Note 992 — Chapter XVIII · THE SUCCESSION TO THE KINGDOM IN ANCIENT LATIUM

Middle High German brûtlouf, modern German Brautlauf, Anglo-Saxon brydhléap, old Norse brudhlaup, modern Norse bryllup. See Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, s.v. “Brautlauf”; K. Weinhold, Deutsche Frauen, 2nd Ed., i. 407. The latter writer supposes the word to refer merely to the procession from the house of the bride to the house of the bridegroom. But Grimm is most probably right in holding that originally it applied to a real race for the bride. This is the view also of K. Simrock (Deutsche Mythologie, 5th Ed. pp. 598 sq.). Another writer sees in it a trace of marriage by capture (L. Dargun, Mutterrecht und Raubehe (Breslau, 1883), p. 130). Compare K. Schmidt, Jus primae noctis (Freiburg i. B. 1881), p. 129.