The High Germans, however, made far more use of this commencement, and

won for it the chief honour. The elder forms are according to the harsh

old German sounds—_Cotahelm_, divine helmet, _Cotahramn_, divine raven,

_Cotalint_, divine serpent! But the more universal spelling prevailed,

as Frankish or Allemannic saints came into honour. Gotthard, bishop of

Hildesheim, was one of these. His name, which may be rendered divine

resolution, or, perhaps, firm through God, was also borne by Godard,

abbot of Rouen, and has adhered to the great mountain-pass of the Alps,

as well as to families of Godard in France, Goddard in England. In

Germany it is still used as a Christian name; and in Lithuania is

Gattinsch, Gedderts, or Kodders.

Gottfrid, divine peace, was abbot of St. Quentin early in the eleventh

century, and named two godsons, the canonized bishop of Amiens, and the

far more famous Gottfried of Lorraine, who might well, as leader of the

crusading camp, bequeath his name to all the nations whose

representatives fought under him, and thus we find it everywhere. In

Florence it has become Giotto, to distinguish the artist who gave us

Dante’s face; in Germany, cut down into Goetz, it distinguished the

terrible, though simple-hearted, champion with the iron hand, then,

falling into a surname, belonged to Göthe. We received our Godfrey from

the conqueror of Jerusalem, but previously the Gottfried had been taken

up by the French, and was much used by the Angevin counts in the

Gallicized form of Geoffroi. In alternation with Foulques, the name

continued among the Angevins till they came to the English throne; and

then Jaffrez, as the Bretons called the young husband of their duchess

Constance, was excited to rebellion by the Provençals as Jaffré.

Geoffrey spread among the English, and the Latinizers made it into

Galdfridus, which misled Camden into translating it into Glad-peace.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐

│ English. │ Breton. │ French. │ Italian. │

│Godfrey │Jaffrez │Godefroi │Goffredo │

│Geoffrey │ │Godafrey │Godofredo │

│Jeffrey │ │Geoffroi │Giotto │

│Jeff │ │Jeoffroi │ │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ Spanish. │ German. │ Polish. │ Lusatian. │

│Godofredo │Gottfried │Godfrid │Frido │

│Gofredo │Götz │ —————— │Fridko │

│ │Gödel │ Dutch. │ │

│ │ │Govert │ │

└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Besides these, Germany has Godegisel, divine pledge; Godebert and

Godeberta, divine brightness; and Gottwald, divine power: repeated in

Provence by Jaubert.

Germany also has a Gottleip, the same with the old Anglo-Saxon Guthlaf,

meaning the leavings of God, or remains of Divinity, but which has been

made in modern German into Gottlieb, or love, and contracted in Lower

Lusatia into Lipo; in Dantzic, into Lipp. There are several of these

modern devotional German names, such as Gottlob, the very same in

meaning as belonged to the Speaker of the Rump, Praise God Barebones,

but has been continued as Lopo, or Lopko, in Lusatia. In fact, the

Moravians use these appellations, and thus we have the modern coinage of

Gottgetreu, Gotthilf, and Gotthilfe, and even of Gottsei-mit-dir, much

like the Diotisalvi of Italy, and not without parallel among the early

Christians.

The Spanish Goths left behind them Guzman, once either divine might

(_magen_), or Man of God. Guzman el Bueno was an admirable early

Spaniard, who beheld his own son beheaded rather than surrender the town

committed to his keeping. It became a surname, and it may be remembered

how Queen Elizabeth played with that of Philip II.’s envoy, when she

declared that if the king of Spain had sent her a gooseman, she had sent

him a man-goose.

Another old form taken by this word was Geata, or Gautr. It was used as

an epithet of Odin, and has been explained by some to mean the keeper,

and be derived from _geata_, to keep; but it is far more likely that it

is only another pronunciation of the same term for the All-pervader or

Creator.

Gautr is sometimes a forefather, sometimes a son of Odin; and there is a

supposed name-father, Gaut, for the Goths of Sweden, whether they are

the same as the Goths of Italy and Spain or not.

In this form, Gaut had its own brood of derivatives, chiefly in Sweden,

but with a few straying into Germany; such as Gosswin, divine friend,

and Gossbert, in Provençal Joubert, Gossfried, which may be the right

source of Geoffrey.

The most noted of all is, however, Gotzstaf, or Gozstaf, meaning either

the divine staff, or the staff of the Goths. Twice has it been endeared

to the Swedes; first by Gustaf Vasa, the brave man who delivered the

country from the bondage of the union of Calmar, and whose adventures in

Dalecarlia, like those of Bruce in Scotland, were more endearing than

even his success. Him the country calls affectionately “_Gamle Kong

Gosta_” and no less was its love and pride in his noble descendant,

Gustaf Adolf, “the Lion of the North, the bulwark of the Protestant

faith,” who casts the only gleam of brightness over the dull waste of

the Thirty Years' War. Thus it is no wonder that so many bear his name,

Gustav, Gosta, Gjosta, that it is considered in the North as the

national nickname of a Swede; and it has the feminine Gustava.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐

│ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ Swedish. │

│Gustavus │Gustave │Gustavo │Gozstav │

│ │ │ │Gustav │

│ │ │ │Gosta │

│ │ │ │Gjosta │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ German. │ Lett. │ Esthonian. │ │

│Gustaf │Gustavs │Kustav │ │

│ │Gusts │Kustas │ │

└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

SECTION II.—_The Aasir._

Tacitus tells us that the supreme god of the Germans was called Esus or

Hesus, and though some have thought he meant the Keltic Hu, it is far

more likely that he had heard the word _As_ or _Æs_, the favourite

Teutonic term for their divinities.

The word is known in all the Teutonic languages: it is _As_, _Aasir_ in

the North, _Os_, _Es_ in Anglo-Saxon, and _Anseis_ or _Ensi_ in Gothic

and High German. Jornandes tells us that the Goths called their deified

ancestors _anses_, but it is only in the North that the literature of

the Pantheon of the race was so developed that we can follow it out.

The Aasir are in northern myth a family like the Olympian gods of

Greece; they inhabit Valhalla, and there receive the spirits of the

worthy dead, to feast and hunt with them till the general battle and

final ruin of all things, when a new and perfect world shall arise.

Blended with this notion there is a grand allegory of the contention

between the seasons. The Aasir, or summer gods, are always struggling

with the Hrimthusir, or frost powers, and winning the victory over them.

And further, the tradition of a migration from the warmer East, and of

the battles with the northern aborigines, is mixed up in the legends,

and the Aasir are a band of heroic settlers from Asgard or Asia, who fix

themselves in Europe, and become the ancestors of all the various races

of Teutons.

So speak the _Edda_ and the various sagas of the North; and though the

poetry and legends of the other nations have not come down to us, their

use of the names formed from _as_, _os_, _ans_, testifies to their

regard for the term as conveying the idea of deity.

To begin with the North, where the pronunciation is the purest, the word

in the singular is _aas_, in the plural, _aasir_ or _æsir_, and the

older form of these names began with the _aa_, though usually spelt with

a single _a_ in Norsk and Icelandic, with an _e_ in Danish. And let it

be remembered throughout, that the Northern _aa_ is pronounced like our

_o_.

The Low Germans change the _aas_ into _os_, and in this way most of the

Anglo-Saxon and continental German names commence.

_Ans_, the High German and Gothic form, occurs in the Frank, Lombardic,

and Gothic names. Asgaut or, as the Saxons call it, Osgod, and Asgrim,

are both reduplications of divinity.

Asa appears in the _Landnama-bok_, and Aasir, the collective term for

the gods, is used in Norway as a name corrupted into Asser, or Ozer. It

is probably the same with Esa, the ancestor of the Bernician kings, who

may have used ‘Os’ in compliment to him. Aasketyl is the divine kettle

or cauldron, probably connected with creation. It was usually called in

the North Askjell, and has the feminine Askatla. Oscetyl, as the

Anglo-Saxons spelt it, was used by them in Danish times, when a

so-called marauder terribly tormented them; but Frank pronunciation so

affected the Normans, that they brought in the name as Ansketil; and a

person so called was settled at Winchester in 1148.

Aasbjorn, divine bear, is a queer compound, and so is Aasolfr, or divine

wolf; but as will be shown when we come to the beasts themselves, a

certain divinity did hedge about these formidable animals in the days of

name-coining in the North. The first Asolfr with whom I have met was a

Christian, who, with twelve companions, was wrecked upon the shores of

Iceland in the interval between its settlement and conversion. They

erected buildings, resolutely refused all commerce with the heathen, and

lived solely on the produce of their fishing. A church has since been

built where they settled. The name has fallen into Asulf in the North,

and was paralleled by Osulf in England. As to the divine bear, he had a

wider fame, for Asbiorn came among the Northmen to Neustria, and was

there Frenchified. An Osborn was the seneschal who was murdered in the

sleeping chamber of William in the stormy days of the minority of the

future conqueror; and his son, William Fitzosborn, was the chief friend

and confidant of the stern victor of Hastings. Osborn figures in

Domesday, and has now become a common English surname, which used to be

translated house-born, before comparison with the other tongues had

shown the true relations of the word. Asbera is the northern feminine.

Esbern Snare, or the swift, the Danish noble, whose heart and eyes were

to have furnished Finn’s child with amusement, was really a powerful

earl at the end of the twelfth century, and his still more celebrated

twin brother, Bishop Absalom, was a great statesman and warrior, and

prompted Saxo Grammaticus to write his chronicle of Norway. Bishop

Absalom is believed to have, like his brother, received at baptism one

of the derivatives from the old gods of Denmark, namely, Aslak, the

divine sport or reward, a name which in Denmark and Sweden is always

called Axel, in which shape it belonged to Oxenstjerna, the beloved

minister of Gustavus Adolphus, and has ever since been a favourite

national name. Aslak is in the North pronounced Atlak, and sometimes

taken for the original Atli in the Volsunga Saga; but this is far more

probably the Tartar Attalik. We had a Bernician Aslak of the like

meaning. Never were there a more noted pair of twins than these

brothers, of the _bear_ and the _sport_. Well might their birth be first

announced to their absent father, on his return to the isle of Soro, by

twin church steeples, built by the mother to greet his eyes over the

sea. His name, Askar, or Ansgjerr, divine spear, was so common that

sixteen appear in the Iceland roll, and the word Osgar gets confused

with the Keltic Oscar, son of Ossian; nay, it may perhaps have been his

proper name. A Frank Ansgar, born in Picardy about the year 800, was the

apostle of Denmark, and afterwards bishop of Hamburgh and Bremen; he was

canonized as Anscharius, and is popularly called in his bishopric St.

Scharies, by which title the collegiate church of Bremen is called. It

is curious to find the Ansbrando of ancient Lombardy reflected by the

Asbrandr, divine sword, of Iceland. Lombardy had likewise Anshelm, the

divine helmet, softened down into Anselmo or Antelmo, the name of that

mild-natured Lombardic Archbishop of ours, whose constancy cost him so

dear in his contention with the furious Rufus and politic Beauclerc.

That firmness, however, together with his deep theological writings, won

him the honours of sanctity, though it is only on the Continent that his

name took root: England had no national love for her Anselm; and he

chiefly appears in Italy, France, and Germany, where he has been cut

short as Anso, endeared as Ensilo, has a feminine Ansa, and is called by

the Jews Anschel.

Of other terms which, like _helm_, give the idea of protection, there

are many; the feminine Asbjorg or Asburg, divine fort, is reflected by

the Anglo-Saxon Asburgha. Asgardr, divine guard, may be most probably an

allusion to the abode of the gods, Asgard, the abode to which the

rainbow-arch Bifrost was the access, trod, according to the grand death

song of Eirikr Blodaxe, by the spirits of the courageous dead on their

way to feast in the hall of Odin. As men’s names appear the Norwegian

Asgard, and Ansgard, a Winchester householder in Stephen’s time; but the

Northern feminine Asgerdur is the divine maiden, in honour of the

goddess Gerda. Asmundr is the northern form of a favourite name, giving

the idea of protecting with the hand. It is called Ansmunt in old

German, Osmund in Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French, and in this form was

most popular, at first perhaps, from Osmond de Centeville, the brave

Norman, who fled from Laon with the young Richard Sans Peur, but

afterwards for the sake of a Norman Osmond, who was canonized as Bishop

of Salisbury, whence this form in England and Osmont in France have

continued. Aasvalldr, divine power, was in Germany Ansvalt, and has

modernized as Asvald; but the Anglo-Saxon Oswald was the glory of the

name in the Northumbrian monarch, “free of hand,” as even his Welsh foes

called him, who has left Oswald to be an English name. Asvor and Asvora

express divine prudence.

“Aslaug, dottur Sigurdur Fafnisbana,” is recorded in the _Landnama-bok_

in sober earnest as having married Ragnar Lodbrog.

Divine legacy, or relic, appears in Asleif, the English Oslaf. The

northern Aasny, with Ashildur, has always been a favourite. Osthryth,

divine threatener, came out of the house of Bernicia into Mercia, where

she was murdered by the Danes, and revered as St. Osyth with a priory in

her honour.

