v1.0
Published 01/10/24
fàrradh m. [ˈfɑːɍəɣ], gen. fàrraidh [ˈfɑːɍi], also fàradh [ˈfaːɾəɣ], gen. fàraidh [ˈfaːɾi], ‘litter or straw lain in a boat when transporting animals’ is connected with ON fǫr f. ‘journey’ (gen. farar, pl. farar, farir) by Fr Allan McDonald (in Goodrich-Freer 1897, 67: fàradh). Henderson (1910, 144: farradh, Uist) derives the word from the same source, but Oftedal (1962, 119) considers the derivation very doubtful, and McDonald (2009, 352) uncertain. A number of written forms are found.
A. SG fàradh
(i) faradh, without lengthmark (Shaw 1780, who eschews lengthmarks anyway: ‘litter put in a boat to receive horses’; Mac Farlan 1795: ‘litter in a boat’; MacLeod and Dewar 1839: ‘hen-roost; litter in a boat to receive horses or cattle; freight’; MacEachen 1842: ‘hen-roost; loft; freight, ferriage; gallery; litter in a boat to receive horses or cattle’);
(ii) fàradh, with lengthmark (in a song by Iain Lom (c.1624–c.1710) in MacKenzie 1964, 102–03: ‘litter’; in Armstrong 1825: ‘roost; litter in a boat to receive horses or cattle; a freight’, who lists faradh but who gives the example fàradh luing ‘a ship’s load’; under fàradh in HSS 1828, the reader is referred to fàrradh (B (ii)); McDonald 1972: ‘litter spread in a boat for cattle to be ferried, litter beneath cattle in a boat’).
B. SG fàrradh
(i) farradh (MacEachen 1842: ‘litter, straw or brushwood laid in a boat’; in an anonymous song in Mac-na-Ceàrdadh 1879, 30: spelt farradh, but rhyming with long /ɑː/ in ràdh riut : Ban-righ : àithntean etc.);
(ii) fàrradh (MacFarlane 1815: ‘litter in a boat’; HSS 1828: ‘litter or straw laid in a boat’; McAlpine 1832: [fârr´-a’] ‘litter in a boat’; MacLeod and Dewar 1839: ‘litter, straw or brushwood laid in a boat’; MacBain 1911: ‘litter in a boat’; MacLennan 1925: ‘idem’; ≈Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄: in the phrase am fàrradh a chuir e a-steach (Lewis), said of someone who has eaten too much).
ON fǫr (farar) would be expected to yield SG *[fɔɾ] (*[ˈfaɾəɾ]) with a short stressed vowel, and SG fàr(r)adh with a long stressed vowel is likely to derive from ON fóðra vb ‘to feed; to line a house’ or fóðr nt. ‘feed, fodder; lining in a house’, either of which would be expected to yield SG [ˈfɑːɍ]- or [ˈfaːɾ]- in the first instance, with a ~ o alternation in Gaelic, and, with the addition of the common Scottish Gaelic verbal noun ending, [ˈfɑːɍəɣ] or [ˈfaːɾəɣ].
Cox 2007b, 68–69. In stressed position in Scottish Gaelic, o ~ a alternation is well attested in short vowels, e.g. EG focul > SG facal ‘word’, and is reasonably common in Old Norse loans, e.g. ON torf-skeri m. > SG tarfhsgeir ‘peat-iron’, q.v., and ON Þormund acc. m. > SG (Lewis) Tarmod (Tormod), the masculine personal name. Although examples of o ~ a alternation in long vowels are comparatively rare, they do occur, e.g. EG fót ‘sod, clod’ > SG fàd ‘a peat, a turf’ (fòd, fòid), and possibly in the loan-name ON *Lómadal acc. ‘the valley of the (?red-throated) diver’ > SG Làmadal NB040167 (Cox 2022, 779–82). (While O’Rahilly (1942b) does give some examples of vowel shortening before voiced fricatives + d, l, n, and r in modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic, such a development seems an unlikely proposition in our case; rather, ON ð would probably have been assimilated to the following r in Gaelic early on, hence [ɍ], yielding [ɾ] in some dialects.)
As a result of misspellings, fàr(r)adh in the sense ‘litter’ has evidently been conflated with superficially similar words. The senses ‘hen-roost; loft; gallery’ belong to SG faradh ‘roost; platform, loft etc.’, which goes back to EG foraḋ ‘mound; platform’, while the senses ‘freight; ferriage’ belong to SG faradh ‘fare (for carriage); freight’, which may derive from MEng. fare etc. (before lengthening to fāre during the 13th century (Brook 1975, 21), hence modern Eng. fare), from OEng. faran ‘to go, travel, journey’.