Note to Busla Busl 3VIII (Bós 3)
[9] Bósa ‘to Bósi’: Relation to OE Bōsa, OS Bōso, Old Frankish Boso, OHG Buoso as well as the m. name Bosi in a Danish runic inscription (DRI 268) is uncertain (cf. AEW: bósi), as is the etymology. Sverrir Tómasson (Bós 1996, 51) discusses the possibility that the name may originally have referred to þann sem klappaði kvið og rass ‘someone who stroked the belly and arse’, which would have been appropriate to Bósi’s role as a womaniser in the saga. Ms. 577 regularly provides the form Bögu-Bósi, abbreviated to ‘bb’ or ‘bba’ for the protagonist’s name. Baga ‘bent, twisted’ was the nickname of Bósi’s shield-maiden mother Brynhildr, which she acquired as a result of serious injuries Bósi’s viking father had inflicted on her in a fight in their youth. The idea that the name Bósi is an abbreviation for [Giovanni] Boccaccio, author of the Decameron, and known for his outspoken narratives, seems far-fetched (Jørgensen 1997, 104-5).
References
- Bibliography
- AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
- DRI = Jacobsen, Lis and Erik Moltke. 1941-2. Danmarks Runeindskrifter. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.
- Jørgensen, Jon Gunnar. 1997. ‘“Bósi hét annarr son þeirra”’. In Bergljót S. Kristjánsdóttir et al. 1997, 101-6.
- Bós 1996 = Sverrir Tómasson, ed. 1996. Bósa saga og Herrauðs. Reykjavík: Mál og menning.