Thoroughly English are likewise Osmod, divine mood or wrath; Osfrith,

divine peace; Osred, divine council; Osgifu, divine gift; Oswine, divine

friend, the third of the admirable but short-lived kings of Bernicia;

Oswiu, who overthrew him, was probably named from a word meaning sacred,

of which more in its place. Osbeorht we share with Germany, which calls

it Osbert, and has the feminine Osberta. In fact, most of these names

were in use there, beginning with _os_ or _ans_, according to the

dialect in which they were used. Ansgisel was one of the Frankish forms,

that section of the race always making much use of _gisel_, a

pledge.[107]

-----

Footnote 107:

Grimm; Turner; Munch; Lappenberg; Mallet; _Landnama-bok_; _Domesday_;

Michaelis; Hermann Luning, _Edda_; _Hist. of Scandinavia_; Marryat,

_Jutland_.

SECTION III.—_Odin, or Grîmr._

The head of the Aasir was Odin, as we have learned to call him from the

North, which worshipped him long after we had forgotten our Wuotan,

except in the title of his day of the week. There are various opinions

as to the meaning of his name, some making it come from the word for

rage in the North, _odhr_; in A. S., _wod_; and still _wuth_ in German;

and the adjective _wud_ in Scottish. It thus may allude to Odin being

the god of storm and tempest. Others take the name from O. G., _watan_,

N., _vatha_, to pervade, the title of the Divinity, as being _through_

all things. This is, in fact, the same as God.

However this may be, Odin, in the higher myths, is the All-father,

standing at the head of Asgard, as Zeus does of Olympus. He governs all

things, and knows all things. He obtained this mighty influence, says

the _Edda_, by hanging for nine nights on the world-tree, Yggdrasil,

without food or drink, transfixed with a spear, as a self-sacrifice.

Then he looked down into the depth, and sank from the tree into it; but

in the abyss beneath he drank the costly poet-mead, and learnt powerful

songs, obtaining the Runes, the beginning of wisdom, by which he could

compel to his will all nature: wind, sea, and fire, hate and love!

Coupled with this entirely divine Odin, there was the abiding notion of

ancestry beginning with a god; and no one, of any nobility, was content

without having Odin for his forefather. Even when Christianity dethroned

Odin from his place in Heaven, he was still retained as a heroic

ancestor; and somewhat grotesquely, the old chroniclers, after carrying

up their kings to him, brought him down from Noah, and he became reduced

to be the leader of the great migration from Asia, while the gods were

made his human sons.

We do not find Odin itself forming part of any personal name; it seems

to have been avoided as Zeus was in Greece, and, to a greater degree,

Jupiter in Rome. But he had no less than forty-nine epithets, all of

which are rehearsed in the prose _Edda_, and his votaries were called by

one or other of these.

Finn has been spoken of already as one of these; also Gautr, as one of

the forms of divinity. Grîmr is another, coming from the old Norse word

_grîma_, a mask or helmet. Odin was called Grimr, meaning the concealed,

or possibly the helmeted; and the names beginning with Grim may

generally be referred to the hidden god.

Grîmhild, or in High German, Krimhild, was originally one of the

Valkyrier, or choosers of the slain, who was so called, as being endowed

with a helmet of terror. Hidden battle-maid, or helmeted battle-maid,

would be her fittest translation. In the northern version of the

_Nibelungenlied_, Grimhild is the witch-mother of Sigurd’s wife, Gudrun,

and performs a part like that of the Oda, or Uta, in the German and

Danish versions, in which the heroine herself is called Kriemhild, or

Chriemhild, and does her fatal part in wreaking revenge for the murder

of her husband. Grimhhildur was somewhat used in the North, but nothing

was so fashionable as Grim, who occurs twenty-nine times in the

_Landnama-bok_, and with equal frequency in Domesday; besides that one

of these Danish settlers left his name to Grimsby, in Lincolnshire.

Grim has, of course, his kettle, in the North, Grimketyl, or Grimkjell;

in Domesday, Grimchel; an allusion, probably, to creation, quaint as is

the sound to our ears. Grimperaht, or helmeted splendour, first was

turned into Grimbert, then into the common German surname of Grimmert.

Grimar in the North was Grimheri in Germany. Grim was in greater favour

as a prefix in the High German dialects than in the North, and chiefly

in the Frankish regions.

Grimbald, helmeted prince, was a monk of St. Omer, transplanted by King

Alfred to Oxford, in the hope of promoting learning, and he thus became

a Saxon saint. Grimvald, helmeted ruler, was a _maire du palais_ in the

Faineant times of the Franks; and in Spanish balled el Conde Grimaltos,

a knight at the court of Charlemagne, was slandered and driven away with

his wife to the mountains, where the lady gives birth to a son, who was

baptized Montesinos, from the place of his birth, and educated in all

chivalry till he was old enough to go to Charlemagne’s court, refute the

slander by the ordeal of battle, and restore his family to favour.

Grimaldo was a name borne by the Lombard kings, and left remains in the

great Grimaldi family of Genoa.

Most of our English Grims were importations, and there are few of them,

though we have Grimulf in Domesday, probably a Dane.

SECTION IV.—_Frey._

Every false religion preserves in some form or other the perception of a

Divine Trinity, and the Teutonic Triad consisted of Odin, Frey, and

Thor, whose images always occupied the place of honour in the temples,

and who owned the three midmost days of the week.

The history of the word _freyr_ is very curious. The root is found in

_pri_, Skt., to love or rejoice, the Zend _frî_, the Greek φίλος. To be

glad was also to be free; so _freon_ or _frigon_ means to free and to

love, and thence _free_ in all its forms (N. _fri_; Goth, _frige_; H. G.

_frei_; L. G. _freoh_). Thus, again, the Germans came by _froh_, and we

by _fresh_. _Fro_ was both glad and dear; and as in Gothic _frowida_ was

joy, so is _freude_ in modern German; and we exult in _frolics_ and

_freaks_. He who loved was known by the present participle, _frigonds_,

the _friend_ of modern English, the same in all our Teutonic tongues;

and as the effect of love is peace, the term was _fred_ or _fried_, our

Saxon _frith_, which we have lost in the French-Latin word. To be free

was to be noble, so the free noble was _Frauja_, the name by which

Ulfilas always translates Κύριος, in the New Testament, by a beautiful

analogy, showing, indeed, that our Lord is our Friend and our Redeemer,

loving us, and setting us free.

_Frauja_, or free, was the lord and master, so his wife was likewise

_frea_, both the beloved and the free woman; the northern _frue_, German

_frau_, and Dutch _vrowe_, all, as _donna_ had done in Italy, becoming

the generic term for woman.

Out of all the derivatives of this fertile and beautiful term, there

were large contributions to mythology, and a great number of names.

Freyr, lord, lover, was once a god of very high rank, lord of sun and

moon, hermaphrodite, and regulating the seasons, blessing marriage, and

guarding purity: and this was probably a universal idea brought from

Asia.

As old notions formed into mythic tales, and the gods grew human, the

wife of Odin was invented, and what could she be but the _frau_, the

lady of Asgard, Frigga? Again, Freyr was brought down from his

mysterious vagueness, and turned into a nephew of Odin, with the moon to

take care of, and, moreover, was disintegrated into a brother and

sister, called Freyr and Freya.

The sixth day of the week had probably originally belonged to Freyr, but

Frigga got possession of it; and, in right of her presiding over love

and marriage, she was considered to be Venus; and in France and Italy

her day is still Vendredi and Venerdì, while we have it as Friday, the

Germans as Freitag, the North as Fredag.

Freya is also a goddess of love, and drives over every battle-field with

her car drawn by cats (once, perhaps, panthers, like those of Bacchus,

whom her brother is thought to resemble), and chooses half the slain,

whom she marshals to their seats at the banquet of Valhalla. Her

husband, Othur or Odhr, curiously repeats Odin’s name, as she does

Frigga’s. She weeps continually drops of gold when he is absent, and the

metal is poetically called Freya’s tears.

Her brother, Freyr, was always a chaste, dignified, beneficent

personage, a sort of severe Bacchus, or grave Apollo. In the great final

battle, he is to be destroyed by Surti. He is the tutelary god of

Sweden, as was Odin of the Saxons.

There are hosts of names connected with these deities, or the words

sprung from their source. _Frith_ in Saxon, _frey_ or _freya_ in the

North, _fried_ in German, falling in France into _froi_, was a favourite

termination generally masculine, and so probably in honour of Freyr; and

though it is safe to translate it peace, it probably also meant freedom.

Old Spanish has Froila, or Fruela, among the kings of the Asturias, and

this may be translated lord, and compared with the Freavine, or Frowin,

free darling, now become Frewen. Franta, too, was a king of the Spanish

Suevi.

Fritigern, king of the Visigoths, who first fixed himself on the Danube,

bore the name afterwards Frideger (spear of peace), in Germany, a

compound much resembling that borne by that Jezebel of the Meerwings,

Fredegunt, or Frédégonde, as she is called by French historians.

Freygerdur of the North, as found in the _Landnama-bok_, serving four

men and two women, is there explained either as freedom-preserver, or

peace-keeper.

But what is to be said of Fridthjof, or Frithjof, the renowned hero of

the Frithjofsaga, being no better than peace-thief? Northern pirates

thought no scorn of being thieves, and we shall fall on plenty more of

them; but the compound is certainly startling.

Fridulf, or Fridolf, peace wolf, is nearly as bad; but it seems to have

contracted into Friedel in Germany, and expanded into Fridolin, probably

in imitation of Fedlim, or some such Erse name, since the saint thus

recorded in the calendar is one of the many Scottish missionaries of the

fifth century, who preached to the Burgundians. He is the titular patron

of the Swiss canton of Glarus, whose shield bears his figure in the

Benedictine dress he never wore. Thence Schiller took the name of the

youth in his ballad on the strange adventure of Isabel de la Paz of

Portugal, which is best known through Retzch’s illustrations. The German

Friedel must be short for this, as Frider is for Fridheri,

peace-warrior. In fact, Germany is the great land of this commencement,

and has fostered the best known of the whole. There was indeed a

Fridrikr in the _Landnama-bok_, and a Fredreg, or Frederic, in Domesday,

but these would have been forgotten but for an old Frisian bishop,

Freodhoric, who, in the time of Louis le Debonnaire, had been murdered

while praying in his chapel, and being canonized, was a patron saint of

the Swabian house. Friedrich with the red beard, or Barbarossa, a

Ghibelline hero, caused Federigo to be popular among that party in

Italy; and when his Neapolitan grandson’s claims to the kingdom of the

Two Sicilies had been transmitted, through Manfred’s daughter, to the

Aragonese monarchs, Fadrique became usual in Spain. Friedrich had grown

national in Germany, and not a king of Prussia till the present has

reigned without being so called, in compliment to their hero, who, while

the soldiers called him Old Fritz, thought it graceful to write himself

Frédéric, having with his French tastes, taken a dislike to the sound of

his own name, even in the softened spelling of his adopted language. It

was from the father of this monarch that the son of George II. was

called Frederick, a name we have twice had next in succession to the

crown. The Danes obtained the name from their German connections, and

make it alternate on the throne with Christiern. The feminine is a late

invention in Germany, very common there but barely recognized elsewhere.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐

│ English. │ French. │ Breton. │ Spanish. │

│Frederick │Frédéric │Fêidrik │Fadrique │

│Fred │Ferry │ │ │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ Portuguese. │ Italian. │ German. │ Dutch. │

│ │ │ │ │

│Frederico │Federigo │Fridrich │Frederik │

│Federico │ │Fritz │Freerik │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ Frisian. │ Swedish. │ Danish. │ Swiss. │

│Frerk │Fredrik │Frederik │Fredli │

│Frek │ │ │Fridli │

│Friko │ │ │ │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ Russian. │ Polish. │ Slovak. │ Bohemia. │

│Fridrich │Fryderyk │Friderik │Bedrich │

│ │Fryc │ │ │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ Lusatian. │ Lettish. │ Lithuanian. │ Finn. │

│Fidrich │Sprizzis │Prydas │Rietu │

│Bedrich │Prizzis │Prydikis │Wettrikki │

│ ———————— │Wrizzis │Priczus │Wetu │

│ Hungarian. │Wridriks │ ———————— │Wetukka │

│Fridrik │Pridriks │ Greek. │ │

│ │ │Φρεσδερικος │ │

├───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┤

│ FEMININE. │

├───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┤

│ English. │ French. │ Portuguese │ Italian. │

│Frederica │Frédérigue │Frederica │Federica │

│Freddie │ │ │Feriga │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ German. │ Swiss. │ Polish. │ Bohemian. │

│Fridrike │Fredrika │Frydryka │Bedriska │

│Fritze │ ———————— │ │ │

│Fritzinn │ Greek. │ │ │

│Rike │Φρεδερική │ │ │

│Rikchen │ │ │ │

└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Probably this popular Frederick has devoured all the other forms with

the same commencement; for after the middle ages had fairly begun, we

hardly ever hear of the German Fridrad, Fridrada, Fridhelm, Fridrun,

Fridbald, Fridbert, Fridburg, Fridgard, Fridilind. Fridmund, peace

protection, Fridwald, peace-power, has been preserved in Friesland as

Fredewolt, Fredo, or Freddo. Fridleifr in the North has fallen into

Friedlieb in Germany: it is the same as the Frithlaf whom our Saxon

chroniclers bestowed on Wuotan by way of ancestor.

