IV. HEROIC NAMES OF THE NIBELUNG…

IV. HEROIC NAMES OF THE NIBELUNG

SECTION I.—The Nibelung.

As the Greeks believed in the exploits of semi-divine heroes, a sort of borderers between Olympus and the human race, so the Teutonic race had its grand universal legends of beings rising above human nature, and often embodying beliefs that once had attached to the gods themselves.

The great Teutonic legend, holding the same place as the deeds of Hercules, Theseus, and the Argonauts did in Greece, or those of Fionn with the Gael, is the story of the Nibelung. How old it may be is past computation, but it was apparently common to the whole Gothic race, since names connected with it come from Spain, Lombardy, and France: fragments of the story are traceable in England and the Faroe Islands, and the whole is told at length in Germany, Norway, and Denmark. Each of these three latter countries claim vehemently to have originated the romance, but there is little doubt that it was one of the original imaginations of the entire race, and that each division moulded the framework their own way, though with a general likeness.

Names of historical personages, probably called from its heroes, have led many to suppose it exaggerated history; but each attempt to fit it on to a real person has resulted in confusion, and led to the perception that the actors are really mythical, and the localities, which chiefly lie in Burgundian Germany, were only connected with it by that general law which always finds a home for every heroic adventure.

The tale is begun by the Norwegian Volsunga Saga, and, about half way through, it is taken up by the Danish Vilkina and Niflung Saga, and by the German Nibelungenlied, and it is finished by numerous Danish ballads and German tales, songs, and poems, with the sort of inconsistencies always to be found in popular versions of ancient myths, but with the same main incidents.

Nifelheim, the supposed abode of these heroes, is interpreted to be nebelwelt, the world of mist, or cloudland, and there can be little doubt that the heroes said to be descended from the mythic Vili, Vidga, and Velint, are, in fact, fallen deities. Germany, however, turned Nifelheim into the Netherlands, and placed the realm of Brynhild in Iceland, and the scene of Aldrian’s and Gunter’s court at Wurms, the centre of the Burgundians.

It is highly probable that the story is another form of the original myth, with the same idea, carried through, of the early death of the glorious victor, and of the revenge for his death, but only through a universal slaughter in which all perish. But the whole has become humanized, and the actors are men and not deities; and thus the allegory is far less traceable.

The story, as it begins in the Volsunga Saga, relates that there were three brothers, Fafner, Reginn, and Audvar, or Ottur, whose name is from the same source as øg, awe, so that he may be another form of Œgir. Transforming himself into the beast that bears his name, for the convenience of catching himself a fish dinner, Ottur was killed, in this shape, by Loki. The father and the other brothers insisted that, by way of compensation, in the Teutonic fashion, Loki should fill the dead otter’s skin with treasure, which he accomplished, but laid the treasure under the curse, that it should do no good to its owner. Accordingly, the amount excited the avarice of Fafner, and after murdering his father, he transformed himself into a dragon, and kept watch over the treasure, to prevent Reginn from obtaining it.[129]

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Footnote 129:

Lettsom, Niebelung; Weber and Jamieson; Koepper; Howitt, Northern Romance; Grimm, Deutsche Heldensagen.

SECTION II.—Sigurd.

Sig, or siga, means, in all Teutonic tongues, conquest; and the Victor seems to have been a very old epithet for the Divinity. St. Augustin speaks of a Gothic exclamation Sihora armen, which he translates as Κύριε ἐλεήσον, and the first word of which evidently answers to Ceadmon’s epithets for the Almighty, Sigorafrea, Sigorugod, Sigoracyning.

Odin was called Sigfadir, or conquering father, and this accounts for the later notion that the adventurer was called Sigge, and assumed the divine appellation of Odin.

Thence the victorious god, conquering the serpent, yet afterwards dying, whether he were originally meant for Odin himself, or for another form of Baldur, sank into a human serpent-slayer, bearing the name of victory—Sigward, perhaps originally, but varied into Sigufrit, Siegfried, and Sigurd.

