Note 36 — INTRODUCTION.

How dangerous a practice it is to build up history upon no other ground than the mere similarity in the sound of the names of nationalities is shewn in the history of the modern Jazyges. This name has led many a chronicler astray. Their Magyar proper name is "Jász," which, according to Hunfalvy (Ethnography of Hungary, p. 376) is derived from the word "ijász," i.e. "an archer," or "bowman," a name describing their original occupation. In some old deeds of the xivth and xvth centuries, they are called "Jassones" and "Pharetrarii," and things kept straight until Ranzanus the Papal Nuncio at the Court of Matthias Corvinus appeared on the scene, and, struck by the sound of the name "Jassones" and finding that they lived on the very territory which, according to Ptolemy, was occupied by the Jazyges: Metanastae in his time, at once jumped to the conclusion that they were lineal descendants of the wild horsemen mentioned by the classic author. We know how hard anything false dies, and so we find this statement copied by subsequent writers, and even disfiguring the pages of so excellent a work as Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, sub. art. "Jazyges." A still wilder mistake was made by a scribe of King Sigismund, who re-christened the Jász folk "Philistæi," which afterwards appears in many deeds. It would appear to be reasoned out thus; a "Jász," or "bowman," must naturally handle a bow and arrow; but an arrow is called "pfeil" in German, which comes from the old German "phil," hence Jász-Philistæi, Q. E. D! Cf. Hunfalvy's Ethnography loco citato.