Note 20 — Chapter I · PREAMBLE: ON THE ORIGIN OF WEAPONS.

From the Greek τὸ τόξον, the bow (and arrow, Iliad, viii. 296), which seems to be a congener of the Latin taxus, the yew-tree, a favourite material for the weapon. Hence taxus, like the Scandinavian îr or ŷr, the Keltic jubar, and the Slavonian tisu, all meaning the yew-tree, denote the bow as well. The Skalds called the bow also almr (elm-tree), and askr, or mountain-ash, the μελία, which the Greeks applied to the spear. From τόξον came τοξικὸν, ‘arrow-poison,’ the Latin toxicum, whose use survives in our exaggerated term ‘intoxicating liquors.’