Íslenzk tunga - 01.01.1963, Qupperneq 56

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BALDUR JÓNSSON
SUMMARY
Olfus is the name of a county in the South of Iceland. The present
article deals with the etymology of this name, which, in contrast to the
majority of Icelandic place names, has for centuries been quite obscure.
As an independent word Ölfus is otherwise unknown, but it occurs as the first
member of several compounds, the oldest and inost important of which are
Olfusvatn ‘lake of Olfus’ and Olfusá ‘Ölfus river’, as well as the word Ölfusingur
‘a man from Ölfus’, which is obviously derived from the name of the county.
All these names are well known from Old Icelandic sources.
Section I deals with the relationship between name and place down through
the ages. During the Middle Ages Ölfusvatn was the name of the lake now
called Þingvallavatn. Ölfusá seems to have heen the name of the river which
comes from the lake. The upper part of this river is now called Sog, the lower
part Ölfusá. Similarly, Ölfus was the name of the whole region west of the
river. The upper part (west of the Sog) is now called Grafningur, the lower part
(west of the Ölfusá) Ölfus. In other words, the names of the lake and of the
upper parts of the river and the county have been replaced. Grafningur became
the name of the county around 1500, and the other changes seem to have taken
place at a similar date. Sog ‘suction’ has originally been the name of the outlet
of Þingvallavatn.
Many attempts have been made to interpret the name Ölfus. In section II
all earlier interpretations are discussed. It appears that no satisfactory etymo-
logy of Ölfus has ever been found though a number of possible interpretations
has been proposed. In addition, several tentative suggestions have been made,
the most notable by the late geologist and philosopher Helgi Pjeturss, who, in
an article devoted to an entirely different subject (see footnote 46), suggested
that Ölfus might be a corruption of *elfós ‘moulh of a river’.
Sections III—VII present a new investigation of tbe problem. As an introduc-
tion in section III the author suggests that Ölfus is one of the oldest place names
in Iceland, in all probability from the period of settlements, ca. 870—ca. 930.
Then, the original form of the word is reconstructed and its subsequent develop-
ment discussed in detail. Spellings of the word in Old Icelandic manuscripts
are also examined. The earliest occurrence is in the MS ÁM 645 4to, dating
from the early 13th century. At that date the merger of p and 0 had just been
completed, so that the origin of the ö cannot be definitely determined by means
of orthographic evidence alone. Spelling tradition, however, is more in favor of
ö < p. The reconstruction gives the following result: Ölfus is composed of two
words. The first member, ölf-, goes back to one of three alternatives: (1) *p//-
< *alf-, (2) *0lf- < *elf- or (3) *0lf- < *g//-. Botli p and 0 are the results of