Shalom Beth !
you wrote:

>Heil!
>I have peculiar interest in ON due to my surname "Thackery" which
>i´ve been able to trace to a compound word of ON beginnings

I am slightly puzzled here, because, as you probably know,
the old Norse people had no surnames. I therefore find it
difficult to see how your surname can be Old Norse.

Perhaps you mean to say that "Thackeray" is the name of
a village in England, that - perhaps - began as a viking
colony??

>What i need help on is what a reconstructed form would indeed look like.
>From John Geipel's "The Viking Legacy" he states what I've found else
>where; namely that "Thackray [stems from] ([Old ]N[orse]: þakkr,
>literally 'thatch'[...])", and that the ending "-ray" or in my
>altered variation "-ery" is from ON "vrá, literally 'nook' and
>referring in placenames to out-of-the-way valleys and similar
>secluded sites, occurs at Wray, Rowrah, [....]" (p. 136)
>
>Thus, Þakkr + vrá is the compound predecessor to my modern Thackery.
>Yet, i'm not sure what it'd look like assembled exactly (this is
>where I need feedback). Would it be: Þakkrvrá; Þakkarvrá, or
>Þakkavrá, or something else?

I do not find a word "þakkr" in Old Norse.
What I do find instead is the name of a slave called "Þakkráðr"
(Thakkraadr), about whom you can read in the Volundarkvida
verse 39. That is however similar enough - and so perhaps
it is a person name, rather than a place name?

To quote another example of a PN ending in -ráðr, there
is Langobardic "Walderada". Perhaps Þakkráðr means "he who
gives good advice"?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With respect to the word "vrá" that you mention, I cannot find
this one either in normalized Old Norse. However, there is
a word "rá" (f.) that has four different meanings. First of
all the beam onto which the sail of a viking ship was attached;
that is the beam that had to be hoisted up, respectivly lowered
by means of _tackles_ on board the ship.

Another meaning is something with tents.

Meaning no. 4 has indeed been associated with place names,
and here an older ON word "vro," has been listed (w. hooked o).
The meaning is supposed to mean "land" or something like that.
An alternative spelling is "ró" (=roo).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then you quote an English meaning "thatch", for an ON word
that I wasn't able to identify at first. In that connection
I do, however, find a word "þekja" (f.) that would seem to
be relevant, because it does mean a roof. That would probably
indicate a roof made of reeds, of the type you find a lot
in Jylland and Friesland.

Then there is also the *verb* "þekja", which describes
the work of laying a roof onto a house. This verb has
a past participle by ablaut þakiðr/þaktr/þakinn, which
forms relate to the ON word for "roof" (=þak).

I'd also like to mention the ON place name "þakastaðir"
which is now called TAKESTAD.

Best regards
Keth

>
>
>Works cited:
>Geipel, John. "The Viking Legacy: The Scandinavian Influence on the
>English Language." London: David & Charles Pub, 1971.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Sumir hafa kvæði...
>...aðrir spakmæli.
>
>- Keth
>
>Homepage: http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/
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