[95] It is there called Soel-far Vind (sun-faring wind); hence Sól-gangs veðr means weather of the sun’s course. The normal continental winds are (1.) the Land-south (south-east), warm, and therefore called Korn-moen, or the mother of corn; (2.) the north-east, termed Hambakka because it melts snow from the hill-tops; (3.) the Haf-gul (sea cooler), the west wind or sea breeze of the tropics, blowing from noon till midnight; and (4.) the Land-gul (land cooler), the east or land breeze, lasting from 2 A.M. to 10 A.M.
[96] Mr J. A. Hjaltalín remarks, “Thoka is equivalent to the English fog, and Sjólæða (sea creeper) is the mist which lies on the surface of the water, leaving the hill-tops clear. These are the only Icelandic names known to me.”
[97] The term is also applied to lightning, and to meteors generally. Hooker corrupts it to “Laptelltur,” and he has been copied into many a popular book.
[98] The word is written Nikuðr and Nikuðs, Hnikar and Nikarr: originally a title of Odin, it has survived in the Icel. Nykr, a nick or water-goblin in the shape of a grey sea-horse, with inverted hoofs; and in the German Nix, a nymph or water-fairy.
[99] Or a “carrion lowe” (Cleasby).
[100] Even at Trieste, which is the heart of the temperates, with the parallel of 45° passing near it, there is an autumn, but no spring, the weather changing at once from cold to heat.
[101] Svasuðr, the name of a giant, the father of Summer. See the Edda.
[102] The way of counting amongst the old Scandinavians and Teutons was complex and curious, as they had no indeclinable numeral adjectives from twenty to a hundred (i.e., 120): the word “tigr,” a ten or decade, was a noun like Hundrað and Thúsund. Thus 41 was called 4 tens and 1, or “1 of the fifth decade;” 45 was “half the fifth tenth;” and 48 was “4 tens and 8;” or going back (like the Lat. un-de-viginti and duo-de-triginta) “5 tens short of 2.” In the fourteenth century “tigr” began to lose its character as a substantive (Cleasby).
[103] Mr Dasent says the Thursday between April 9 and 15 (O. S.).
[104] Modern, Góa.