Our own Saxon saint, Frithswith, strong in peace, was the daughter of

the Lord of Oxford, in the eighth century. She lived in a little cell at

Thornbury, had various legendary adventures, which may be seen portrayed

in a modern window of the cathedral at Oxford, and became the saintly

patroness of the University and Cathedral, where, by the name of St.

Fridiswid, she reigned over Alma Mater, till Wolsey laid hold of the

church and its chapter for his own splendid foundation of Christchurch.

Frethesantha Paynell was wife of Geoffrey Lutterell, about the

fourteenth century; and Fridiswid is by no means uncommon in the old

genealogies of Essex and the northern counties. Alban Butler gives

Frewissa as the contraction; but in Ireland, according to Mr. Britton’s

capital story of _The Election_, it is Fiddy.

From _frei_, free, modern Germany has taken Freimund, by which they mean

Freemouth, though it ought to be free protection, Freimuth, free

courage, Freidank, free thought. But the older word for free plays a far

more important part in modern nomenclature, namely, _Frang_, the High

German form of free lord.

The nation called Cherusci by Tacitus denominated themselves Frangen

when they warred on northern Gaul, overspread it, and termed it for

themselves Frankreich. As their primary energy decayed their dominion

divided; Frankenland, under the Latinism of Franconia, became leagued

with the lands of the Swabians, Allemanni, and Saxons, and thus became

part of Deutschland and of the Holy Roman Empire, while Frankreich was

leavened by the Gallo-Romans, who worked up through their Frank lords,

and made their clipped Latin, or _Langue d’oui_[108] (the tongue of

aye), the national language, and yet called themselves _Les Français_,

and the country France. And as the most enthusiastic and versatile of

the European commonwealth, they so contrived to lead other nations, and

impress their fashions on them, that the Eastern races regarded all

Europeans as Franks, called their country Franghistan, and the patois

spoken by them in the Levant became Lingua Franca.

Franc, or Franco, was the archbishop of Rouen who made terms with Rollo;

but the name of real fame arose otherwise.

Long before the emperor Charles V. had pronounced French to be the

language for men, an Italian merchant of Assisi caused his son,

Giovanni, to be instructed in it as a preparation for commerce. The

boy’s proficiency caused him to be called ‘il Francesco,’ the Frenchman,

until the baptismal Giovanni was absolutely forgotten; and as Francesco

he lived his ascetic, enthusiastic life; as Franciscus was canonized;

and the mendicant order, humbly termed by him _fratres minores_, lesser

brethren, were known as Franciscans throughout the Western Church.

Many a little Italian of either sex was christened by his soubriquet,

and though one of the first feminines on record was the unhappy lady

whose fall and doom Dante made famous, yet the sweet renown of the

devout housewife, Santa Francesca di Roma, assisted its popularity;

there was a Françoise at Cambrai even in 1300, and Cecarella is the

peasant mother of a damsel in the Pentamerone.

San Francesco di Nola reformed the Franciscans into a new order, called

the Minimi, or least, as the former ones were the Minores. It is to him

that the spread of the name beyond the Alps is chiefly owing, for Louise

of Savoy was so devoted to him, that she made him sponsor and

name-father to her passionately loved son, and sewed his winding-sheet

with her own hands.

The name was not absolutely new to France, for that of the grandson of

the first Montfort, Duke of Brittany, had been Fransez, and so had been

that of the father of the Duchess Anne, who carried her old Keltic

inheritance to the crown of France; but it was her daughter’s husband,

François I., the godson of the saint of Nola, who was the representative

Frenchman, the type of showy and degenerate chivalry; and thus spread

François and Françoise universally among the French nobility, where they

held sway almost exclusively till the memories of the House of Valois

had become detestable; but by that time the populace were making great

use of it, and at the present time it is considered as so vulgar that a

French servant in England was scandalized that a child of the family

should be called Francis.

Franz von Sickingen is an instance that already Germany knew the name;

but it did not take root there at once. The grandchildren of François

I., intermarrying with the house of Lorraine, rendered his namesakes

plentiful, both in the blood-stained younger branch of Guise, and in the

dull direct stem, the continuation of the Karlingen, who at length, by

the marriage with Maria Theresa, were restored to the throne of

Charlemagne, in the person of him whom the classicalizing Germans termed

Franciskus I. This cumbrous form is still official, but Franz is the

real name in universal use in the German parts of the Austrian Empire,

though the Slavonic portions generally use the other end of the word, as

Zesk.

It was the same gay French monarch who sent us our forms of the name.

Mary Tudor, either in gratitude for his kindness, or in memory of her

brief queenship of France, christened her first child Frances—that Lady

Frances Brandon whose royal blood was so sore a misfortune to her

daughters, and who had numerous namesakes among the maidens of the Tudor

court; but they do not seem to have then made the distinction of letter

that now marks the feminine, and they used what is now the masculine

contraction. “Frank, Frank, how long is it since thou wast married to

Prannel?” was the rebuke of the Duke of Richmond to his Howard lady when

he was pleased to take down her inordinate pride, by reminding her of

her youthful elopement with a vintner.

The modern Fanny is apparently of the days of Anne, coming into notice

with the beautiful Lady Fanny Shirley, who made it a great favourite,

and almost a proverb for prettiness and simplicity, so that the wits of

George II.’s time called John, Lord Hervey, ‘Lord Fanny,’ for his

effeminacy. Fanny, like Frank, is often given at baptism instead of the

full word; and, by an odd caprice, it has lately been adopted in both

France and Germany instead of their national contractions.

The masculine came in at the same time, and burst into eminence in the

Elizabethan cluster of worthies—Drake, Walsingham, Bacon; but it did not

take a thorough hold of the nation, and was much left to the Roman

Catholics. It was not till Frank had been restricted to men that it took

hold of the popular mind, so as to become prevalent.

The original saint of Assisi made devout Spaniards use Francisco and

Francisca, before the fresh honour won for the first by two early

Jesuits—the Duke of Gandia, the friend and guide of Charles V., and

Xavier, the self-devoted apostle of the Indies. His surname has thrown

out another stock. It is in itself Moorish, coming from the Arabic

Ga’afar, splendid, the same as that of our old friend, the Giaffar of

the _Arabian Nights_, the Jaffier of old historians. Wherever Jesuits

have been, there it is; Savero in Italy, Xavier in France, Xaverie in

Wallachia, Xavery in Poland, Saverij in Illyria; Xaveria for the

feminine in Roman Catholic Germany, marking the course of the

counter-Reformation. Even Ireland deals in Saverius, or Savy, though

when English sailors meet a Spanish negro called Xaver, they call him

Shaver! Savary de Bohnn, whom Dugdale places under Henry I., was

probably a form of Sigeheri, or Saher, which may have been absorbed by

Xaver in Roman Catholic lands.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐

│ English. │ Erse. │ Breton. │ French. │

│Francis │Fromsais │Franse │François │

│Frank │ │ │ │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ Spanish. │ Portuguese. │ Italian. │ Wallachian. │

│Francisco │Francisco │Francesco │Francisk │

│Francilo │Francisquinho │Franco │ │

│ │ │Cecco │ │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ German. │ Dutch. │ Scotch. │ Swedish. │

│Franciskus │Frenz │Francie │Frans │

│Franz │ │ │ │

│Frank │ │ │ │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ Polish. │ Bohemian. │ Slovak. │ Lettish. │

│Franciszek │Frantisek │Francisek │Spranzis │

│Franck │ │Franc │ │

│ │ │Franjo │ │

│ │ │Zesk │ │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ Lithuanian. │ Finn. │ Hungarian. │ Greek. │

│Prancas │Ranssu │Ferencz │Φραγκίσκος │

│ │ │Ferko │ │

├───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┤

│ FEMININE. │

├───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┤

│ English. │ Breton. │ French. │Span. and Por. │

│Frances │Franseza │Françoise │Francisca │

│Fanny │Fantik │Francisque │ │

│ │ │Fanchette │ │

│ │ │Fanchon │ │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ Italian. │ German. │ Dutch. │ Polish │

│Francesca │Franziske │Francyntje │Franciszka │

│Cecca │Franze │Francina │Franulka │

│Ceccina │Sprinzchen │Fransje │Franusia │

│Ceccarella │(Lower German.)│ │ │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ Bohemian. │ Slovak. │ Hungarian. │ Greek. │

│Frantiska │Franciska │Francziska │Φραγκίσκη[109] │

│ │Franika │ │ │

│ │Franja │ │ │

└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Footnote 108:

‘We-we’ is the name now given by the South Sea Islanders to the

French.

Footnote 109:

Grimm; Munch; Munter; Michaelis; Alban Butler; Mrs. Rusk, _German

Empire_; Dugdale; Ellis, _Domesday_.

SECTION V.—_Thor._

The third in the Teutonic Triad is the mighty Thor, whose image stood on

the other side of that of Odin, in the northern temples, whose day

followed Odin’s, and who was the special deity of the Norsemen, as

Wuotan was of the Saxons, and Freyr of the Swedes.

The most awful phenomenon to which, in Northern Europe, human ears are

accustomed—the great electric sound from heaven, could not fail to be

connected with divinity, by nature, as well as by the lingering

reminiscence of the revelations, when it accompanied the Voice of the

Most High.

If the classic nations knew the mighty roll as the bolts of Zeus or

Jupiter, they called it βροντή (_brontè_) and _tonitru_, names

corresponding to those divinities wherewith the other Aryans connected

the sound—the Perun of the Slavonians, the Taran of the Cymry, the

Thunnr, Donnar, or Thor of the Teuton. The Indra of the Hindu, came from

_udra_ or _eidan_, water, as god of the waters of the sky, while the

Teutonic title was probably an imitation of the deep rolling sound, and

the god must have been called after it.

In the northern myths Thor is the eldest son of Odin, mightiest of all

the Aasir, partly in right of his belt of strength, which doubles his

force, and of the iron gauntlets which he wields whenever he throws his

mighty hammer—Mjolner, the crusher (from the word that named Milo, also

mills and meal)—which, like a boomerang, always returns to him when he

has hurled it. He has a palace called Thrudheim, or Thrudvangr, the

abode of courage, resting on five hundred and forty pillars, which seems

like a tradition of some many-columned Indian edifice. It was he who was

foremost in the fight with the powers of evil; he bound Lok, the

destroyer, and banished him to Utgard, where the famous visit was made

that so curiously reflects Indian and Persian myths, and has dwindled

into the tricks of our Giant-killer and the German _schneiderlein_. He

has more adventures than any other single deity in northern story, and

continues champion of the gods till the final consummation, when, after

having destroyed many of the enemies, he is finally stifled by the flood

of poison emitted by the Midgard snake.

Thord seems to have been a contraction of the old Low German Donarad,

which has vanished; but in fact Thor, though regnant in the North, was

not very popular elsewhere, and almost all the names he commences are

Scandinavian; though the old Spanish Goths had a king Thorismundo,

Thor’s protection, the same as our Norman Tormund. They had also an

Asturian bishop, Toribio, who long after was followed by a sainted

namesake in Spanish South America.

Every possible change that could be rung on Thor seems to have been in

use among the Northmen. The simplest masculine, Thordr, comes seventy

times in the _Landnama-bok_, Thorer forty-seven times, after the early

settler Thorer the silent, and the feminine Thora twenty-two, and she

still flourishes in Iceland and Norway.

Thor had his elf, Thoralfr, his household spirit Thordis, his bear and

his wolf. His bear, Thorbjorn, is fifty-one times in the Iceland roll,

and was not without a she-bear, Thorbera; and the ‘Torbern,’ in

Domesday, was doubtless the father of the family of Thorburn. Indeed,

though Thor’s hammer was not an artistic one, he has had other artist

namesakes by inheritance, namely, the Flemish Terburg, an offshoot from

the northern Thorbergr, with its feminine Thorbjorg, or Thorberga, and

the great Danish Thorwaldsen, the son of Thorvalldr, Thor’s power, or

maybe of thunder-welder, the Thorwald of Germany, and Thorold or Turold

of the Norman Conquest. Readers of Andersen may remember his story of

the boy-sculptor mortified by the consequential little girl declaring

that no one whose name ended in _sen_ was worth speaking to. Thorwald,

too, was one of the old Icelandic discoverers of America.

As to Thor’s wolf, Thorolf, it is contracted into Tolv in Norway, and

thus may be the origin of that curious Danish superstition that at

noon-day (twelve being _tolv_ in Danish) Kong Tolv, a terrific and

mysterious personage, drives by in his chariot, invisible except to

maidens inadvertently left in solitude, when they are borne off by him

to his domains for seven years, which pass like a single day.