The main points in Siegfried’s story are that he was the son of Siegmund the Volsung, and of Queen Sigelind; born, according to the Book of Heroes, under the same circumstances as Perdita, in the Winter’s Tale; put, by way of cradle, into a drinking-glass, and accidentally thrown into the river, where he was picked up by the smith Mimir, and educated by him. In the Book of Heroes he is so strong that he caught the lions in the woods and hung them over his castle wall by their tails. Reginn incited him to fight with and slay the dragon, Fafner, and obtain the treasure, including the tarn-cap of invisibility. Also, on roasting and eating the heart of Fafner, he became able to understand the language of the birds. And by a bath in the blood he was made invulnerable, except where a leaf had unfortunately adhered to his skin, between his shoulders, and given him, like Achilles and Diarmaid, a mortal spot. His first discovery from the song of a bird was that Reginn meant to murder him at once; he therefore forestalled his intentions, and took possession of the fatal gift, thus incurring the curse. The Book of Heroes calls him Siegfried the horny, and introduces him at the court of the German favourite, Theodoric, and the Nibelungenlied separates the dragon from the treasure, and omits most of the marvellous in the obtaining it.

His next exploit was the rescue and awakening of Brynhild; but he fell into a magic state of oblivion as to all that had passed with her, when he presented himself at the court of Wurms, and became the husband of Gudrun, or Chriemhild, as a recompense for having, by means of his tarn-cap, enabled Gunnar to overcome the resistance of Brynhilda herself, and obliged her to become his submissive bride. Revelations made by the two ladies, when in a passion, led to vengeance being treacherously wreaked upon Siegfried, who was pierced in his vulnerable spot while he was lying down on his face to drink from a fountain during a hunting party in the forest. The remainder of the history is the vengeance taken for his death; and the North further holds that his child, Aslaug, was left the sole survivor of the race, and finally married Ragner Lodbrog, whence her descendants always trace their pedigree from Sigurdr Fafner’s bane.

His namesakes are well-nigh innumerable. There are nineteen in the Landnama-bok; and Sigurdr swarms in the earlier Scandinavian royal lines, being, perhaps, most remarkable in the person of King Sigurd the Crusader of Norway.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ German. │ Bavarian. │ │Sigefrid │Sigefroi │Sigefrid │Sigl │ │Siward │Siffroi │Siegfried │ ————————— │ │Seaward │ ————————— │Sigfrid │ Norwegian. │ │Seaforth │ Italian. │Seifrid │Sigvard │ │Seyferth │Sigefredo │Sikko │Sigurdhr │ │ │Siffredo │Sicco │Siurd │ │ │ │Sigo │Sjul │ │ │ │ ————————— │Syvert │ │ │ │ Polish. │Syver │ │ │ │Sygfryd │Siewers │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

At the instance of the king of Sweden, our Edred had sent a missionary named Sigefried, who is esteemed the apostle of Sweden, and gave a Christian sanction to the serpent-slayer’s name, whence it has continued extremely common there. The stout old Danish Earl Siward, the conqueror of Macbeth, the same who had the bear’s ears and would only die upon his feet, is an English version of the northern Sigurdr, and bore the name that is now Seaward. Indeed Sæward is found among the kings of Essex in 616, and, in fact, that line have so many prefixes of Sige, that it is likely that they thought themselves connected with Fafner’s bane. There is a Sigefugel, or Sigewolf, in their descent from Odin, who may be another form of Sigurd. Germany has made the feminine Sigfrida.

Some have considered the story to be chiefly Burgundian; and Sigmund, conquering protection, the name of Sigurdr’s father, was that of the first Catholic king of Burgundy, who was canonized both for the recovery of his kingdom from Arianism, and for the severity of his penance, after having killed his son, Sigeric, on a false stepdame’s calumny. His relics were carried to Prague in the fourteenth century, and the effect of the translation appeared at once in the name of the Bohemian-born Emperor Sigismund, from whom this became European, and formed the feminine Sigismunda. Gismonda is thus an old Lombardic feminine.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ German. │ │Sigismund │Sigismond │Sigismondo │Sigmund │ │Sæmund │ ————————— │Sismondo │Sigismund │ │ │Portuguese. │ │ │ │ │Sigismundo │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Norwegian. │ Polish. │ Illyrian. │ Hungarian. │ │Sigmund │Zygmunt │Sisman │Zsigmond │ │Sæmund │ ———————— │ │Zsiga │ │ │ Bohemian. │ │ │ │ │Zikmund │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Some have imagined that the curious correspondence of names, when Sigebert, the Frank, married Brynhild, the Goth, is a sign that the Nibelung referred to the Austrasian court; but the Frank Sigebert would have been a very poor serpent-slayer, and, no doubt, only bore the name as a remembrance of him, as did our East Saxon monarch Sæbert, and the Spanish bishop Siseberto. It has lasted on in Germany and Friesland, to be called Sizo, Sitto, Sibert, and Sidde, and is the English surname Sebright. Sigelind, conquering snake, now and then used by German ladies, has the Eastern-looking abbreviation Zelinde.

