[315] Gen. Lim-rúnar (lim or limr being the limb of a tree opposed to the bole), which Cleasby explains as “a kind of magical runes.”
[316] “Hubby” is a loose robe, erroneously derived, like the Scotch Joop, the German Giup, the Italian Giubba and Giubbone, the French Jupe and Jupon, and the Slav Japungia, from the Norsk Hwipu. All these are simply corruptions of the Arabic “Jubbeh.”
[317] These Northmen left their handiwork even on the “Stones of Venice.” Readers may not be unwilling to see the legend upon the maneless and melancholy lion, the statue of Pentelic marble, ten feet high, once at the harbour mouth of the Piræus (Porto Leone), where the pedestal still stands, now fronting the arsenal, Venice, where, after the retreat from Greece, the Doge Morosini carried it in 1687. The hardly legible inscription on the right side of the animal is supposed to be, “Asmundr graved these runes united with Asgeir, Thorlief, Thórd, and Ívar, at the request of Haraldr Háfi (the Tall); although the Greeks, taking thought, forbade it.” It is supposed that this Harold was the same who had the promise of seven feet in English ground. The left flank and shoulder are less uncertain, and the legend reads as follows: “Hakun, united with Ulfr (Wolf) and Asmundr and Aurn (Örn), conquered this port. These men and Haraldr Háfi, on account of the uprising of the Greek people, imposed considerable fines. Dálkr remained (prisoner?) in remote regions. Egill fared with Ragnar to Rumania ... and Armenia.”
The inscriptions were first published in 1800 by Åkerblad, a Swedish savant; they have been frequently revised, and the last study is the “Inscription Runique du Pirée, interpretée par C. C. Rafn; et publiée par la Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord,” Copenhagen, 1856.
[318] The old Norsk Megin-land, land of might, or mainland, is evidently, like the Scotch Mickle, connected with the Persian Mih or Mihin, great, powerful, but not, as Mr Blackwall conceives, with “miracle.” The classical name of the Orkney group, then numbering only seven, is Acmodæ in Pliny, iv. 16, and Hæmodæ in Mela, iii. 6. The Icelandic term is Hjaltland (pronounced Zhatland), hence Zetland, Hetland, and Shetland. Thus it still preserves the fame of old Hjalti, the Viking of the ninth century, who also survives in the modern “Sholto.” Munch suggests that Hjaltland, hilt-land, may have been given from a weapon dropped in it; so trivial were the names of olden Scandinavia: he also mentions the legend of Swordland, a great country now submerged, between Norway and Hjaltland, its hilt.
[319] In Scandinavian, Dynröst, “thundering roost,” from “að dynja,” to din; hence the Tyne and Dvina Rivers. The Icelandic Röst, or current, is the French Raz; that of “Petlandsfjörð” is especially celebrated. In the Orkneys “Roust” is a stormy sea caused by the meeting of tides; “Skail” (Icel. Skellr) is the dashing of surf upon the shore; “Skelder,” the washing of waves, is a common name for farm-houses near the beach; and “Swelchie,” which explains its own meaning, is the Icelandic Svelgr.
[320] Fit Fiall, i.e., “planities pinguis,” or, better still, Fitfulglahöfði, sea-fowl cape.
[321] An abstract printed in “Illustrations of Northern Antiquities,” one vol. 4to, Edinburgh, 1814; reprinted verbatim in “Northern Antiquities,” edited by Mr J. A. Blackwall, London, Bohn, 1859. In it we may note the origin of Norna the sibyl’s “improvisatory and enigmatical poetry.”
[322] Originally Brúsey, from Brúsi, a proper name.
[323] Skála-vegr, the way of the court-house.