Forty-two Thorarinns, as well as a Thorarna for a feminine, assisted to

people Iceland, and of course Thor’s sword, spear, and kettle were there

too; Thorbrandr six times over. The spear and kettle figure again in the

story of Croyland Abbey, as told by Ingulf. Turgar, the little child who

escaped the destruction, is no doubt Thorgeir, and it may be feared thus

betrays a Norman invention; but Turcetyl, the good man who re-built it,

was really Ethelstane’s chancellor, and no doubt took his name from some

of the invading Danes, who called the Thorketyl or Thorkjell of the

North, Thurkil or Trukill, of which we have some traces remaining in the

name Thurkell. Thorkatla was the Icelandic feminine.

It is an evidence how greatly our population was leavened by the Danes,

that though Thor names are very rare in Anglo-Saxon history, we have

many among our surnames, such as Thurlow from Thorleik, Thor’s sport,

Tunstall and Tunstan from Thurstan, the Danish Thorstein, the proper

form of Thor’s stone, who is thus the ‘stainless Tunstall,’ whose

‘banner white’ waved in Flodden Field, just as long before Tostain the

white had been the foremost knight at Hastings, and left his name to the

northern peasantry to be confounded with Toussaint, the popular reading

of All Saints' day, and thus to pass to the negro champion of Hayti,

Toussaint L'Ouverture.

Thorgils, Thor’s pledge, also runs into Thurkil or Trokil, and cuts down

to Troels; but coming to the Western Isles has there continued in the

form of Torquil, and has been mixed up with the idea of the Latin

_torques_, a neck chain. The Swedes call it Thyrgils, and the feminine

is Thorgisla. It is Torchil in Domesday.

White Thors were Thorfinn and Thorfinna; Thorvid, or Thor’s wood, is in

Denmark Truvid, Truid, Trudt, probably our Truefit. Besides these were

used—

Thorbert, Thor’s splendour (Torbertus in Domesday).

Thorgautr, Thor the good (or Goth).

Thorgerdur, Thor’s protection (thirty-seven in _Landnama-bok_).

Thorgestur, Thor’s guest.

Thorgrim, Thor the helmeted.

Thorgunna, Thor’s war.

Thorhildr, Thor’s battle-maid.

Thorleif, Thor’s relic.

Thormod, Thor’s mood.

Thorhalla, Thor’s stone.

Thorlaug, Thor’s liquor.[110]

-----

Footnote 110:

_Landnama-bok_; Thierry, _Conquête d'Angleterre_; Ellis, _Domesday_;

Munch; Mallet.

SECTION VI.—_Baldur and Hodur._

Most beautiful of all the gods was Baldur, the fair white god, mild,

beautiful, and eloquent,—beloved but fore-doomed to death. His story is

well known. His mother, Frigga, vainly took an oath of all created

things not to be the instrument of his fate,—she omitted the mistletoe;

and Lok, the destroyer, having, in the guise of a sympathetic old woman,

beguiled her into betraying her omission, placed a shaft of the magic

plant in the hands of the blind god, Hodr, when all the Aasir were in

sport directing their harmless weapons against the breast of their

favourite. Baldur was slain, and his beautiful wife, Nanna, died of

grief for his loss. Even then Hela would have relented, and have given

him back, provided every living thing would have wept for him; but one

stern giantess among the rocks refused her tears, and Baldur remains in

the realms of death, until after all his brethren shall have perished in

the last great conflict, when with them he shall be revivified in the

times of the restitution of all things, so remarkably promised in these

ancient myths.

As to the source of his name, authorities are not agreed. Baldr is a

prince in several Teutonic languages, and the royal family of the

Visigoths were the Balten. Balths, bald, bold, is also a word among

them; but Grimm deduces the god’s title from _bjel_, or _baltas_, the

word that is the first syllable of the Slavonic Belisarius, and thus

would make the Anglian Baldœg mean bright as day. It is the word that

lies at the root of _bellus_, pretty, whose derivations are now so

universal in Romanized Europe. Others turn the name over to the Bel, or

Beli, of the Kelts, or the Eastern Belus; but on the whole, the

derivation Baldr, a prince, is the least unsatisfactory.

The legend seems to have been unknown to the German races, or, at least,

no trace of it has been found, and the names that constantly occur

beginning and ending with _bald_ or _pald_, are supposed merely to mean

prince, and not to refer to the god. As an end it is more common than as

a beginning, and it is peculiar to the Anglian races, our own

Anglo-Saxons, the inhabitants of the Low Countries, and continental

Saxons. The names that have become universal all emanated from one or

other of these sources.

Baldric, or prince ruler, was Anglo-Saxon; but the Swedes learned it as

Balderik, the Poles as Balderyk, the French as Baudri. Baldred, an

English-named saint, was bishop of Glasgow; thence, too, the early

French took Baldramn, prince raven, which they made Baudrand, and

confused with Baldrand, prince of the house, also Baldemar, famous

prince, unless this is a confusion with Waldemar.

The most general of these was, however, Baldwine, princely friend, who

was very early a feudatory of the empire in Flanders, and the name

continued in his family, so as to take strong hold of the population,

and to spread into the adjoining lands. Baldwin was the father of

William the Conqueror’s Matilda, and the one Baldwinus before the

Conquest has very considerably multiplied after it, so that to us

Baldwin has all the associations of a Norman name. Its European

celebrity was owing to the two knights of Lorraine and Bourg, who

reigned successively at Jerusalem after the first Crusade, and left this

to be considered as the appropriate Christian name in their short-lived

dynasty; and again, it was borne by the unfortunate count who was thrust

into the old Byzantine throne only to be demolished by the Bulgarians,

or if indeed he ever returned, to be disowned as an impostor by his

daughter.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐

│ English. │ French. │ German. │ Dutch. │ Italian. │

│Baldwin │Baudouin │Balduin │Boudewijn │Baldovino │

│ │Baudoin │ │ │Balduino │

└────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

The Germans have Baldo, the French Baud, both contractions from either

Baldwin or Balderich, and there are a good many surnames therefrom in

England, France, and Germany.

Examples of Baldegisel, prince pledge, Baldbrecht, Baldemund,

Baldeflede, Baldetrude, have also been found, but nowhere are any such

forms prevalent.

Baldur’s wife, Nanna, probably comes from _nanthjan_, in Gothic, to be

courageous. There are a few Frisians called Nanno, Nanne, Nonne; but it

is very probable that this old goddess may have contributed to furnish

some of the inherited names now all absorbed in Anne.

Baldur’s unfortunate murderer has, strange to say, many more namesakes.

He was Nanna’s brother, blind, and of amazing strength, and is supposed

to typify unheeding rashness and violence, in opposition to prudent

valour. His name is in Gothic Hathus, in old German Hadu, and in

Anglo-Saxon Headho, and is said to come from _headho_, an attack or

fight, so that the right way to translate it in the compounds would be

by fierce when it begins the name—war when it forms the conclusion.

It has a great many different forms. The old northern Hedinn is believed

to be one, belonging first to a semi-fabulous sea-king of the mythic

ages, who tried to elope with the Valkyr Hildur. From him the sea was

poetically called, in the strange affected versification of the North,

the road of Hedinn’s horses. There were eight Hedinns in the

_Landnama-bok_, and the word sometimes occurred at the end of the name,

as with Skarphedinn, the fierce but generous son of Njal, who dies

singing to the last in the flame, with his faithful axe driven deep into

the wall that the fire might not spoil its edge.

Tacitus mentions two chiefs whom he calls Catumer and Catualda, and who

are supposed to be by interpretation Hadumar, or fierce fame, and

Hadupald, or Haduwald, each of which would be fierce prince. Hadumar has

lingered in southern France, where it has become Azimar, or Adhémar, the

last, the well-known surname of the Grignan family. Hadubrand, fierce

sword, is one of the heroes of the most ancient existing poem in Low

German. Heddo is to be found as a name of some Frisians, contracted

either from this, or from Hadubert, or one of the other compounds. Even

ladies were named by this affix, as Haduburg, war protection; Hadulint,

war serpent; Haduwig, which the old German name-writer, Luther, makes

war refuge.

This last is the only usual form, owing to the saintly fame of a

daughter of the Markgraf of Meranie. While one daughter, Agnes, was the

victim of Philippe Auguste’s irregular marriage, the happier Haduwig

married a duke of Silesia, and shared his elevation to the throne of

Poland, where she evinced such piety as to be canonized; and the name

she left was borne by a Polish lady in the next century, who converted

her husband, the Duke of Lithuania. Thus doubly sainted, all eastern

Germany delighted in it, and the French sent it to us; they calling it

Hedvige; we took it as Hawoyse, and, descending into Avice, or Avis, it

was at one time very common here, and is to be found in almost every old

register.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐

│ English. │ French. │ German. │ Polish. │

│Havoise │Hedvige │Hedwig │Jadviga │

│Hawoyse │ ————————— │Hedda │ │

│Havoisia │ Italian. │ │ │

│Avice │Edvige │ │ │

│Avicia │ │ │ │

│Avis │ │ │ │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ Lusatian. │ Esth. │ Lett. │ Hungarian. │

│Hada │Eddo │Edde │Hedviga │

│ │Edo │ │ │

└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The Spanish Goths, too, had their compounds of Hadu. The Lady Adosinda,

whom Southey has placed collecting the corpses of her family in the

ruins of the city destroyed by the Moors, is Haduswinth, or fierce

strength; and the Portuguese Affonso is from Hadufuns. This last

syllable, namely _funs_, means vehemence, and is, in fact, no other than

our own undignified _fuss_; Affonso, Afonso, thus mean fierce fuss,

though for more euphony, this lofty name of kings may be made into

warlike impetuosity.

SECTION VII.—_Tyr._

In Northern mythology Tyr is another son of Odin, and god of strength

and victory. When, in the great fight with the powers of evil, the

terrible Fenris, the wolf of the abyss, was to be bound with a fetter,

slender, but which no power could break, he was only induced to stand

still by Tyr’s volunteering to put his right hand into the monster’s

mouth, as a pledge of the good faith of Asgard. Finding himself chained,

the wolf at once closed his jaws, and bit off Tyr’s hand; nevertheless,

the Runic letter Λ (_thorn_, the sound of _dh_), which was left-handed,

like the god, and therefore his sign, was esteemed the mark of truth and

treaties.

Tyr has few namesakes. Tyre and Thyra, in the North, are the only direct

ones; but it sometimes finishes a word, as in the case of Angantyr,

favourite of Tyr, the warrior who obtained the terrible sword, Tyrfing,

forged by the dwarfs, which did, indeed, always give victory, but which

would never go back into its scabbard till it had been fed with, at

least, one human life. The _dio_, or _thius_, of the old Gothic and

German names thus arose, such as Alathius, the Latinized Halltyr, and

the like.

Niörd was god of the sea, almost equal in rank to Odin himself. He was a

very ancient deity, known to the German nations as Nairthus, and

probably, like Freyr, male and female. The goddess Nerthus, mentioned by

Tacitus, has been supposed by Grimm to mean Niörd; but Hermann Luning

makes it Törd, a wife of Odin, and one of the three titles of the earth:

at any rate, out of this mention has been made a goddess—Hertha, who has

not been without namesakes.

Many derivations have been suggested for his name. Finn Magnusson

thought it might be cognate with the Greek νηρὸς (neros), wet; Grimm,

that it might be connected with the _North_, though he declines to speak

positively; and Hermann Luning deduces it from _nairan_, to join,

because the sea joins the land together.

Niörd’s direct derivatives seem to be Nordhilda and Nordbert; the last

fashionable in Germany, from a youth of imperial family, who was, at the

end of the eleventh century, brought to serious thoughts by having his

horse struck by lightning under him, when, like St. Paul, he cried out

“What wouldst Thou have me to do?” He became a monk, and was afterwards

archbishop of Magdeburg, and founder of the Præmonstratensian Order; and

Norbert became known and used after he was canonized.

Niörd is used in the North; and thence too, perhaps, comes Norman, which

was in use, both in France and England, at the time of the Conquest. It

is puzzling to find in Domesday Book sixteen Normans possessing land in

England before the Conquest, and only eight after it—one of whom, Norman

d'Arcie, at least, was a Norman born. Afterwards, during the friendly

thirteenth century, English nobles carried Norman to Scotland, where it

was adopted in the Leslie family, and, like Nigel, became exclusively

Scottish. The Highlanders called it Tormaid, which is considered to be

really its Gaelic form, not an equivalent. The last Englishman I have

found so called was Norman de Verdun, under Edward I.