Sigridur, or conquering impulse, was a favourite among northern ladies. Sigrid the haughty of Sweden, was wooed by King Olaf Trygvesson, and had accepted him; but on her refusal to be baptized, he struck her on the face with his glove, and said, ‘Why should I have thee, an old faded jade, and a heathen to boot.’ She remembered his discourtesy against him, and stirred up the war, which ended in his fatal battle with Earl Sigvalddr. Sigrid is Sired in Domesday; in the North, she is shortened into Sîri, and then Latinized as Serena.

Sigvalldur, conquering power, curiously ran into Sjovald, from whence we take our surname Shovel, one of the many by which our naval commanders are traceable to the vikings.

Sigeheri, Sigehere, Sighar, conquering warrior, is what on Norman lips was Sagar, and then Saher, the hereditary name of the De Quincys, and as a surname spelt Sayers.[130]

The other forms are,

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ North. │ │ Sigbiorg } │ │ Siborg } Conquering protection Ger. Sigburg │ │ Siber } │ │ │ │ German. English. Frisian. Italian. │ │ Sigebald │ Sibbald │ Sibold │ Sibaldo } Conquering │ │ │ │ Sibel │ } prince │ │ │ │ North. Sigbiorn; Eng. Siborne—Conquering bear │ │ │ │ German. Frisian. Spanish. │ │ Sigbod │ Sibot │ Sisebuto } │ │ │ Sibo │ } Messenger of victory │ │ │ Sibbe │ } │ │ │ │ Nor. German. Frisian. │ │ Sigbrand │ Sigbrand │ Sibrant } │ │ │ │ Sibbern } Conquering sword │ │ │ │ Nor. Sigfus—Conquering impetuosity │ │ │ │ German. English. Frisian. French. │ │ Sighard │ Sigehard │ Siard │ Sicard } Conquering │ │ Siegert │ │ Siade │ } firmness │ │ │ │ Ger. Sighelm—Conquering helmet │ │ Nor. Sighvatr—Conquering swiftness │ │ Nor. Sigmar; Ger. Sigmar—Conquering greatness │ │ Nor. Signy—Conquering freshness │ │ Ger. Sigrad—Conquering advice │ │ Ger. Sigrich—Conquering ruler │ │ Sigtrud—Conquering maid │ │ Nor. Sigtrygge—Conquering security │ │ Nor. Sigulf, Siulf; Eng. Sigewolf—Conquering wolf │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Footnote 130:

Nibelung; Weber and Jamieson; Kemble, Beowulf; Michaelis; Pott; Butler; Heimskringla.

SECTION III.—Brynhild.

A thorough Valkyr was Brynhilda, the maiden whom Odin had touched with his sleep-thorn, so that she lay in a deep slumber in the midst of a circle of flame, through which Sigurd made his way, aroused her, and won her for his own; but became utterly and magically oblivious of all that had passed as soon as he had returned to common life. This is the northern version, the evident origin of our fairy tale of the Sleeping Beauty, pricked not by the thorn of Odin, but by the distaff, perhaps, of one of the Nornir. The Book of Heroes reduces the circle of flame to a mere strong castle, with seven gates; and the Nibelungenlied only takes up the story at the time of Sigfried’s appearance at the court of Burgundy, and courtship of Brynhild’s rival, Chriemhild.

Brynhild had retained her matchless strength, and, like the Greek Atalanta, was only to be won by a champion who could excel her in games of strength, and her conquered suitors were all put to death. Gunther, the brother of Chriemhild, being willing to obtain her on these conditions, Siegfried, by means of his tarn-cap, invisibly vanquished the Valkyr, while Gunther appeared to be her conqueror; and when she thus had been compelled to give her hand, it was Siegfried who, again unseen, broke down her violent resistance, and compelled her to become a submissive wife, on which she lost all her supernatural strength. Siegfried was rewarded by the hand of Chriemhild, Gunther’s sister.

By-and-by the two sisters-in-law had a desperate quarrel about precedence; in the old northern version, which should wade farthest into the Rhine when bathing; in the half-civilized German song, which should first enter the cathedral of Wurms; and in the course of it Brynhild was roundly informed that she had not given way to her husband, but to Siegfried. Valkyr nature could not stand such an affront, so Brynhild set on Hagen to assassinate Siegfried. The northern story makes her slay herself, and be burnt with his corpse on a funeral pile, in Suttee fashion; the German tames her into being merely brought to repentance too late by the death of her husband.

