Part 6 — CHAPTER II. NAMES FROM TEUTON MYTHOLOGY. (continued 2)

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 321the 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]

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 322entire 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 323waves 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 324upon 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]

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 325is 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 326and 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]

Section XV.—Eormen.

The third son of Mannus was said to be Er, a word, perhaps, connected with Tyr on one side, and Ares on the other; for Ertag is the Tuesday of Southern Germany, and Eresburg, now Mersburg, was the centre of the worship of the continental Saxons. The day was, however, also called, in Bavaria and Austria, Ermintag, or Irminstag; and the deity worshipped at Eresburg was Irman, or Ermin; and perhaps the word should be considered as Er-man in conjunction. From him the Herminiones of Tacitus are said to be descended, being chiefly the old Germans and the Franks.

At Eresburg, even up to the eighth century, there stood a great central temple, containing a marble column on which stood an armed warrior, holding, in one hand, a banner bearing a rose, in the other a balance. The crest on the helmet was a cock, on the breastplate was a bear, on the shield that hung from the shoulders was a lion in a field of flowers. Around lived a college of priests, who exercised judgment and made biennial offerings. Before going out to war, the host, in full armour, galloped round the figure, brandishing their spears and praying for victory. Lesser images were carried with the army, and, on its return, captives and cowards were slain, as offerings to the great idol.

This temple was destroyed by Charlemagne, who buried the idol where afterwards stood the abbey of Corbye. In his son’s reign it was dug up, and carried off by the French as a trophy, when the Saxons rose to rescue it and a battle took place, after which it was thrown into the river Innen, but was fished out, exorcised, purified, and made to serve as a candelabrum in the church of Hillesheim.

327The battle was called Armansula, and the image Irmansul; whence many have fancied that Irmansul was the chief German god.

Sul, or saul, is, however, a pillar; and it is a very curious fact that two sacred columns were the penates of every Teuton’s hearth and city. When a migration was decided on by the Scandinavians, a solemn feast was held, the master of the house seated between his two sulur, or columns, which he uprooted and carried with him, and, on his approach to his intended home, he threw them overboard, and followed them with his ship, landing wherever they were cast up. It was thus that the situation of Reijkjavik, in Iceland, was determined. Such columns, down to a very late period, stood at the gates of the elder towns in Germany, and were called Ermensaulen, or, sometimes, one the Rolandsaul, the other the Ermensaul.

Eormon, in the Anglian of Beowulf, means universal; eormoncyn, the whole of mankind; in old Norse, jormün is the world, and Jormungandr is another name of the Midgard snake which encircles the world. Most likely, the Irmansul thus signified the universal column, the pillar adored by all men; just as the Anglo-Saxons called the great Roman road Eormenstreot, or Ermingstreet, the public road. Er, then, would be the divinity, man the human word, and Erman would thus express something revered by all; and thence, the name of the tribes of the Hermiones and Hermunduri, both meaning all the people. Later, the word jormün, or eorman, came to mean only very large; and, probably, the Saxons of Thuringia had forgotten the original signification of their columns when they gave the single one of Irmansul such an exclusive prominence. Some have tried to explain one pillar as Heermansaul, pillar of the army man, and the other as Raginholdsaul, pillar of firm judgment, as emblems of military and civil power; but though this meaning may have later been bestowed on them, the signification of Eormon is decidedly adverse to this explanation, and it is safest to translate it, when it occurs in names, as public, or general.

English. French. Spanish. Italian.

Armyn Armand Armando Arminio

Armine Armanno

German. Swedish. Dutch. Swiss.

Hermann Hermann Hermanus Herma

Herman Hermeli

Manus

Slovak. Lettish. Esth. Lithuanian.

