Note 73 — Chapter II · THE MARK.

Thus, according to his view, Suevi (Suáp, Swǽf) denotes the wanderers; Wandal also the wanderers. Assuredly if nations at large partook of such habits, single tribes could not have derived a name from the custom. How much more easy would it be, upon similar etymological grounds, to prove that the leading Teutonic nations were named from their weapons! Saxons from seax, the long knife; Angles from angol, a hook; Franks from franca, a javelin; Langobards and Heaðobards from barda, the axe or halberd; nay even the general name itself, Germans, from gárman (Old Germ. kérman) the javelin- or goad-man. Yet who would assert these to be satisfactory derivations? Zahn, whose services to Old German literature cannot be overrated, speaks wisely when he calls the similarity of proper names, a rock “on which uncritical heads are much in the habit of splitting.” Vorrede zu Ulphilas, p. 3.