Note 5 — Chapter I
Reading edition
Giving a man "wigan," in the present vernacular of the county, is synonymous to giving him a good threshing.
Jacob Grimm, in his "Deutsche Mythologie," says the Old High German wig, pugna, seems occasionally to denote the personal god of war.
The modern English word "vie," to contend, to fight, to strive for superiority, is derived from the Anglo-Saxon wigian, wiggan, which are cognate to the Gothic veigan (Collins's Dic. Der.) Wig, war, warfare, battle (Bosworth, A.S. Dic.)