No doubt Brynhild was commemorated by the name of the Gothic princess, daughter of King Athanagild, who, for her misfortune, was married to the Frank Sigebert, and through the whole of her long life continued a fierce and dauntless resistance to her savage rival Fredegund, until, when both were aged women, Brenhilda fell into her rival’s power, and was implacably sentenced to be dragged to death by wild horses. French historians aver that her name was at first only Bruna, and that hilda was added to make it royal; but this is very unlikely, since Spanish historians call her Brenhilda. The Latinism is Brunechildis, in French Brunehault, but the name has not been followed, except by the northern race, whose existence was hardly developed at the time of the misfortunes of the Austrasian queen, and who therefore take it from her original. Among these it has been contracted to Brunilla and Brynil.

The meaning is the Valkyr of the Breastplate, the byrni of old Scottish, bryne of the North, bruniga of the German, broigne in Old French, bronha in Provençal. A near connection of this name is the northern Bryngerd, placing the gentle Gerda in this cuirass; and the North has likewise Brynjar, properly hari, the Cuirassier, and Brynjolfr, which wolf in a breastplate was a great Icelandic ancestor, and has been cut short into Brynjuv and Brynjo.

The Chriemhild, or Helmet Valkyr of the Nibelung, is the Gudrun of the northern version; and Gudrun, as before said, would be either good wisdom, or, far more probably, war wisdom. In the Nibelungenlied, the action of the story begins with Chriemhild telling her mother her dream of her favourite falcon being torn to pieces by two eagles; and when it is explained to mean her future husband, vowing that she will never marry. However, Siegfried’s arrival, and his successful exertions in winning Brunhild for Gunther, overcame all the lady’s scruples.

She had lived happily ten years in the Netherlands with Siegfried before, on a visit to Wurms, she was so ill-advised as to reproach Brynhild with his victory over her; and afterwards was deluded into sewing a mark upon his garments to show where was his vulnerable spot. After his death, she found out the murderer by the ordeal of touch, and treasured up a deadly and enduring spirit of revenge; perhaps the most terrible of all the many forms in which legend has proclaimed the old rule of blood for blood.

She was left the heiress of all Siegfried’s treasure, as well as of his Nibelungen or Netherlandian troops, but it was taken from her by her husband’s murderer, and sunk beneath the Rhine. After thirteen years of widowhood, she was induced to marry Etzel, or Atli, king of the Huns, by the promise that he would avenge all her injuries; but still she bided her time for thirteen more years, at the end of which space she invited her brothers and all their champions to visit her in Hungary at Etzelenburg. They had not long been there before she stirred up a most tremendous battle, in which mutual destruction took place, as is minutely related in the ancient lays. Finally her brother Gunther was captured and slain at her savage command, and she herself slew the murderer Hagen with Siegfried’s own sword. Immediately after, however, she was put to death as an act of justice by old Sir Hildebrand; at least so says the Nibelungenlied; but in the Kœmpe Viser there is a still further revenge, for the secret of the deposit of the treasure is left with the son of Hagen, who beguiles Grimhild into the cave with the hope of its restoration, and there locks her in and starves her to death.

The historical Attila is really said to have had a German wife named Kremheilch. The Gudrun of the North is a far more amiable personage. She forgives her brother, and is with difficulty persuaded to marry Atli, who is, in this version, Brynhild’s brother, and lays the plot against Gunther, in order to avenge his sister’s death. She does all in her power to warn them, but in vain; and when all had been slain, her senses failed her, and in her frenzy she slew her two children by Atli, and made him drink their blood; he died of horror, and she cast herself into the sea, but was carried alive to the land of King Jonakr, whom she married, and then underwent other misfortunes which extinguished the last remains of her family. Her name of Gudrun has already been treated of.[131]

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Footnote 131:

Nibelungenlied; Weber and Jamieson; Thierry; Mariana; Munch.

SECTION IV.—Gunther.

Gunth (Goth.), guth (A.G.S.), gunnr (North), gond or gonz (High German), all meant war or battle, and have an immense number of derivative names, inextricably mixed up with those from God and Gut; and it is even thought that there may be a close connection between them, so much did the Teutons believe their deities to be gods of battle, and goodness to be courage. The word gunth has lived on even in Lombardy in the Gonfalon, the war banner, solemnly carried out to battle in a car as the images of the gods had formerly been, in charge of the official known as the gonfaloniere in the republics of northern Italy. Gundahari, warrior, was really an old name among the kings of Burgundy, who were, no doubt, called in honour of Gunther or Gunnar, the eldest brother of Kriemhild, and husband of Brynhild. He seems to have been brave but weak, led first by Sigurd, then by Hagen, but at last fighting with great spirit.