The story of Niörd’s marriage is one of the wildest tales of later Norse

mythology. Iduna, the wife of Bragi, god of poetry, kept the apples of

gold which renewed the youth of the gods. However, Loki, having fallen

into the clutches of the great frost giant, Thiassi, in the form of an

eagle, only effected his release by promising to bring Iduna and her

apples to Jotunheim. He beguiled her into a forest, under pretence that

he had found finer apples than her own, and there Thiassi flew away with

her. The gods began to grow old without their apples, and insisted that

Loki should bring her back. He arrayed himself as a falcon, and, flying

to Jotunheim, turned Iduna into a sparrow and flew home with her,

pursued by Thiassi. The Aasir, seeing her danger, lighted a fire with

chips on the walls of Asgard, which flamed up and singed Thiassi’s

wings, so that he fell down among them and was slain. Afterwards, his

daughter, Skadi, came to avenge his death, but was mollified by being

allowed to choose a husband from the Aasir, however was only allowed the

sight of the feet to select from; and thus, hoping she had taken Baldur,

she obtained Niörd. Thiassi’s eyes are said to have become stars; but,

as usual, the northern astronomy has been ruined by the classical, and

no one knows which they are.

Bragi was followed as an Icelandic name. Its etymology is uncertain;

some make it cognate with Brahma; others with _braga_, to shine; others

with _brain_. Braga was poetry, and thence, from the manner of recital,

noun, has formed the uncomplimentary verb, to _brag_, and the

_braggart_.

Iduna, or more properly, Idhuna, Ithuna, is a myth of spring reft away

by winter, who dies of the warmth of the flame of the summer gods. Her

name does not seem to have been adopted in the North; but it is almost

certainly the origin of Idonea, which is very common in old English

pedigrees. Idonea de Camville lived under Henry III.; Idonea de

Vetriponte, Vieuxpont, or Oldbridge, is cited in the curious tracts on

Northern curiosities, put forth some years back in Durham, which say the

name is very common; and though it might be the feminine of the Latin

_idoneus_ (fit), its absence in the Romance countries may be taken as an

indication that it was a mere classicalizing of the northern goddess of

the apples of youth.

The word itself is translated by Luning in the most satisfactory manner

as ‘she who works incessantly,’ and by Munch, as ‘she who renovates

incessantly.’ _Idja_ is to work, _unna_, love, so that others make her

one who loves work. The word _unna_, however, though derived from the

verb _an unna_, to love, has come to mean only a woman, and as such is

frequently used as a termination, as well as now and then standing alone

as a female name, Unna, of whom there are three in the _Landnama-bok_,

and several in the Saga of _Burnt Njal_.

Una is likewise used in both Ireland and the North; but in the former it

is said to mean famine; in the North it is most probably from that word

_vin_, _win_, or _wine_, a friend, which we shall often meet with again,

and which lies most likely at the root of _unna_.

The word _idja_, to work, the first syllable of Iduna’s name, formed

_deisi_, activity, and thence the person who ought to be active, the old

German _itis_, and Anglo-Saxon _ides_, a woman, in the North, _deis_ or

_dis_. The idea of the active sprite was divided between womankind and

certain household spirits, like the Roman genii, only feminine and

possibly another name for the Nornir, as each man had his own, and they

were sometimes visible as animals suiting with the character of their

protégés: powerful chiefs had bears or bulls, crafty ones foxes; and

even on the introduction of Christianity, faith in the Disir was not

abandoned, though there were no more sacrifices at their _Disir salen_,

or temples. Sometimes a family would have various _disir_ at war with

one another, some for the old faith, some for the new. While Iceland was

still in suspense between heathenism and Christianity, a young chieftain

one night heard three knocks at his door, and despite the warnings of a

seer, went forth to see the cause. He beheld nine women in black riding

from the North, and nine from the South, the _disir_ of his family, the

black for heathendom, the white for Christianity. The black ones,

knowing that they must vanish from the land, seized his life as their

last tribute, and wounded him so that he returned a dying man to tell

his tale. Probably these _disir_ are either the cause or the effect of

those strange phantoms which, whether of doves, dogs, heads, children,

or women, portend death in certain families. They may likewise account

for some of the family bearings in the form of animals.

Disa is a Norwegian and Icelandic name, now nearly disused: it is also a

very frequent termination, such as in Thordis, Alfdis, Freydis, &c., and

it may be most fitly translated as the sprite giving the idea of the

guardian protecting spirit that woman should be. In the German names it

appears as the termination _itis_ or _idis_, as Adelidis, one that

appears at first sight like a mere Latinism.[111]

-----

Footnote 111:

Grimm; Luning; Munter; Munch; Blackwell, Mallet; Ellis, _Domesday_;

Dugdale.

SECTION VIII.—_Heimdall._

The porter of Valhall is Heimdall, the son of nine sisters, who watches

at the further end of the rainbow-bridge Bifrost to guard the Æsir from

the giants. He sleeps more lightly than a bird, can see a hundred

leagues by day or night, and can hear the grass growing in the fields,

and the wool on the sheep’s backs. He bears in one hand a sword, in the

other a trumpet, the sound of which resounds throughout the universe.

When the powers of evil break loose, Heimdall will rouse the gods to

their last conflict by a blast of his trumpet, and in the struggle will

kill and be killed by Loki.

His name is explained by _heim_, home, and _dallr_, powerful. The latter

half is in Anglo-Saxon _deall_, in old High German _tello_, and in the

old Norse _dallr_, whence Dalla is found as a name in the

_Landnama-bok_.

_Heim_ is in Ulfilas both a field and a village, and the Anglo-Saxons

use the word _dhăm_ for an enclosure, and _hām_ for a village; _ham_ in

a similar manner, as is still shown in the diminutive, hamlet, for a

small village, as well as in the _ham_ that concludes many local names.

At the same time, the word, slightly altered, assumed that closer,

dearer, warmer sense which is expressed by the terms, _heim_, _hiemme_,

_hjem_, _hame_, and _home_, in all the faithful-hearted Teutonic race,

yet which is so little comprehended by our southern relatives, that they

absolutely have no power of expressing such an idea as “It’s hame, and

it’s hame, and it’s hame.”

Even in their heathenism “true to the kindred points of heaven and

home,” the guardian of the dwelling of the brave spirits of the dead was

made by the Northmen no grim Cerberus nor gloomy Charon, but the _Home_

ruler.

And though Heimdall nowhere occurs as a name, yet the old German

Heimirich is almost identical with it; though it should be observed that

_heim_ is a commencement peculiar to the Germans; we never find a name

with this first syllable originating either with the Northmen or the

English.

Where Heimirich first began does not appear, but it sprung into fame

with the Saxon emperor called the Fowler, and his descendant won the

honours of a saint, whence this became a special favourite in Germany,

where it was borne by six emperors, by princes innumerable, and by so

many others that the contraction Heintz had already passed to cats when

_Reinecke Fuchs_ was written.

It is from the endearment, Heinz, that, the handsome and unfortunate son

of Frederick II, who, after his brief royalty in Sardinia, spent the

rest of his life in a Genoese prison, was known to Italy as Enzio, and

to history as Enzius.

From the Kaisers, the third Capetian king of France was christened

Henri, a form always frequent there, though only four times on the

throne. Its popularity culminated during the religious wars, when Henri

de Valois, Henri de Bourbon, and Henri de Guise were fighting the war of

the three Henris; but in spite of the French love and pride in _le grand

monarque_, the growing devotion to St. Louis, from whom the Bourbon

rights to the throne were derived, set Henri aside from being the royal

name, until the birth of him whom legitimists still call Henri V.

There are but three instances of ‘Henricus,’ even after the Conquest, in

Domesday; and it must have been from the reigning French monarch that

William the Conqueror took Henry for his youngest son, from whom the

first Plantagenet King received and transmitted it to his ungracious

son, his feeble grandson, and through him to the elder House of

Lancaster, then to the younger, who for three generations wore it on the

throne, and for whose sake it was revived in the House of Tudor. Its

right native shape is Harry; the other form is only an imitation of

French spelling. It was ‘Harry of Winchester’ who cried out for help at

Evesham; Harry of Bolingbroke who rode triumphant into London, and who

died worn out in the Jerusalem chamber; Harry Hotspur whose spur was

cold at Shrewsbury; Harry of Monmouth who was Hal in his haunts at

Eastcheap, and jested with Fluellen on the eve of Agincourt; Harry of

Windsor who foretold the exaltation of Harry Tudor when “Richmond was a

little peevish boy,” and Harry VIII., or bluff King Hal, who lives in

the popular mind as an English Blue Beard; perhaps connected in some

cases with the popular soubriquet of the devil.

An early Swedish bishop bore the name, and so did a bishop of Iceland

before the twelfth century; but these must have been foreigners, for

there are no other instances in the North in early times, though the

general fusion of European names brought in Hendrik, to the loss of the

native Heidrick, just as Heinrich seems to have in Germany destroyed an

independent Haginrich.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐

│ English. │ French. │ Spanish. │ Italian. │

│Henry │Henri │Enrique │Enrico │

│Harry │Henriot │ │Arrigo │

│Hal │ ———————— │ ———————— │Enzio │

│Halkin │ Breton. │ Portuguese. │Arriguccio │

│Hawkin │Hery │Enrique │Arrigozzo │

│ │ │ │Guccio │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ German. │ Dutch. │ Danish. │ Frisian. │

│Heimirich │Hendrik │Hendrik │Enrik │

│Heinrich │Hendricus │ ———————— │ ———————— │

│Hein │Heintje │ Swedish. │ Polish. │

│Heine │ │Henrik │Henryk │

│Heinz │ │ │ │

│Heinecke │ │ │ │

│Henke │ │ │ │

│Henning │ │ │ │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ Bohemian. │ Lett. │ Lithuanian. │ │

│Jindrich │Indrikis │Endrikis │ │

│ │Indes │Endruttis │ │

│ │Induls │ │ │

├───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┤

│ FEMININE. │

├───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┤

│ English. │ French. │ Spanish. │ Swedish. │

│Henrietta │Henriette │Enriqueta │Henrika │

│Harriet │ ———————— │ ———————— │ ———————— │

│Harriot │ Italian. │ Portuguese. │ German. │

│Harty │Enrichetta │Henriqueta │Henriette │

│Hatty │ │ │Jette │

│Etta │ │ │ │

│Hetty │ │ │ │

└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The founder of the Portuguese kingdom was a Henri from Burgundy; but the

name did not greatly flourish in the Peninsula till Enrique of

Trastamare climbed to the Castilian throne, and his namesakes,

alternating with Juan, threw out the old national Alfonso and Fernando.

On the whole this is one of the most universal of Teutonic names, and

one of the most English in use, although not Anglian in origin. The

feminine seems to have been invented in the sixteenth century, probably

in France, for Henriet Stuart appears in the House of Stuart d'Aubigné

in 1588, and there were some Henriettes to match the Henris at the court

of Catherine de Medicis. England received the name from the daughter of

Henri IV., Henriette Marie, whom the Prayer Book called Queen Mary,

though her godchildren were always Henrietta, so Latinized by their

pedigrees, though in real life they went by the queen’s French

appellation, as well as English lips could frame it, so that Hawyot was

formerly the universal pronunciation of Harriet, and is still

occasionally used.

Heimo, or Hamo, is another old German form, becoming in French Hamon,

Haymon, Aymon; and Amone in Italian. _Les Quatre Filz Aymon_ were

notable freebooters in Karling romance, and in Italy were _i Quattro

Figli d'Amone_. Early Norman times gave us Hamo, Hamelin, and Fitzaymon;

but except for an occasional Hamlyn in an old pedigree, they have

disappeared.

Germany had Heimrod, Heimbert, and Heimfred; but these are not easy to

disentangle from the derivatives of the word _hun_, which are much more

in use.[112]

-----

Footnote 112:

Michaelis; Pott; _Edda_.

SECTION IX.—_Will._

This section has thus been headed because the Will was one of the ideas

most strongly expressed in various forms in the religion of the

high-spirited North.

The word _to will_ is of all tongues; the Greek βουλή, Latin _velle_ or

_volo_, Gothic _viljan_, Keltic _iouli_, all show a common origin, and

every Teuton language has the derivatives of _will_, just as the Romance

have of _volo_.

But it is the Teuton who brings the Will into his mythology. When the

creation began, the cow Audumbla licked out of the stones a man named

Bur, who was the grandfather of the three primeval gods, Odin, Wili, and

Vê, the All-pervading, the Will, the Holy; and it was these who together

animated the first human pair. We hear no more of Vili or Hœmir, as he

is also called after he thus infused feeling and will into the first

man; but we meet the word _will_ again forming _valjan_, to choose,

_velja_ in the North.

Thence the home where Odin welcomed his brave descendants was Valhall,

the hall of the chosen; and the maidens who chose the happy who were

there to dwell, were the Valkyrier, or Walcyrge, the last syllable from

_kjöra_, or _curen_, to choose, the word whence an electoral prince is

called in German, Kürfurst. But the passport to the hall of the chosen

was a glorious death on the battle-field; and thus it was that _val_,

_vali_, _wali_, belonged to the carnage of the fight, since slaughter

did but seal the marks of the Valkyr upon the brave, whose spirits were

passing over the rainbow-arch, while the comets marked the course of the

chariot which glanced across the sky with weapons forged for their sport

in battle and chase.