Jerman Ermannis Herm Ermas

Ermonas

When the Cheruschi, themselves Herminiones, broke the heart of Augustus by cutting off the legions of Quinctilius Varus, their leader was Arminius, probably Irman or Eorman, though after-generations 328explained it as Heerman or Armyman. So that the hosts of Hermans, named when national feeling was roused by French invasion, are in his honour; previously, the Dutch Jacob Hermannsen had rendered himself into Latin as Arminius. From Holland the Norfolk name of Armyn must have been imported.

The Germans use, as the feminine, Hermine and Herminie, which properly belong to the Latin Herminius; and the French have made their own form of Armand into Armantine. A Burgundian hermit, Ermin, too, gave St. Ermo to Italy, a name inextricably mixed with Elmo, the contraction of Erasmus; it is the St. Erme of France.

Very early, so as to be almost mythical, was the Thuringian Irmanfrit, or IrnvritIrnvrit, who hardly conduced to ‘public peace’ by calling in the Saxons; but Hermanfred continued in use in Germany, and was known to the French as Hermanfroi.

The Burgundian version of the great world-girding snake was Ermelind, a name that came to a saintly virgin of the sixth century from whom Ermelinda flourished as an Italian name, being probably common to both Lombards and Burgundians, as both Vandals.

But these Irmins are most frequent in ancient Spain. The Suevi had Hermanrik, or Hermanarico, public ruler, and the Goths, Hermanegar and Hermangildo; the last being the prince who is revered as having been converted from Arianism by his orthodox Frank wife, and whose death, by his father’s persecution, sealed the triumph of Catholicism in Spain. Hermenburga was a princess, offered to, but refused by, a Frank king; and Ermesinda, or, as Southey’s poem calls her, Hermesind, the daughter of Pelayo, carried the blue blood of the Balten to the line of Alfonso. Her name meant public dignity.

Parallel to these the Anglo-Saxons enumerate Eormenric, Eormenburh, Eormenburg, Eormengyth, Eormengild; and after the Conquest there still continue the forms of Eremburga, Ermentrude, and Ermengarde; the last by far the most frequent, and not yet disused in Germany.

Section XVI.—Erce.

The Anglo-Saxons were accustomed to perform an incantation to restore the fruitfulness of their fields. It began by the cry Erce, Erce, Erce, Eordhan Môder, as if it were not earth itself, but her mother that was called upon.

The same word erce is used for ark, chest, or ship, in the Anglo-Saxon New Testament. And Erce does not seem to have been entirely forgotten; for Erche, or Herkja, is a famous lady in old German hero songs.

From thence, too, may have sprung the Old German adjective ërchan, meaning holy, genuine, or simple, which is thought to have named the famous Hercynian forest of ancient Germany, which would thus be the sacred wood.

The founder of the East Saxon kingdom in England is called both Escwine and Ercenwine, the darling of Ese, or of Erce. In the Kentish genealogy we find Eorconberht, sacred brightness, answering 329to the Lombardo-Italic Erchimperto; and also Eorcongot, sacred divinity.

St. Eorconwald, holy power, was a bishop of London, about 678, and may almost be reckoned as the second founder of St. Paul’s, where his shrine was greatly revered; and about the same time Erkenoald was a maire du palais in France; and Erchenold, or Herchenhold, was an old German name, meaning probably firm in truth.

In old knightly times, we find the German Erchanbald, meaning a sacred prince, from which the French took many a Sire Archambault, and the Italians Arcibaldo.

The Scots, by some strange fancy, adopted Archibald as the Lowland equivalent of Gillespie, the bishop’s servant. So frequent was it in the houses of Campbell and Douglas, that, with its contractions of Archie and Baldie, it has become one of the most commonly used in Scotland, recalling many a fierce worthy, from old Archibald Bell-the-Cat downwards, and always translating the Gillespie of the Campbells to Lowland ears.^[119]

Section XVII.—Amal.

