# Icelandic: holt



## Lars H

Hej!

From Elof Hellquist (1922), I have this explanation for the word "holt" in Icelandic: "holt, stengrund, ofta trädbevuxen". 
Since "holt/hult" in the other Scandinavian languages means "grove, small forest" I wonder:
Is it expected that an Icelandic "holt" is bewooded (birch trees or other trees) or os it only a stony ground or ridge?

I realize this is a bit of a trick question, since there was much more woods on Iceland a thousand years ago (when many placenames were formed) than today, but I would be grateful for any comments on this.

Lars H


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## sindridah

Hey

Holt is a hill in English, I don't know if ridge and hill is the same in English .

Holt is a low but relatively wide hill in a landscape.


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## Lars H

I think ridge is an "ås" - or "áss", while a hill is more of a single height, or "kulle"


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## butra

Lars H said:


> Since "holt/hult" in the other Scandinavian languages means "grove, small forest" I wonder:


 
Holt can mean small forest in Icelandic.


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## Lars H

butra said:


> Holt can mean small forest in Icelandic.



Tack!

That was what I thought. In another thread on this forum, I previously read:
_The OED mentions holt meaning "a rough stony hill or ridge" in Icelandic_.
OED = Oxford English Dictionary.

It didn´t seem to be correct, since nature words normally are very similar, and bear the same meaning within the Nordic languages.


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## butra

Lars H said:


> Is it expected that an Icelandic "holt" is bewooded (birch trees or other trees) or os it only a stony ground or ridge?


Holt can be a stony ground melholt, it can be wooded or grassy hrísholt,
and it can mean small forest with no requirements for hills ridges or slopes of any kind oft er í holti heyrandi nær.


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## Silver_Biscuit

As for the OED (tried to copy and paste this earlier, but the special characters didn't come out and I was in a hurry), this is what it says about the English word holt:

Etymology: 





> OE. _holt_ = OFris., OS. _holt_, MDu., Du. _hout_ wood (as material); OHG., MHG., Ger. _holz_ wood, a wood, ON., _holt_ wood, copse, *now in Icel. 'a rough stony hill or ridge'*: - OTeut. _*hulto_


 
Defintions: 





> 1. Wood, timber (OE. only, and doubtful.)
> 2. A wood; a copse. Now _poet_. and _dial_. (Occurs in many place-names and derived surnames)
> b) A plantation, esp. of osiers. _local_.
> 3. A wooded hill. [This sense may have arisen from a misunderstanting of 'holtis hie' in ME. poems; *but cf. Icel. holt rough hill*.]


 
Note: This is not the entire definition given by the OED, but it is the most relevant parts.

P.S. So I always though that the bit of the song 'Á Sprengisandi' which goes 'þaut í holti tófa' meant that 'a vixen sang in the wood'. Is this right?


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## Lars H

Thank you Silver Biscuit, butra and sindridah for your explanations. My question is answered most satisfactory. 



Silver_Biscuit said:


> So I always though that the bit of the song 'Á Sprengisandi' which goes 'þaut í holti tófa' meant that 'a vixen sang in the wood'. Is this right?



I don't know Icelandic as you do but from a mainland Scandinavian point of view, "i holti" ought to be "in the woods", not "on the hill/ridge". I can draw the conclusion that there at least is a fox involved, if not a vixen. But from where comes "sang"?
Perhaps it's better to be answered by people that actually understand Icelandic...


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## sindridah

In a modern Icelandic today is "_holt" _not forest. In the period of settlement then _holt_ would be accepted as forest.

It is questionable to accept _holt_ as a forest in modern Icelandic, That's my opinion and probably many others would agree with me.


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## Silver_Biscuit

Lars H said:


> I don't know Icelandic as you do but from a mainland Scandinavian point of view, "i holti" ought to be "in the woods", not "on the hill/ridge". I can draw the conclusion that there at least is a fox involved, if not a vixen. But from where comes "sang"?
> Perhaps it's better to be answered by people that actually understand Icelandic...


 
Hum, well, two definitions are given for _tófa_, fox and vixen, and I assumed that since the main word (refur) is masculine and this is feminine, vixen was probably intended. Þaut is the 3rd person past tense of þjóta which means 1) to dash 2) to whistle/sing. The context leads me to believe that the second sense is meant (because the dative indicates that the _tófa_ is already in the _holt_, rather than going _into_ it, and also because it's clearly a sound that is being discussed).


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## kepulauan

Interesting. Holt is a very common placename and many of the places bearing it have no obvious sign of a hill nearby. I guess both meanings denote a favourable spot for a farmhouse. If the farm stands next to a grove, there is enough wood. If it's on a hill, floods are less of a threat.


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## Domhnuil

This is a more interesting thread. We north Europeans are more like a  community of nations with shared languages. English has been altered a  lot since 1066 by the Norman invasion which brought in a lot of old  French words and a great deal of Latin. The basic language however has  survived. Nobody talks in Norman French or Latin. The Anglo-saxons  brought in the Germanic, and then there were the Viking invasions and  settlements. Both the A/S and the Norse could understand each other. For  a while England was divided between them, so we have dual words or  names, such as Shirt and Skirt, shirt being from the softer sounding A/S  and Skirt from the Norse, originally both meaning the same. Early on  there were many battles between Saxons and Danes during which the famous  Knut (our Canute) after losing to the Saxons near here in the South  West was forced to convert to Christianity. Eventually however he  became king of England and Denmark. He is famous for trying to turn back  the tide. There is a place named after him in Cheshire, called  Knutsford. There are still many place names in the north of England and  into Scotland that end in By. My home town of Grimsby has the famous  story of Havelok the Dane who was brought to England for safety by the  Danish fisherman Grim.
Ridge is another A/S word that has its equivalent in the north and  Lowland Scotland as Rigg. A ridge is more of a sharp dividing range. We  also use it in weather forecasts as 'A ridge of high pressure'. In the  old Danelaw (Danelagh - where our word Law comes from) we have Beck for a  stream, Kirk for a church, and Gate (gata) for a road - Kirkgate  leading to the church. There is still a difference in the language  between north and south, particularly in how we say the U. In the south  it is almost like a Continental A. In the north it is a deep, almost Oo  sound, like German 'Butter'.


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