b) fram såkəto (sɔkəto) dafa vɔgədə nȯitVālafiel wɩz tȯrt u bruta
hāfatu wɩz o hâla
fræm såkkətu dafa våggədu nöit
æn rude krɩŋ de jāla.
(acc. to J. I.)
This rhyme comes from Fetlar, but the contents point back to its northern neighbour, Unst. All conception of the meaning has been lost. Valafjel is a hill-ridge in Unst, running north and south, and steep on its western slope; it is about half-way between the north and the south ends of the isle, but nearer to the west side than to the east.
Line 1. Valafjel was tort (trott) o brotta, Valafjel (Valla-Field) was laborious and steep. As O.N. “tor-” is found only as a prefix attached to adjectives signifying difficult, it is doubtless unreasonable to explain Shetlandic tort from that source. trott, on the other hand, from which tort may have arisen by dissimilation (through influence of the following brotta), is more easily explained from O.N. tranten, adj., laborious, difficult.
Line 2. Hageda was o hala or hafatu was o hala. The variants differ widely with respect to the first word in the line. Hageda might, if necessary, be thought to be the place-name “Hagdale”, preserved in the combination Hagdaleness in Westing, west of Valafjel. But o hala must then be left unexplained. “Hafatu was o hala”, on the other hand, can be explained as a *haftó vor áharða, there the damp sea-wind was violent. No. havto, f., moist weather with wind from the sea (Aa.), and No. aahard, adj., of wind: very strong; violent. The connective vowel in hafatu, and the change r (rd) > l in ohala (*ohara) would be in full conformity with Shetland-Norn phonology.
Line 3. Vogede noit (nott), sege me das, or Fram sokketu dafa, vogede noit.
Voge noit can be explained as to be awake, to watch by night, O.N. vaka nátt. sege me das, is by way of contrast to this: to search by day, an older: sœkja med (við) dag, sœkja dags. In variant b the order is inverted, sokketu must be the past tense (3. pers. pl.): *soktu, (they) searched, older “sóktu”, O.N. (þeir) sóttu. dafa is doubtless a corruption of *daga, day. In accordance with sokketu, vogede is doubtless also past tense: vǫktu from vaka, vb., to be awake, watchful. But it does not appear from the connection what it is that is searched for, or why it is necessary to be awake or watchful. It might be reasonable, with reference to sege me das (fram sokketu dafa), to think of searching for cattle in the hill-pasture, but this would not explain why “to watch by night” is placed side by side with “to search by day”. Probably the reference is rather to rowing (out at the fishing), the seeking for a fishing-ground out at the “haaf”. fram, in “fram sokketu”, is best explained by: out at the haaf — far out from land, because the word is always found in this sense in Mod. Shetlandic handed