So the Hall of the Chosen became the Hall of Carnage, the abode of the

slain; and it is remarkable that no Christian writer transfers the term

to Paradise, although the epithet Schildburg, the castle of shields, is

once applied to Heaven as the home of the victors. Indeed, Valhall was

not eternal; the warrior there admitted had yet to fight his last fight

by Odin’s side, perish with him and his sons, and share with them the

renovation of the universe. So deeply interwoven in the ideas of the

North was a violent death with the hope of bliss, that crags in Norway

affording scope for a desperate leap, were called the vestibule of

Valhall, and the preference for a death on the battle-field lingered

into Christian days, so that not only did fierce Earl Siward bemoan his

fate in dying of sickness, albeit he rose upon his feet to draw his last

breath, but even the Chevalier Bayard mourned angrily over the fever

that had nearly caused him to pass away like a sick girl in his bed.

Well then might the Valkyrier be the favoured messengers of Odin, sent

forth to select the champions who should become the guests of their

mighty forefather, himself called Valfreyr, or Slaughter Lord. They

hovered over the camp in armour with swan wings, marked those who were

to fall, and wove the web of slaughter ere the battle began. Their

number varies in different sagas, and so do their names, although Hildur

is always the chief. Their last appearance was when the islander of

Caithness beheld the twelve weaving their grisly web in a loom of

lances, the weights of men’s heads, on the eve of the Good Friday of the

battle of Clontarf, between King Sigtrygg and Brian Boromhe, singing the

weird song that Gray translated long before Teutonic antiquities were

revived:

“Horror covers all the heath,

Clouds of carnage blot the sun:

Sisters, weave the web of death;

Sisters, cease, the work is done.”

The work done, the web was torn in sunder, and divided between the

Valkyrier, who flew off, half to the North, half to the South, denoting

the rending of the ancient faith.

In fact, in later sagas, the _Valkyrier_ lose their wild mystery and

divinity, and fall into mere magic maidens, sometimes with extraordinary

strength, sometimes with swan wings, and, at the very last gasp of the

supernatural, with goose feet, which at their next step become merely

large feet. The mother of Charlemagne absolutely makes the transition

from Bertha the goose-footed, to Berthe _aux grands pieds_.

To this source probably may be referred Wala or wise woman, the inspired

priestess, also called in ancient German the Velleda. Cæsar tells us

that the matrons among the Germans cast lots, and prophesied the issue

of battle, and thus Wala may have been the wise or inspired woman. The

great prophetic song of the fate of the Aasir is _Voluspa_, either the

wise woman’s spae, or the inspired spae or prophecy; for _vola_ or

_volur_ means inspired in ancient German (no doubt from the _wala_ or

prophetess), and by a very small transition, mad. Probably the Kelts

borrowed it, for _fol_ was inspired or mad; and Folia of Ariminium is

mentioned by Horace as a magician. Our fool is thus traceable to _vola_,

inspired, but probably through the Keltic and French medium.

Vili, though his myths have been forgotten, still stands as a great

ancestor. From him in Germany, either directly or through a renewal of

him as a forefather, must have been named the great race of the

Billingen, the first dynasty of the continental Sachsen, who gave

emperors to Germany.

Billing is the son of Wili, or Will; and so again is, in the North,

Vilkin, the father of the famous smith Volundr, whose name is probably

from this original root, will or mind, though its immediate source is

thought to be _vel_, art or cunning, cognate with our own guile, and

probably the participle of a lost verb, to devise. Some connect it with

Vulcan, from the name and character of Volundr. He was the son of a sea

maiden, and of Vidja the Vilkin; and he and his two brothers each

married a Valkyr, who, at the end of a stated period, had to be absent

for nine years, giving to each husband magic gifts and precious stones

that dimmed when disaster was about to befall them. Volundr was the

fortunate brother of the three, and was the mighty smith to whom all

good weapons are ascribed. From him the early part of the Norse poem

ending with the slaying of Fafner is called the Volsunga Saga, as, from

his father, the Danish version is the Wilkina Saga; for the hero himself

is his descendant, a Wælsing, or Vilking, and fights with his redoubted

weapons. Weland again makes the impenetrable corslet of Beowulf, “the

twisted breastnet which protected his life against point and edge;” he

is the Wiolent, Velint, or Wieland of Germany, and Galando of Italy, the

Galant of France, who forged their Joyeuse, the sword of Charlemagne,

and Cortana, that of Ogier. A skilful Weland is mentioned in an old

Anglo-Saxon MS. found at Exeter, and in King Alfred’s translation of

Boëthius he renders the line,

“Ubi nunc fidelis ossa Fabricii jacent?”

(meaning, of course, an artificer, the sense of the name,) “Where are

now the bones of the wise Weland, the goldsmith who was most famed?” A

workman is still called in Iceland, _Völundrinjarn_, and a labyrinth is

_Volundrhus_. This famous armourer took possession of a Druidical

cromlech in the midst of the battle-grounds between the Danes and Saxons

on the Berkshire downs, and there drove his shadowy trade as Wayland

Smith, close to King Alfred’s own birthplace, Wantage. He was spared

from oblivion by being embalmed in _Kenilworth_, where the only blunder

is in making Lancelot Wayland the real name of the estimable mountebank,

who personated the mythical smith. Though Wieland is a German surname,

the coincidence of an English Wayland was too much for probability; and,

in fact, Scott does not seem to have known how very ancient Wayland

Smith had really been.

Names in Wal are chiefly Northern, those in Wil mostly Saxon. Ullr, or

Ull, another Northern form, has been much used in Iceland; and among the

Northern isles of Scotland, where it may be remembered that Ulla Troil

was the real name of Norna. Ullr was the stepson of Thor, son of Sif,

and renowned as a great bow-bearer.

Wil is almost always a commencement. The Frank queen Bilichilde was, of

course, Willihilda, resolute battle. Our earnest but turbulent Wilfrith,

the Yorkshire bishop, hardly deserved to be called resolute peace; but

as patron of Ripon, his name has continued in the North, Wilfroy being

very frequent in older registers in the neighbourhood of Ripon, though

of late fashion has adopted it in the form of Wilfred.

In the seventh century, we sent Germany two missionaries with this

prefix, Willibrord and Willihold; also Willibald, resolute prince, went

on pilgrimage with his father, St. Richard of Wessex, in 721, and

finished his career as bishop of Aichstadt, leaving his name to take

root in various forms.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────

│ English. │ French. │Portuguese. │ Dutch. │ Bavarian.

│Willibald │Guillibaud │Guilbaldo │Willebald │Willibald

│Wibald │ │Vilibaldo │ │Waldl

│ │ │ │ │Waltl

└────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────

Native to Germany is Williburg, which has a northern fac-simile

Vilbjorg, and Vilgerd, the same in meaning, resolute protection;

Willrich, resolute ruler; Willehad, resolute violence; Willeram,

resolute raven; Willihard, reduplicating firmness; Willigis, willing

pledge, or pledge of the will; Willimar, resolute fame, making our

surname Wilmer. Williheri, resolute warrior, is the source of the German

Willer, the English Weller, the French Villiers and Villars, which, with

their aristocratic sound, betray little of their kindred to Sam Weller.

Where the most popular of all the Wills was invented it is not easy to

discover, but Germany is its most likely region, since _helm_ is a

specially Germanic termination, and the Billings favoured the

commencement; besides which the pronunciation in that language leaves

the words their natural meanings, Will-helm, resolute helmet, or,

perhaps, helmet of resolution. The native northern name would be

Vilhjalm, but this is never used, it being only imported bodily as

Wilhelm into Denmark from Germany, just as our Ethelbert is superseded

by Albert.

The cause of its adoption in Normandy cannot have been one of the eight

saints in the Roman calendar who bear it; for not one is anterior to the

son of Rollo, the second Duke of Normandy, from whom William descended

to the Conqueror, and became one of the most national of English names.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐

│ English. │ Welsh. │ Breton. │ French. │

│William │Guillim │Guillern │Guillaume │

│Will │ │Guillarn │Guillemot │

│Willie │ │ │ │

│Bill │ │ │ │

│Wilkin │ │ │ │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ Old French. │ Spanish. │ Portuguese. │ Italian. │

│Willelme │Guillermo │Guilhermo │Guglielmo │

│Willeaulme │Guillen │ │ │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ German. │ Dutch. │ Swiss. │ Frisian. │

│Wilhelm │Willem │Wilhelm │Willo │

│Wilm │Wim │Wille │ │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ Polish. │ Bohemian. │ Lett. │ Greek. │

│Vilhelm │Vilem │Willums │Goulielmos │

│ │ │Wille │Bilelmos │

├───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┤

│ FEMININE. │

├───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┤

│ English. │ French. │ Spanish. │ Italian. │

│Wilhelmina │Guillerume │Guillemma │Guglielma │

│Wilmett │Guillemette │ ————————— │ ————————— │

│Wilmot │Minette │ Portuguese. │ Swedish. │

│Mina │Mimi │Guilhermma │Vilhelmine │

│Minella │Guillette │ │ │

├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤

│ German. │ Swiss. │ Lithuanian. │ Dutch. │

│Wilhelmine │Mimmoli │Myne │Willemyn │

│Helmine │Mimmeli │Mynette │Willempje │

│Mine │ ————————— │ │ │

│Minchen │ Polish. │ │ │

│Minna │Minka │ │ │

└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Old Camden’s account of it is too quaint not to be here inserted:

“William, _gerne_. For sweeter sound drawn from Wilhelm, which is

interpreted by Luther much defence, or defence to many; as Wiliwald,

ruling many; Wildred, much reverent fear, or awful; Wilfred, much peace;

Wilibert, much brightness. So the French, that cannot pronounce _W_,

have turned it into Philli, as Philibert for Wilibert, much brightnesse.

Many names wherein we have Will seem translated from the Greek names

composed of πολύς; as Polydamas, Polybius, Polyxenes, &c. Helm yet

remained with us, and Villi, Willi, and Billi yet with the German for

many. Others term William willing defender, and so it answereth the

Roman Titus, if it come from _tuendo_, as some learned will have it. The

Italians that liked the name but could not pronounce the _W_, if we may

believe Gesner, turned it into Galeazzo, retaining the sense in part for

helm; but the Italians report that Galeazzo, the first viscount of

Millain, was so called for the many cocks that krew lustily at his

birth. This name hath been most common in England since William the

Conqueror, insomuch that on a festival day in the court of King Henry

II., when Sir William St. John and Sir William Fitzhamon, especial

officers, had commanded that none but the name of William should dine

with them in the great chamber, they were accompanied with one hundred

and twenty Williams, all knights, as Robert Montensis recordeth, anno

1173.”

Camden’s authority is not Martin Luther, but one Mr. Luther Dasipodius,

by whom he sets great store, and whose ‘German villi or billi, many,’

must have been the word now called _viel_. Verstegan’s history of

William is still droller, namely, that any German who killed a Roman

assumed the golden head-piece of the slain, and was thence called

Gildhelm, which would of course be inconsistent with the old German form

of Wilihelm. Be it observed that our _sur_name Wilmot descends from a

name to be found in German as Wilmod, resolute mood; but the feminine

Wilmett, which is to be found continually in old Devon and Cornwall

registers, is no doubt the same as the old French Guillemette, and it is

a pity it has been discarded for the cumbrous German Wilhelmina, or the

Williamina that is of no language at all.

Camden is probably right in taking Filiberto from Wiliberaht, or

Wilibert, resolute splendour, though Germans refer it to _viel_, the

same as our full, and the Greek _polys_. The founder of the name in the

sixth century was a Frank Willibert, who founded the abbey of Jumièges,

which the Normans first desolated and then restored, their Frenchified

tongues bringing the patron’s name to England as Fulbert, which is still

occasionally found in old families. The ninth grand master of St. John

meantime bore the French form, which historians wrote as Philibert; and

the old counts of Savoy alternated Filiberto with Amê, until they

blossomed out into double names, as Vittore Amadeo or Filiberto

Emanuele.

The _Val_ of choice, or slaughter, is not, Professor Munch tells us, to

be confounded with another _Val_, taken from the word _waleh_, or

_waalh_, a stranger, which, as has been already said, named Wales. Our

own Waltheof, being spelt in his native tongue Wealtheof, thus removes

himself and an Icelandic Valtheof from being slaughter-thieves to being

foreign-thieves; a change not much for the better. There were fierce

Danish ancestors, however, to account for this predatory appellation

lighting upon the earl, whom the Conqueror executed at Winchester, and

the English revered as a saint; then from him it descended to his

grandson, Waltheof de St. Lys, the stepson of St. David of Scotland,

companion of the excellent prince Henry, and, finally, abbot of Melross,

where he was canonized as St. Walthenius, or Walen, and thus accounts

for the surname of Wathen.

Walmer is, in old German, Walahmar, and thus shows itself to be foreign

fame; Walager is also foreign war, and became Valgeir in the North,

Gaucher in France; and thence, too, by corruption, Valgard, the evil

genius of the Njal Saga.

Walaraban, or Walram, seems appropriate as slaughter-raven, but is

uncertain. The French made it Gauteran; and in the form of Waleran it

was used in the House of Luxembourg, Counts of St. Pol; it is Galerano

in Italy.

