Fámjin

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Famjin on Faroe map.png

Fámjin [ ˈfɔmjɪn ] or Famjin [ ˈfamjɪn ] ( Danish : Famien ; in older sources also Famøe or Fammøe ) is a place in the Faroe Islands in the middle of the west coast of Suðuroy . In 2015, 92 people lived in the village. The village is also a Faroese community : Fámjins Kommuna . The zip code is FO-870.

location

The village of Fámjin with Lake Kirkjuvatn and Mount Gluggarnir in the background.
The village of Fámjin viewed from the north.

Fámjin is located on the west coast of Suðuroy and is surrounded by high mountains. Beyond the mountains to the east are the two municipalities of Tvøroyri and Hov . The largest lake in the municipality, the Kirkjuvatn, is located above the village in the north . To the north of the lake is the 610 m high mountain Gluggarnir . It is the highest mountain on the south island of Suðuroy.

history

Legend for the place name

The people of Fámjin have a story to tell from the 16th century , how the place got its name: Originally it is said to have been called Vesturvík . One day two men from Hov - a certain Doffin and his son - were fishing out of the coast in the "western bay" (Vesturvík) seen from Hov when they saw a sailing ship bobbing in a calm, waiting for the wind . The two fishermen invited two women on board so they could marvel at the beautiful halibut catch. But when the ladies were on board, the men rowed back to the western bay at full speed. The men on the ship kept shouting : fá mi, fá mi! And since then the place has been called Fámjin. Because of the weather, the ship could not get to Fámjin to bring the two women back. Doffin and his son learned from the two women that they had been en route to Ireland from France when the ship went off course in bad weather. The older of the two women was already married in Ireland and the younger was their company. Doffin and his son eventually married the two women. The Irish husband now found out about his wife's fate and wanted to bring her back from the Faroe Islands, but the priest of Suðuroy talked him out of it, as the two women were happy and would not come voluntarily. In return, the Irishman took the pastor with him on his ship and only released him after two years. Doffin and his wife had a daughter who married and settled with her husband in what is now í Sjúrðargarði in Fámjin. This marriage gave birth to a daughter named Ragnhild (or Rannvá ), who married a man from the í Hørg district in Sumba and is considered the ancestor of other well-known people.

Even Hammershaimb, who reproduces the saga in his anthology, suspects the Faroese first name Dagfinnur behind the name Doffin. This first name actually appears as the patronymic in a Danish list of people from the South Island from the end of the 16th century exactly twice, namely in Fámjin (Poul Dagfindsen) and in Hov (Peder Dagfindsen). There is also a story in the northern neighboring town of Hvalba that deals with the subject. There the man is called Dógvin instead of Doffin and there are different opinions about the origin of the ship.

The place Fámjin is already listed in the Jarðarbókin of 1584 under the Danish name "Famøe". The place also appears in the Jarðabókin from 1588, this time in the Danish spelling “Fammöe”.

For the name Vesturvík there is so far no written evidence outside of the legend. However, it seems to have been a common name for the bay of Fámjin in the village of Hov, east of Fámjin. Fámjin is first mentioned in writing around 1350 in the " Dog Letter ". Regarding the explanation of the place name, linguists suspect that the name originated in the Middle Ages and that there could be a connection with the English word "foam" for foam due to the strong foam-forming surf in the bay of Fámjin. The Faroese verb "fáma" also points in this direction. It describes the stirring up and spraying of water by wind or other natural forces.

Younger story

Since there was no motorable access to the place until well into the 20th century, Fámjin, like Gásadalur in the north, was one of the most remote villages on the Faroe Islands. In 1939 the place was connected to the road network.

On March 29, 2005, the Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Møller and the Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands , Jóannes Eidesgaard , signed a bilateral declaration between Denmark and the Faroe Islands in Fámjin, which for the first time guarantees the autonomous archipelago its own foreign and security policy. See: Treaty of Fámjin .

In 2014 it was decided to create a forest on the edge of the village.

Like many villages in the Faroe Islands, the place is facing a declining population. It has been falling steadily since 1993 when the number of 135 inhabitants in Fámjin Municipality peaked. Until 2014, however, a number of over 100 residents could be maintained. In 2015, however, the place had only 92 inhabitants.

Fámjin Church

After the old church from 1826 had become dilapidated, work began on building a new church in 1875, which was put into operation in February 1876. The slate-covered, chalk-white stone building is worth seeing. It not only houses a rune stone from the 16th century ( see: Fámjinsstein ), which was found during the construction of the church on the site of a former cemetery, but also the first specimen of the Faroe Islands flag . The originator of this flag was a young man named Jens Oliver Lisberg from Fámjin, who designed it in 1919 as a student in distant Copenhagen .

Personalities

photos

Web links

Commons : Fámjin  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. This sounds similar to Faroese “Fá mær, fá mær!”. "Fá mær" means something like: "Give me" or "Get me". See also: Schrøter, Johan Hendrik & Hammershaimb, VU (1852). “ Færøiske folkesagn ”, Antiquarisk Tidsskrift , Copenhagen 1849–1851. s. 180-183.
  2. ^ VU Hammershaimb : Færøsk Anthologi . 1891, vol. 1, p. 376 ff.
  3. Jansaguttarnir , snar.fo. Originally from: Jakob Jakobsen : Færøske folkesagn og æventyr , 1898–1901
  4. The Jarðarbókin 1584 is the oldest surviving register of royal estates on the Faroe Islands ( Jarðarbókin 1584 )
  5. On page 89: “ Famøe Y Hodttne
  6. Arnbjörn Mortensen: Fólkatalið og ognarbýtingin í Föroyum 1600 3. Fróðskaparrit Bok bls. 7. Tórshavn 1954
  7. Fámjin , snar.fo. The double letter “m” does not affect the pronunciation of the preceding vowel, for example Streymoy also appears as “Strømmøe” in the lists of that time . There are other examples.
  8. Hvussu gomul er bygdin , heimabeiti.fo (in Faroese)
  9. fáma ( Memento of the original from May 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , obg.fo @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.obg.fo
  10. Stórur áhugi fyri viðarlundum í Suðuroynni . Archived from the original on November 6, 2014.
  11. Fólkið skift á kyn, bygd / býur, aldur og ár , hagstova.fo.

Coordinates: 61 ° 32 ′  N , 6 ° 53 ′  W