Amal is a very remarkable word. We have had it in Greek, as Αἰμύλος; in Latin, as Æmilius; in the Keltic as Amalgaidh; and in all it would seem as if one notion could be detected—that of work. Even in Hebrew Amal means to work; aml is work in old Norse; and we have still our verb to moil, taken therefrom. Mahl, be it remembered, is in German a time; mahl, a stroke; mahlen, to paint or make strokes; and so in the North, maal is a measure, or an end, a goal. Probably there is a notion of repetition of marks, stroke upon stroke, in all cases, and the Sanscrit meaning of Amal, or spotless, without mark, is in favour of the meaning.

It is safest, however, to translate the Teutonic Amal by work, the thought most familiar to the sturdy northern nations who used it, and loved work for its own sake.

In the Vilkina Saga, the mighty smith Velint’s first great trial of skill was with Amilias, an armourer at the court of King Nielung. Velint struck him with his sword Mimung; he said he felt as if a drop of water had flowed down him. “Shake yourself,” said Velint, and the unfortunate smith fell down cloven painlessly from head to heel, an example of labour versus skill.

Aumlung, the strong, is mentioned in the Book of Heroes, as feasting at the Nibelung court; and it was at Duke Amelung’s court that, according to the Danish ballad, old Sir Hildibrand had been staying for twenty-two years, before, going back to Bern, he met his unknown son Alebrand.

Amala was a favourite Lombardic commencement, and was likewise much in favour with German ladies; it became first Amalie, and then, when Italy and France had taken up the Latin Æmilia, this old Teutonic form was mixed up with it; and Amelia in 330England, Amélie in France, are scarcely considered to differ from it; and though historically Emily is the descendant of the Æmilii, Amelia of the Amaler, yet both alike come from the original Amal.

Amalaswinth, which would bear the translation, dignity of labour, though probably it was only given in the sense of dignity of the Amaler, was the unfortunate Lombardic queen, whom the Romans could not protect from the treachery of her favourites. Amalasontha is what historians call her; but on Burgundian lips it came to be Melisenda, Melicerte, Melusine.

Melisenda is in Spanish ballad lore the wife of Don Gayferos, and, being taken captive by the Moors, was the occasion of the feats that were represented by the puppet show in which Don Quixote took an unfortunately lively interest. Melisende again was the princess who carried the uneasy crown of Jerusalem to the House of Anjou; and, perhaps, from the Provençal connections of the English court, Lady Melisent Stafford bore the name in the time of Henry II., whence Melicent has become known in England, and never quite disused, though often confounded with Melissa, a bee, and sometimes spelt Millicent.

Melusine was a nymph who became the wife of the Lord de Leezignan, or Lusignan, on condition that he should never intrude upon her on a Saturday; of course, after a long time, his curiosity was excited, and stealing a glance at his lady in her solitude, he beheld her a serpent from the waist downward! With a terrible shriek, she was lost to him for ever; but she left three sons, all bearing some deformity, of whom Geoffroi au grand dent was the most remarkable.

Melusina continued in use in the south of France, Holland, and Germany, and is occasionally used in England. We find Melicerte in old French chronicles.

The very ancient queens of Navarre and the Asturias have a wonderful set of aliases, and one, the oddest, is “Amelina, or Simena, or Ximena,” the sister of Sancho I., of Navarre, who married Alfonso the Great. Could the Spaniards, by any possibility, have contracted the soft Amal into the harsh guttural Xi, which sounds as if it came from a Moorish throat. Yet, Goths as they were, they show no Amal, though their Ximen and Ximena reach up to 700, and Ximena survived long as a name among their ladies, and was the wife of the Cid, whence the French turned her into Chimène. Emmeline, as it is now generally spelt, came from France as Emeline, and is frequent in old ballad poetry, and in northern registers, as Emyln. It is probably another form of this same Amaline, or lind, Amal’s serpent.

The northern races have the one much reduced name of Malfrid, from Amalafrida, of peace.