Walabert, a monk who died at Luxen, in 625, is the same as the northern

Valbjart; and another Valbert, or Vaubert, as he is called in France,

had a daughter Valtrud, canonized as St. Vautrude, or Vaudru. From

Walamund, the French take Valmont; and Walarik, an Auvergne hermit, was

Latinized as Valaricus, and Frenchified into St. Valery, a territorial

surname.

The Gothic king Wallia is left in possession of the battle-field; and so

are the northern Valdis and Valbiorg, both thorough Valkyr names, not

yet disused. Valtrude, an early saint, must certainly be named from a

slaughter-maiden. So probably was Walburh, slaughter-pledge, one of the

English missionary ladies employed by St. Boniface in Mainz. She was a

very popular saint, and is called Valpurgis, Vaubone, Vaubourg. Her

English church is Wembury, in Devon. Part of her relics were translated

from Eichstadt to Furnes, near Ostend, in 1109, on the 1st of May, when

one of her festivals is kept. Then is supposed to follow the Valpurgis

Nacht, the Witches' Sabbath, on the Brocken. Surely this strange

connection with the saintly abbess must be due to some old observance in

honour of a Valkyr Valburg. Valasquita, an old name found among the

ladies of the Asturias, Navarre, and Biscay, was probably from this

source.[113]

-----

Footnote 113:

Junius; Grimm; Luning; Blackwell, Mallet; Lappenberg; Dasent; Munter;

Alban Butler; Camden; Verstegann; Pott; Köppen; Michaelis; Howitt,

_Literature of the North_.

SECTION X.—_Hilda._

Chief among the Valkyrier was Hildur, Hild, or Hiltia, who is never

wanting in any enumeration of these warlike spirits. The word, in its

original sense, means battle, and has thus attached itself to the

principal war-maiden; nay, it has passed from her to be a poetical term

for any maiden, and is one of the very commonest terminations to

feminine names throughout the Teutonic world, and is likewise often

found at the beginning of men’s names, predominating perhaps in Germany.

Alone, it was only used in the North and in England, where the Deiran

princess Hildur became the holy abbess Hilda of Whitby, succeeding St.

Begga, and leaving a reputation for sanctity enhanced, by the sight of

“The very form of Hilda fair

Hovering upon the sunny air;”

a vision which, though Clara de Clare could not see it, is to be beheld

under certain conditions of light, in the windows of Whitby church to

the present day; as well as the ammonites, believed, as usual, to have

been serpents turned to stone at the prayer of the saint. In honour of

her, Hilda is still used as a name about Whitby.

The mother of Rolf Gangr, progenitress of our royalty, who vainly

besought Harald Harfagre not to banish her sons from Norway, was named

Hildr; and the name still survives in Scandinavia and Iceland, where the

_Landnama-bok_ shows it to have been very plentiful, seventeen ladies

being recorded as bearing it. There, too, occurs Hildiridur, battle

hastener, a thorough Valkyr name, but not very suitable to Fouqué’s

sweet Lady Minnetröst, of the moonlight brown eyes.

Hildelildis, Battle Spirit, is an Anglo-Norman lady’s name.

The true Frank form of the aspirate was, however, exceedingly harsh,

amounting to the Greek χ, and therefore, usually set down in its

transitions through Latin and French as a _ch_. So we meet, among the

Meerwings, with Childebert, who by translation is Hildebert,

battle-splendour, and Childebrand, or battle-sword.

These two last names, in their Low German form of Hiltibrant and

Hiltibraht, occur again in the old poem, already referred to, of

_Hiltibrant and Hadubrant_, both meaning battle-swords, which goes

through a dispute about Hadubrand’s father, and, finally, leaves them in

the middle of a single combat.

Hildebrand is, as we know from old German and Danish poems, the

companion and friend of Dietrich of Bern. He had, like some hero in

every cycle of story, married and deserted a young wife; and after

assisting his master in many adventures, and much dragon killing, and

being the sole survivor of all Dietrich’s men in the great massacre of

the _Nibelung_, he encountered, without knowing him, his young son,

Alebrand. In a single combat, where both do their devoir, the old knight

is wounded, the younger overthrown. Then they discover each other, by

the tokens that Hildebrand had left with the mother, and

“Up rose the youthful Alebrand,

And into Bern they ride;

What bears he on his helmet?

A little cross of gold.

And what on his right hand bears he?

His dearest father old.”

So, recommended by fame, Hildebrand continued a knightly name in England

and Germany for many ages, and belonged to that battle-sword of the

Church, who, on his election to the papacy, was called Gregory VII.,

though we still continue to think of him as Pope Hildebrand; and the

eccentric Dr. Wolff tells us that one of the dreams of his youth was to

wear the tiara by the name of Hildebrand! In Italy, pronunciation turned

it into Aldobrando, then into Aldrovando, and then Latin made

Aldrovandus.

Hildegunnr, battle-maid of war, was another northern name, and is the

same as the German Hildegund, which was rather a favourite. It is

Aldegonde in the Cambrai register, and the territorial surname of St.

Aldegonde is memorable in the revolt of the Low Countries. Hildegard, in

honour of an abbess in the Palatinate, who died in 1004, is still a very

common name among German ladies, and going to Denmark, has been

corrupted into Ollegaard. It is exactly the same in meaning with the

northern Hildebjorg. So again are Hildewig and Hildegar, and among the

Gothic queens of Spain is found Hilduara, or battle prudence.

St. Hiltrude of Liessies, revered in Poitou and Hainault, unites two

Valkyr titles—Hildur and Thrudr; for Thrûdr is generally enumerated

among the Valkyr. The word once meant, in the North, fortitude, or

firmness, and is possibly connected with truth; but in all the Teuton

languages it signifies maiden, or virgin. Perhaps, in connection with

the Valkyrer, Hildur might have been the patroness of courage, and

Thrudr of fortitude; but, unfortunately, perhaps from the spells used by

the women in soothsaying before a battle, Thrudr sank down from its high

estate, and _drude_, or _drut_, means a witch, and in German, also, an

evil spirit. Thrudvangr, or Constancy’s abode, was one of the names of

Valhall. _Thrud_, _trud_, _tru_, is, in Scandinavia and Germany, as

favourite a feminine termination as Hilda, and, no doubt, with the same

meaning, though its owners would fain translate it by truth; but it

cannot be brought nearer than constancy, or fortitude. Sometimes it

stands alone. Drot, as it has become by pronunciation, figures in the

_Heimskringla_; and the Danes must have brought it to England, for in

Bishop-Middleham, in the county of Durham, we meet, in 1683, with Troth

Bradshau, who is again Trouth, or Troath, in the old spelling. Trott

also several times occurs; and we are thus led to the conclusion that

the dear old Dame Trot of the nursery bears the respected name of the

Valkyr of fortitude. _Truth_ is, perhaps, the same, originally coaxed by

Puritan invention.

Cyndrida, or Quendrida, as the histories call her, the wife of Offa, is

suspected by Mr. Kemble to have been mixed up with her namesake, Thrudr,

the Valkyr. She was said to be a Frankish princess, who came floating

over the waters, having been exposed in a boat for some unknown crime.

Her beauty fascinated Offa, king of Mercia; he married her, and she was

the only old English queen who caused her image to be stamped on her

coins. She treacherously murdered her son-in-law, and was put to death

by being thrown down a well. Some part of this is history; other parts

are thought to be taken from an Anglian myth of an elder fabulous Offa,

whose wife was almost certainly a Valkyr, and, on her marriage, lost her

supernatural strength. Cyne, or Cwen, a woman, only appears again with

Cwenburh, another Saxon queen, and may have been merely an affix.

Other German masculine forms are Hildeman, or Hilman; Hildemund, or

Hilmund; Hildewart—in Friesland, Hilwert; Hildefrid, or Hilfrid;

Hildebold; Hilding; Hildrad, the Hildert, or Hillert, of Friesland;

Hilram, the contraction of Hilda’s raven.

Gothic Spain coined, however, the most noted form of the name when

Hildefuns, or battle vehemence, came on the Latin lips of her people to

be Ildefonso, or Illefonso, as the great bishop of Toledo, of the

seventh century, was called. Then, shortening into Alfonso, and again

into Alonzo, the same came to the second gallant king of the Asturias,

husband of Pelayo’s daughter, and became the most national of all the

Peninsular names, belonging to eleven Castillian kings and nine

Aragonese, and to the present king of Spain; but never passing beyond

the Peninsula as a royal name, save to the Aragonese dynasty in Sicily

and Naples. In England we nearly had it, for one of the sons of Edward

I. and the Castillian Eleanor was so baptized; but his early death saved

our lips from the necessity of framing themselves to its southern flow.

Alphonse has been a favourite French name. The Portuguese Affonso,

though often used as its equivalent, is Hadufuns, very similar in

meaning, but rather meaning war vehemence than battle vehemence. The

feminine is the Spanish Alfonsina, and the French Alphonsine.[114]

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐

│ English. │ German. │ French. │ Spanish. │ Italian. │

│Alphonso │Alfons │Alphonse │Ildefonso │Alfonso │

│Alonzo │ │ │Alfonso │ │

│ │ │ │Alonso │ │

└────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

Footnote 114:

Grimm; Luning; Munter; Blackwell, Mallet; Munch; _Landnama-bok_;

White, _Walking Tour_; Roscoe, _Int. to Boiardo_; Thierry, _Récits des

Temps Merovingiens_; Weber and Jamieson, _Northern Romance_;

Michaelis; Pott; Surtees; Butler.

SECTION XI.—_Ve._

The third deity who, with Odin and Wili, gave life to man, was Ve, who

bestowed blood and colour.

Ve is thought to be connected with the Persian word _veh_, pure, and to

lie at the root of _veihan_, to consecrate, in Mæso-Gothic; _weihan_, in

German; whence Christmas is Weihnacht, holy night.

_Ve_ was the god in ancient German, _vear_ the plural for gods; but,

moreover, _ve_, as a plural, meant sacred regions, and these, among the

Teutons, were groves; _wih_, a grove in old German, a temple in old

Saxon. Thence the northern _vid_, German _wald_, English _wood_, all

passing from the sense of the consecrated forest to be merely the trees,

and, in our language, the actual timber of which they are composed.

Ve appears no more; but Vidar (Vithar), a son of Odin, explained by

Luning to signify the inexhaustible force of nature, is, in the final

conflict, to set his foot on the Fenris wolf, and rend him asunder, and

with Vali, the chosen, to pass unscathed through fire and flood, and

behold the renovation of all things.

Ve and Vid do their part in names. Vadi, Wade, or Wato, is a giant

ancestor in the Vilkinga Saga; and the father of Volundr is, in the

North, Vidja or Vudga; in Germany, Wittege or Wittich, a name mentioned

by Jornandes as Vidigoja. The son of Volundr also bears the same name,

Vedja or Wilken, and kills the giant Etgeir, called in the Danish

ballad, Langbeen Riser, or long-legged giant. The grave and the oven of

the giant are still shown in Zeeland.

It is the Vitiges whom the Byzantine writers mention among their Gothic

foes in Italy, and the Vitiza of the latter Visigoths in Spain, and may

fairly be rendered a dweller in a wood, though, in effect, it conveyed

the sense of consecration.

Thence, too, the Widukind, or Witukind, of Saxony, the fierce old

chieftain subdued by Charlemagne, whose name Scott gave to old

‘Witikind, the waster,’ but erroneously, for a Dane would have begun his

name with Ved. Before comparison had cleared up the history of names,

Witikind used, however, to be translated white child.

Germany has many of such grove names, the forest wolf and raven, as

Witolf and Witram; the forest prince, as Witrich, and his fame as

Witmar; also Witpald, Witperaht, and Witheri, the like of which last is

found in Domesday Book before the Conquest, as Wither, in company with

Witlac, Witgar, and Wit, and Witgils is high up in the Anglo-Saxon

genealogy.

It is tempting to refer such names as these to _wit_ and _wise_, both

from _vidjan_, to know, and to think of the _vedas_; but the wood and

its spirit of consecration is the real source of all these, as of

Vebiorn, Vebrandr, Vedis, Vedornn, Vegeir, Velaug, Vemundr, Vedny,

Vedhelm, Vedhild, Vestan, all names of the North. Verena, the gentle

mother of Sintram, may, perhaps, be meant for Vedrun, which would mean

sacred wisdom, or for Vedrid, sacred eagerness; just as Sigrid has

formed Siri and Serena.

The only cases where _wise_ or _vit_ has produced a name, were Vitgeir

of Iceland, who received that prefix for his magic powers, and Robert

d'Hauteville, surnamed Guiscard, wise heart, or wizard, the Norman

conqueror of Apulia, from whose soubriquet Guiscard was afterwards used

as a name in France, whence Sir Guiscard d'Angle appears in Froissart.

