Note to Anon Krm 19^VIII

[3] fyr Lindiseyri ‘off Lindiseyrr’: Lindis- in this p. n. is reminiscent of two major English place-names, and the final element is dat. sg. of eyrr ‘a bank or spit of sand or gravel running into a river or sea’. The wording of the stanza makes it difficult to identify a specific location for Lindiseyrr, except that the spilling of Irish blood in l. 9 is presumably located there. (a) One possibility is Lindsey in North Lincolnshire, cf. Langenfelt (1920, 84 n. 1). The final element in the name Lindsey appears to derive from OE ēg (cf. ON ey) ‘island’, either directly or as a reformation (Watts 2004, 374; early spellings have variable endings but begin with Lindis-, Lindes-). This could have been replaced in a Norse form of the name by ‑eyrr. However, the reference to Irish blood in l. 9 of the present stanza makes an English location unlikely. (b) Rafn (1826, 135, following Johnstone 1782, 81) mentions Lindisfarne (now Holy Island), a tidal island off the coast of Northumberland, as a possible location. The name has traditionally been taken to mean ‘island of the travellers to and from Lindsey’, though other interpretations are possible (see Coates 2000; Watts 2004, 374; early spellings include Lindisfarnae 699-705, in a copy c. 900). The monastery was founded by Irish monks c. 635. (c) With the Irishmen of l. 9 in mind, Johnstone (1782, 81, 108) and Rafn (1826, 135) suggest the Irish province of Leinster as a possible location for Lindiseyrr, but the Irish name for it, the Old Irish ethnonym Laigin, ModIr. Laighin, seems too remote from Lindiseyrr in spelling and pronunciation to have formed the basis of the latter name.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1826. Krakas Maal eller Kvad om Kong Ragnar Lodbroks Krigsbedrifter og Heltedød efter en gammel Skindbog og flere hidtil ubenyttede Haandskrifter med dansk, latinsk og fransk oversættelse, forskjellige Læsemaader, samt kritiske og philologiske Anmærkninger. Copenhagen: Jens Hostrup Schultz; London: John and Arthur Arch.
3. Langenfelt, Gösta. 1920. Toponymics or Derivations from Local Names in English: Studies in Word-formation and Contributions to English Lexicography. Inaugural Dissertation. Uppsala: Appleberg.
4. Johnstone, James, ed. and trans. 1782. Lodbrokar-Quida; Or the death-song of Lodbroc; now first correctly printed from various manuscripts; with a free English translation. To which are added, the various readings; a literal Latin version; an Islando-Latino glossary; and explanatory notes. Copenhagen: [n. p.].
5. Coates, Richard and Andrew Breeze, eds. 2000. Celtic Voices, English Places. Stamford: Tyas.
6. Watts, Victor, ed. 2004. The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-names. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.