v1.0
Published 01/10/24
fòla f. [ˈfɔːɫ̪ə], gen. ?idem, ‘wave, billow’. Henderson (1910, 144–45) cites the form fòlaibh from a St Kilda song: ’S mi gun suigeart ’s mi gun sòlas, | ’S mo leanabh uam feadh na fòlaibh (‘I am without joy and comfort, with my child (taken) from me among the fòlaibh’) (Mackenzie 1906, 334, in which fòlaibh is glossed tonnan ‘waves’)
In his own edition, MacFhearghuis (1995, 62) introduces a fatal typographical error: Mi gun suigeart ’s mi gun sòlas | ’S mo leanabh uam feadh na gòlaibh.
– deriving it from ON for-vað ‘shoal water between the cliffs and the flowing tide’ (from Cleasby 1874), arguing l for r in St Kilda Gaelic, loss of original final -að, and the introduction of stressed epenthesis (svarabhakti), implying a Gaelic singular form *folbh *[ˈfɔɫ̪͡ɔv].
McDonald (2009, 354–55) equates the implied *folbh with the verbal noun SG falbh (folbh) ‘departing etc.’ and so considers the Old Norse derivation unlikely.
But this does not account for the form fòlaibh, which is in the genitive plural after the compound preposition (air) feadh, although -ibh is in origin a dative plural ending. At any rate, SG fòla ‘large wave, billow’ is recorded for Skye (Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄), and may derive from Scots waw [wɑː], [wɔː] ‘wave’ (< MEng. waȝ(e) (SND˄, s.v. 2waw)), or perhaps Scots *wall *[wɑːl], *[wɔːl] (cf. MScots waw, wall (DOST˄, s.v. 2waw)) via back-formation, cf. Martin’s (1698, 104, 108–09) mall for Scots maw (s.v. fulmair). For initial SG f- [f]- < Scots w- [w]-, cf. SG fadhail ‘ford’ < ON vaðil acc. m. ([w]-, (after 1200) [ʋ]-) (Cox 2022, 113–14).
The form fòla also occurs in a praise poem in Cam’ron 1785, 17: ’S tu shiol na fòla priseil, but this is evidently for ’s tu [de] shìol na fola prìseil (‘since you are of the progeny of the precious blood’), with the genitive singular (fola, fala) of SG fuil f. ‘blood’. Fòla also occurs in an elegy for Iain MacLean of Duart (Sinclair 1877, 52 – the relevant line (from the fourth stanza) is missing from previous editions of the poem, viz. MacDomhnuill 1776, 127, and MacKenzie 1841, 71): a criochaibh na Fòla (‘from the boundaries of Fòla’) where Fòla (for Fòdhla) is taken as a literary reference to Ireland (for the name, see Clancy 2010), although genitive na Fòla with the article, rather than lenited genitive Fhòdhla as in a criochaibh Fhodhla (Sinclair 1890, 79), is unexpected.