_Ve_, or _verr_, is common at the end of northern names, as in Raadve or

Randverr, and stood as _vih_ at the end of the old Frankish names, where

it is apt to get confused with _wig_, war. _Vid_, the forest or tree, is

a favourate Norsk termination, apt to be taken for _hvit_, white.[115]

-----

Footnote 115:

Blackwell; Grimm; Munch; _Domesday Book_; _Landnama-bok_; Le Beau;

Mariane; Weber and Jamieson, _Northern Romance_.

SECTION XII.—_Gerda._

Freyr’s beautiful wife, whose loveliness was reflected by land and sea,

was Gerda, a word coming from _gerdhi_ or _gerthi_, to gird round, and

thus denoting the enclosed cornfield, the emblem of peace and blessing.

And, on the other hand, _gerd_ was sometimes poetically used for the

entire girding or harness of a warrior prepared for battle, and in both

these senses, as well as of the dedication to the goddess, Gerdur was a

favourite feminine in the North; and Gerda has still continued in use in

Norway and Iceland, besides supplying a great many terminations, chiefly

to Germany, in Ermengard, Hildegard, &c.

Its original source is exceedingly old, and conveys the idea of turning

round, as in γῦρος (gyros), _curvus_, &c., and all their derivatives in

the classical languages.

In the northern tongues arose gjorde (Nor.), gyrden (A. S.), whence all

the varieties of girth and gird. Thence came the Danish Gyrthr, which,

when borne by the best and most faithful of the sons of Earl Godwin, was

rendered into modern English as Gurth, and thus was bestowed by Scott

upon the honest thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood. This name, then,

properly means the warrior girt for battle.

_Gard_ is part of a man’s name in the North; _e.g._, Gardar, who was the

Swede who first sailed round Iceland, came from Gardhar, house-warrior,

or perhaps patriot; Gardmund and Gardbrand, one the hand, another the

sword of the country, are also found; but, in general, this is a

termination, as with Finngard, Thorgard, Valgard.

Other names of men ending with _gerd_ are generally corruptions of words

from _geir_.[116]

SECTION XIII.—_Œgir._

When the Aasir took up their abode in Asgard, they there found the

Jotun, or giants, of whom the chief was Fornioti, a word meaning the

aged. He had three sons, Hler, Logi, and Kari, ruling sea, flame, and

wind. After a long contest they seem to have been promoted to the

privileges of Aasir, and remained allies, if not friends, till the

treason of Logi or Loki brought about the death of Baldur, after which

the destroyer Loki and his children, the Fenris wolf (the wolf of the

fen or abyss), Hel, or death, and the Midgard serpent, were bound till

the last outbreak shall take place.

Kari and Hler appear to have retained their privileges as gods or

demi-gods of wind and wave. Kari is called Fasolt in Germany, but his

name of Kaari or Kari has continued in use in Norway and Iceland, and

belonged to the generous avenger of Burnt Njal and his sons.

Hler is evidently the Keltic Lyr, but on his promotion to rank with the

Aasir, he took the northern name of Agir, Ygg, or Œgir. He was on very

friendly terms with the Aasir, gave them banquets, visited them at

Asgard, and heard Bragi tell stories of their deeds; but his usual

occupation was to raise his hoary head above the water when he meant

evil to vessels; and when he raised storms, his wife Ran (from _rœina_,

to spoil,) sat fishing for sailors, whose spirits she imprisoned like a

water Hela, so that drowned men were said to be gone to Ran, before Davy

Jones superseded her in nautical language. His daughter, Unna, was the

wave rising as in human shape. All these images evidently arose from the

wild, heaped, confused masses of waves in the North Sea, which, instead

of forming the even sweep of ridge and furrow of the Atlantic, are in

tumbling masses, suggesting the human form. Unna is said to come from

the same root as _unda_, the Latin wave; but the word also means love,

and thence a woman, and there is a curious similitude in it to Aine, the

granddaughter of Lyr, in Irish legend. In Germany, Œgir was Ecke, but

was reduced to fresh water and rivers.

The root of the name of Œgir is, in fact, _og_ or _uok_, the same as our

_awe_. Thence come many words, such as the Frank _ega_, cunning; the

Saxon _ege_, fear; also the verb _eggan_, to incite, still common in the

North; while we have _to egg on_.

It has been extremely fertile in names, in many different forms, the

simplest being the Frank Ega, a _maire du palais_. Our own two kings,

Ecgfrith and Ecgberht, are probably thus derived, though some explain

their first syllable by _edge_; but they are far more probably the same

with the _awe_ of the North. Egbert continues in Friesland as Ebbert.

_Aug_ is the oldest form in the North, as in Augmund, which, however,

was soon turned into Ogmund, Agmund, and Amund, a shape in which it is

common in the North, while in the Low Countries it gave the title of

Egmont to the victim of Alva. Ogwald has run something the same course

in the North, and become Avald; Œgunn and Œgulv are also there; and in

Germany Egiheri once existed, and gave us the surnames of Agar and

Eggar; Eggerich makes the Frisian Eggert, Iggerick, and Eggo.

The most famous German hero connected with the name is _der treue

Eckhardt_, who is well named awful firmness, warns travellers from the

tempting mountain of fatal delights, the Venusberg, once belonging to

Hela herself. Eckhard is chiefly Frisian in the present day, and there

it forms into Eggo, Ike, and Edzard.

It is identically the same name as Eginhard, the contemporary chronicler

of Charlemagne. The _n_ being used in declining the leading noun, is

retained in the pronunciation of the name. Friesland, however, separates

the two, and shortens Eginhard into Eino, Aynnert, Aynt.

Thus again is formed the original northern Aginhar, awful warrior, who

fell down into Agnar and Agne. Einar, of which there were twenty-two in

the _Landnama-bok_, looks very much like another contraction of Aginhar;

but analogy is against it; and Professor Munch decides that the first

syllable, both of Einar and Eindride, a rather popular old Norsk

feminine, is _ein_, one, in the sense of chief or superior; so that

Einar would be chief warrior, Eindride, Endride, or Indride, as it is

also used, superior rider.

The dative form of Ag is Agli, whence Egils, or Eigils, has come to be a

favourite northern name, and in this shape it is a very frequent prefix.

Egilona was the unfortunate wife of Rodrigo, the last of the Goths, and

afterwards of the Moorish prince, his conqueror, whom she forced to do

homage to the Cross, by having the door of her room opposite to it made

so low that he could not enter without stooping. Agilo was a Frank

nobleman, and in Domesday we fall upon an undoubted Agilward and

Egelmar, and on what are probably their contractions, Aylward and

Aylmer, afterwards Aymar; but both these are contractions of other

names, and cannot always be referred to the awful god of the sea.

Agilard, Agilulf, and Agilbert were Frank forms, the last Eilbert in

German; Egilhart is Eilert, or Eilo, in German; Eilert, Ayelt, or Ayldo,

in Frisian. And the Spanish Gothic Egica is another of the progeny of

the old sea giant. Oht is a word also meaning terror.[117]

-----

Footnote 116:

Luning; Munch; Grimm; Tooke; Liddell and Scott; _Landnama-bok_.

Footnote 117:

Grimm; Munch; Blackwell; Luning; Michaelis.

SECTION XIV.—_Ing—Seaxnot._

Leaving the comparatively clear and consistent regions of Scandinavian

mythology, we pass to the divinities and forefathers of whom we know far

less, those of our own Anglian ancestors; some accepted by them in

common with the High Germans, others exclusively their own, and some

apparently known to the North, though not admitted into the system of

the _Edda_.

The northern cosmogony tells us of the first man, Buri, whom the cow

Audumbla licked out of the stone, and whose grandson Odin was. It also

tells us of the primeval man and woman, Ask and Embla, whom Odin, Vili,

and Ve, animated.

On the other hand, Tacitus, writing of the ancient Germans, makes them

start from an earth-born god, Tuisco, whose son was Mannus; and again,

Mannus’s three sons were Ingus, Iscus, and Hermius, Ing, Esc, and Ed,

from whom descended the Ingævones, Iscævones, and Hermiones.

Tuisco is Tiu, or, more properly, the divine word in another form. He

represents the original stock of Teutonism, and also the human sense of

a divine origin, for Mannus, of course, is man.

Esk, or Ask, has scarcely formed any names, but Ing, or Yngve, was

looked on as the ancestor of the Swedish kings, who thence were called

the Ynglinga; and the history which rationalizes Odin is thence termed

the Ynglinga Saga, as it makes Yngve his son, and deduces the line from

him. Ing, the son of Tuisco, is, however, a far more universal

forefather, being almost without a doubt the name-father of that great

race that we have called Angeln, Anglo-Saxons, and English.

Seaxnot, or Sahsnot, was probably another name for Ing. The word means

stone comrade, and he was supposed to be the ancestor of the Sachsen, or

Saxons, but he has not numerous namesakes. In the East Saxon pedigree,

we find Seaxbeohrt and Seaxbald, and in the East Anglian Seaxburh or

Sexburga; and in Scandinavia Sakse remained as a name; and the historian

of the twelfth century, who enlightened us so much on Danish history, is

Latinized as Saxo Grammaticus.

Ing was a great deal more popular, though not among the Angles, either

insular or continental. The only trace of him in Germany is in the old

name of Hinkmar, or Hinko; and our Anglo-Saxon kings enumerated Ingvi,

Ingebrand, and Ingegeat as connecting links between themselves and

Wuotan. The Goths, Burgundians, and Vandals also claimed descent from

Ingvja, and their princes were called Ingvineones.

Ingve, or Ingvar, was a royal name in Scandinavia, and so travelled with

the sons of Rurik to Russia; where Igor, as he was there called, led an

army to strike terror into Constantinople, and the name has since become

confused with Egor, or George. Ingulf was the secretary of William the

Conqueror, and we would fain believe in the history of Croyland that

goes by his name. Ingebjorg found her way into an old Saga as a

demi-goddess directing wind and rain; but her historical interest is

connected with the unfortunate Danish princess, whom Philippe Auguste

married only to repudiate, and whom French historians translate into

Ingeberge, English ones into Ingoberga. Hers is the most common female

name in Norway.

The North has likewise Ingegerdur, Ingeleif, Ingemundr, Ingeridur,

Ingiallur, Ingvilldur, Ingjard, and Ingrim. Ingvilhild has become

Engelke, or Engel, and is, in fact, now merged in the idea of the Greek

Angel. The same fate has befallen other names in Germany and France,

where that best of all puns, as far as results were concerned, that of

St. Gregory between Angeli and Angli, has been constantly repeated in

nomenclature. The Eng, Ing, or Engel, named from a forgotten tradition

after Ing, was well pleased to be dedicated to an angel; Ingram, once

Ing’s raven, became Engelram, and thought he was of angelic purity, in

name if not in nature; and either he or Engelhard passed into France as

Enguerraud, the chief Christian name of the brave house whose proud

saying was—

“Je suis ni roi, ni comte aussi,

Je suis le Sire de Coucy;”

and the English called it Ingeltram, when Isabel, the daughter of Edward

III., made her love match with the brave Lord de Coucy, whose loyalty

was so sorely perplexed by his connection with her family.

Engelfrid, Engelschalk, Engelberga, and Engelbert, are probably

originally German angels in connection with peace, discipleship,

protection, and splendour; and Professor Munch thinks the northern

Ingobert an instinctive attempt to nationalize the last. On the other

hand, he leaves to Ing, Angilbald, Angiltrud, Angelrich; as, in fact,

may be always done with every name of the kind that can be traced to an

owner prior to the time when angels were popular ideas among our

northern ancestors.

Ingvar was a terrible name to our Saxon ancestors, when the Danish

viking, so called, carried terror to our coasts; but Ivar is not the

short for it, but is from _yr_; German, _eibe_; Dutch, _ibe_; English,

_yew_; and _har_, a warrior, so that Ivar is the Yew warrior, the

bow-bearer, or archer. He is Iver in Danish, and in Scotland and Ireland

MacIvor has been adopted as a rendering of one of the old hereditary

Keltic names. Ivbald and Ivbert have also been used and cut down to

Ibald and Ibert. Ireland had a St. Ivor, or Ivory, who was considered to

have prayed away from Fernegenall the _mures maiores qui vulgariter Rati

vocantur_ so completely that none survived; but whether he was named by

Dane or Kelt does not appear. At any rate, St. Ivory was deemed good to

invoke against rats.

It is probable that Ivhar is the real origin of Ives, the saint who

named the town in Huntingdonshire; but legend strangely makes him a

Persian bishop, who chose that locality for a hermitage, in the seventh

century, and whose body was discovered uncorrupt in the year 1001, thus

providing a patron for many an Ivar of Danish or Norman extraction, who

became Yvon, or Ivone, in France; and Ivo in the chroniclers. Ivo de

Taillebois is the villain of the story of _Hereward_ and his camp of

refuge; and the name is common with the Normans and Bretons, all the

more for the sake of St. Ivo de Chartres, who was imprisoned for his

resistance to the adultery of Philip I. and Bertrade of Anjou, and St.

Ives of Brittany, the good lawyer, called the advocate of the poor.

These Breton Ivons may, however, be from Sir Ywain, or Owen, the same as

Eoghan.[118]