The ladies have certainly been the chief owners of Amal, as a commencement; but it has had a brilliant part to play in the form of Amalrich, Almerich, or Emmerich, on the German side; Almerigo in Spain; Amalric, or Amaury, in France; Almerick in England. Amaury was an Angevin king of Jerusalem; and our own Sir 331Almerick St. Lawrence was brother-in-arms to Sir John de Courcy, and founded the House of Howth in Ireland. The House of Lusignan, Melusina’s descendants, called it Aymar; and in this form it came to England with Henry III.’s half-brother, whom he promoted to the see of Winchester, but who episcopally called himself Ethelmarus; though his nephew, Aymar de Valence, kept his proper name. Emmery is a surviving English surname, and Merica occurs in old Yorkshire genealogies.

But it is the Italian form, Amerigo, which was destined to the most noted use,—when the adventurer, Amerigo Vespucci, gave his name to the tract of land that Columbus saw for the first time in his company; little knowing that it was no island, but a mighty continent, which should hold fast that almost fortuitous title, whence thousands of miles, and millions of men, bear the appellation of the forgotten forefather of a tribe of the Goths—Amalrich, the work ruler; a curiously appropriate title for the new world of labour and of progress, on the other side the Atlantic.

Amalberge is an old Cambrai name; Malburg a Danish one; Amalgund, Amalbert, Amalbertine, and Amalhild, have also been known. The French Amelot must be the contraction of one of the masculine forms.^[120]

Section XVIII.—Forefathers.

The deification of forefathers, or the claim to divine origin, whichever it might be, led to the employment, as a prefix, of the very word that expressed them—that word which we use still at the beginning of ancestors, and that the Germans call ahnen. In old German the singular was ano, and it signified a remote forefather. The Rigsmaal, an old Icelandic poem which explains the origin of the various castes which the northern races acknowledged, represents Heimdall, the porter of heaven, as wandering to the earth, and being entertained by Ai and Edda, or great-grandfather and great-grandmother, who lived in a lowly hut; then by Avi and Amma (Lat. Avus), or grandfather and grandmother, who had a comfortable dwelling-house; and lastly by Fadher and Modher, whose abode was a splendid mansion. The son of Edda was Thrall; the son of Amma was Karl; the son of Modher was Jarl; and from these descended the three castes of the North—the thralls, or slaves; the churls, bondr, or farmers; and the jarls, or nobles.

This is an absolute mythic allegory by way of explanation of existing circumstances; but the names therewith connected mostly survived, though they refer to these mere embodiments of abstract ideas.

Ai, or ani, enters into the composition of the Icelandic Anar, ancestral warrior, and thus, no doubt, contributed to form our surname of Anson, which, like almost all our great naval names, thus traces back to some ancient viking, who has done us at least as much 332good as evil, by leaving us his sons to keep all other invaders from our shores.

The old Saxon histories call some of these enemies by the name of Anlaff, in particular the chief who visited King Æthelstan’s tent in a minstrel’s disguise, and betrayed himself by burying the guerdon that he was too proud to keep. The same persons whom England called Anlaff, and Ireland Amlaidh, were, in the North, Alafr, or Olafr, according to the custom of pronouncing the diphthong a like an o, and then so spelling it, e.g., Aasbiorn, Osbiorn. The latter syllable is laf or leif, from the verb lev, the Anglo-Saxon leafan, our own leave. It is a word that never is used as a commencement, and but rarely stands alone, though the North sometimes has a Leifr, and it is used in the sense of what is remaining. Anlaff, or Olaf, is thus what is left of his forefathers, his ancestor’s relic, and a very notable relic was the gallant king Olaf Trygveson, the prime hero of the Heimskringla, whose last battle is so nobly described there. Scarcely less noble is his relative, Olaf the saint, the ally of England, who fought her battles near London-bridge, and has left his name to the church of St. Olave, near the site of the battle, though, unluckily, English tongues made him St. Toly. St. Olaf was over-harsh in his endeavours to introduce Christianity to his subjects, and perished in a war with the rebels, assisted by Knut of Denmark and England; but his name continued glorious, and another royal St. Olaf, in Sweden, assisted to make it one of the most national of Scandinavian names, even to the present day.

