafur, 992; Thordur, 445; Thorwaldsen, 106 &c.
Female names:—Anna, 869; Elin, 438; Elizabeth, 194; Gróa, 269; Halldóra, 515; Helga, 1135; Johanna, 630; Kristin, 1615; Rosa, 269; Sigridur, 2641; Lilja, 120; Soffia, 182; Thorbjörg, 436; Sessilja, 326 &c.
Half-past 6 P.M. Looking back to Portland Huk, over the light-green sea with its white crested waves, the reddish brown fantastic islets, and the singular arched opening in the rock—Dyrhólaey—show distinctly and beautifully against the amber light of the horizon.
As we paced the deck, talking about the old Norse language—which is still spoken in Iceland as it used to be in the eighth and ninth centuries in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, in the Orkney, Shetland, and Faröe islands, in the two northern counties of Scotland, and in other Scandinavian settlements along the British coast—Dr. Mackinlay remarked, that “so well had the language been preserved, an Icelander of the present day had no difficulty in understanding the most ancient writings of his country.” This can be said of no other tongue in western Europe.
To this—the very language of the Vikings—both the old lowland Scotch, and, at a further remove, our modern English, chiefly owe their directness, expressiveness, and strength.
Many words, which we now use with a secondary or restricted meaning, still retain their primitive signification in Icelandic. Thus the word “smith”—a contraction for smiteth—which with us is restricted to a worker in metals, in Icelandic still retains its old sense of handcraftsman. Hence the Icelander not only talks of a goldsmith as a guldsmidr, a silversmith as silfursmidr, but of a saddler as södlasmidr, a cooper as a koparsmidr, a shoemaker as a skórsmidr, a joiner as a trésmidr, a builder as a husasmidr, a printer as a prentsmidr, a blacksmith as a jarnsmidr, a cabinet-maker as a skrinsmidr, a watchmaker as an ursmidr, and, in a metaphorical sense, of a poet or ode-writer as an odarsmidr; just as the Anglo-Saxons talked of a warrior as a war-smidr.
Over a narrow strip of low sand-beach, the near snow-mountains and icefields, like frosted silver burnished in parts, now lie gleaming with dazzling brightness in the sun; coloured here and there with living gem-like streaks of opal, amber, crimson, and orange which glow yet more intensely, as if the snow and ice had been magically touched with an unextinguishable pencil of fire.
