Note 359 — Chapter III · REYKJAVIK[359]—THE SUBURBS—THE LODGING-HOUSE—THE CLUB AND THE WAY WE SPEND THE DAY.

Reykjavíkr in the nominative sing, is an abstract linguistic fiction, from Vík (feminine), a bay, a wich (e.g., Greenwich). Travellers neglect the Icelandic termination, and even English literati omit the-r or-ur as superfluous and strictly correct only in the nominative, e.g., Leif for Leifr. From Vík, a bay, comes Víking, a baying-voyage, or seeking the shelter of bays, and Víkingr, a baying-voyager, or a voyager from the fjords. This word, sometimes written Vi-king in English, suggests a wrong etymology. Cleasby warns us that the termination-wick or-wich is Norsk only for maritime places, the inland “wicks” derive from the Latin vicus. Local names beginning with Reyk are unknown to Scandinavians, and peculiar to Iceland where the pillars of steam must have struck the colonist’s eye.