Its Latinism is Oläus, and its contraction Ole, or, rather, this answers to the very old Aale, which, in its turn, answers to the Analo, Anilo, Anelo, of the old Germans.

Leif, or laf, we shall often meet as a termination, both in the North and in Germany, where it generally becomes leib or lip, and then the modern Germans take it for love, and thus have changed the old Gottleip into Gottleib. In the North it has scarcely fared better, especially in the case of Thorleif, or Thor’s relic, who changed from Tholleiv to Thoddeiv, or Tadeiv, on the one hand, and on the other, to Tellev, which, thanks to some classically-disposed clergyman, has been written Teleph, and referred to the Greek Telephus.

Of the other names connected with the Rigsmaal, we find Edda, the great-grandmother, giving title to the ancient poem on cosmogony and mythology that may be regarded as the parent of all the northern songs. Thrall was likewise, in spite of its meaning, used as a name.

The next generation, Avi, Amma, and the son Karl, are the prominent ones. The equivalent of Karl, Bondr, a farmer, is now and then a northern name; but it is the great Frank Karling line whose names so curiously answer to these.

Were they of the middle class of landholders, and were they proud of it, and anxious to trace their connection back to the grandfather, grandmother, and churl? Whether there were a Frank version of the Rigsmaal we do not know, but the leading name of the family was Karl, the churl (of which more in its relation to the cycle of Romance), and it is found in constant company with Amma, or Emma, and 333alternates with one that almost certainly represented Avi, or grandfather.

Charles, Pepin l'Heristal, Charles Martel, Pepin le Bref, Charles the Great, is the succession till the alternation was broken by the death of Pepin, the eldest son of Charles the Great. Now this most undignified Pepin is traced by the best authorities to be one of the many forms of the primitive and universal abba, father, papa, and to answer to the old German names of Bobo, Bobbo, and Poppo. And it is not, therefore, probable that Pepin and Emma stood for the northern Avi and Amma, both alike with the son Karl?

Amme, or Emma, no doubt formed by the first lispings of a child, is amme, a nurse, in Germany, and ama, a housekeeper, in Spain. As a name, it was at first exclusively Frank, and used by the Karling daughters. The first Emma mentioned was the daughter of Charlemagne; and the sister of Hugh Capet, who married Richard the Fearless, of Normandy, was likewise so called. Her granddaughter was the wife, first of Ethelred the Unready, then of Knut, and the supposed heroine of the ordeal of the ploughshares. Emma was considered as so un-English that her name was translated into Ælfgifu. However, we find ‘Emme’ among the daughters of Dru de Baladon, who came over with the Conqueror, and thus ‘Emm’ and ‘Emr’ are by no means uncommon in the registers of Yorkshire and Durham, even down to the seventeenth century. Then Prior, when modernizing and sentimentalizing the beautiful ballad of the Nut Browne Maid, supposed to be on the history of the shepherd Lord Clifford, called it Henry and Emma, whence it became rather a favourite romantic name of literature. Clergymen were apt to use it, in Latin registers, as a translation of Amy, as well as of its own Em. It is also confounded with Emily, and at the present day recurs extremely often in England, while it is almost disused in France, its native home. The Welsh use it as a translation of Ermin, probably a legacy of the Roman Herminii. Emmott is another old name of northern England, probably amplified from Em; but Emeline, as has been already said, is far more probably Amalina than any relation to Emma.

Jarl, as might be expected, was a very favourite eponym; but not in the same pronunciation; for it first became Irl, then Erl, in nomenclature. Erling, a name much used by the Norsemen, and often corrupted into Elling, is the son of the earl; and the Swedish once had a Jarlar, or earl-warrior, who changed into Erlher, Erlo, Erlebald, Erlebrecht, Erlhild.

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