At 8:33:35 AM on Thursday, January 5, 2012, Joao S. Lopes wrote:
> Íso,nD = "ice-soul", "iron-soul"?
That should be <d>, not <D>. I'm not willing to etymologize
the name. The genitive of <ǫnd> is <andar>, not <ǫndar>,
and <-ǫnd> is not, so far as I can tell, recorded as a
genuine deuterotheme even in mythological names.
> Should we deduce that Germanic translations of Celtic tale
Certainly not. Whatever may be the ultimate genesis of the
story, we're dealing here with an Old Norse translation of a
Norman or Anglo-French tale. The other early version
(besides that of Thomas, of which the ON saga is a
translation and adaptation) is Gottfried von Strassburg's
unfinished 'Tristan und Isold', which, as you can see,
handles the names somewhat differently.
> tried to adapt an unintelligible name re-shaping it to fit
> into Germanic compounds?
Actually, the other woman whom he marries is called <Ísodd>
in Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar, so in versions that have come
down to us they handled one name two ways. However, when T.
decides not to consummate his second marriage and feigns
illness, the saga says that his sickness was nothing but
pining <um aðra Ísǫnd> 'for the other Ísǫnd', so apparently
the original version of the saga gave them the same name.
I'd guess that it was <Ísǫnd> and that <Ísodd> shows later
influence from the south.
Brian