[2] hon mun sungin brátt ‘it will soon be sung’: Here ‘sing’ probably indicates an etymological root shared by the Old Norse word for ‘magic, magical song’ (galdr). Related are ON gala ‘sing, cry out, pronounce a magical incantation’, OE, OHG galan ‘sing’ (AEW: gala), which scholarship suggests hints at a magical song sung in falsetto voice (cf. Wesche 1940, 40-5; ARG I, 304-5).
References
- Bibliography
- AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
- ARG = Vries, Jan de. 1956-7. Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte. 2 vols. 2nd edn. Berlin: de Gruyter.
- Wesche, Heinrich. 1940. Der althochdeutsche Wortschatz im Gebiete des Zaubers und der Weissagung. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache 1. Halle: Niemeyer.