Gunthar, or Gunnar, at full length Gundahari, continued in favour with the Burgundians; and an abbot in Brittany being canonized, left Gonthier to France, and Gontiere to Italy.

This masculine Gunnar was very common in the North, and so was likewise the feminine Gunnr, war, or Gundvar, war prudence, both confounded in Gunnar, which historians generally render as Gunnora.

Gunnhildur was in high favour in the North. One most celebrated owner was the wicked queen of Eric Blodaxe. She was said to be a native of the Orkneys, and to have filled Scandinavia with her crimes, upon the details of which, however, Norse and Danish histories are not quite agreed.

Gunhild again was the Danish princess whose murder on St. Brice’s night brought her brother Sweyn down in fury upon England; and her nephew Knud likewise had a daughter so called, but who was Anglicized into Æthelthryth; and each generation of the Godwine family records a lady Gunhild. After the Conquest, however, Gunhild died away in England; but it has never been discarded in the North, where it is now called Gunnilda, or Gunula.

That daughter of William the Conqueror, or sister of Gherbod the Fleming, whichever she was, who was the ancestress of the Warrennes, and is buried at Lewes, has a name so much disguised as to be as doubtful as her birth. It maybe Gunatrud, a Valkyr title, or Gundridur, war haste, or Gundrada, war council, the same as the Spanish Gontrado; at any rate it has had few followers.

Gunnr and Göndol were both Valkyr titles, and the Valkyr Göndol’s most noted namesake was a maiden of the Karling race, who was bred up by St. Gertrude, at Nivelle; and on her return to her father’s castle at Morzelle, used to go to her early devotions at a church half a league distant from home. On winter mornings she was lighted by a lantern, which the legend avers to have been blown out by the wind, but rekindled by her prayers. Thence comes the name of St. Gundula’s lamp, applied to the Tremella, an orange-coloured jelly-like fungus that grows on dead branches of trees in the winter. She is the patroness of Brussels, where the church of St. Gudule is the place used for coronations; but her common title in Flanders is Ste. Goëlan, while the convent built in her honour at Morzelle, in Brabant, is Ste. Goule.

War could not fail to have her wolf, the Gundulf of Norman England, the Gunnolfr of Iceland, the Gundolf of Germany, and, far more notable than either, the Gonsalvo or Gonzalo of Spain, always frequent among the Visigothic families, and becoming especially glorious in the person of the great captain, the brave and honourable conqueror of Naples, and the trainer of the infantry that gave the predominance to Spain for a hundred years, until they fell as one man at Rocroy.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ French. │ Provençal. │ Spanish. │Portuguese. │ Italian. │ │Gonsalve │Guossalvo │Gonzalo │Gonçalo │Consalvo │ │Gonzalve │ │ │ │ │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

The war raven, Gunthram, figures in French history as Gontran, and the war serpent is the German Gundlin, or Gondoline, when a lady; when a man, the terrible Guthorm, whom, as King Alfred’s foe, godson, and tributary, our histories call Guthrum. In Denmark, the name was very early contracted into Gorm; but it has been so often spelt Gudthorm, that a doubt has arisen whether the latter half of the word may not be thorm or thyrma.

It is very difficult to distinguish between the derivatives of God and Gund, both being very apt to eliminate the distinctive letters. On the whole, however, it seems as if these warlike names had been some of the most universal throughout the continent, though in England they were very scarce, and do not occur in royal pedigree, nor in hagiology, except in the case of St. Guthlac, the first founder of the original Croyland Abbey, whose name in the North would be Gudleik or Gulleik, war sport.

Hosts of northern Frankish and Visigothic names thus commence, and many feminines end with this word. The other varieties thus beginning are:—

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Nor. Gunbjorg; Ger. Gondaberge; Goth. Sp.—War protection │ │ Nor. Gunbjorn—War bear │ │ German. French. │ │ Gondebert │ Gondobert } │ │ Gondeberta │ Gombert } War splendour │ │ Gumpert │ Jombert } │

│ Ger. Gondebald; Fr. Gondebaud; Sp. Gondebaldo—War prince │ │ Nor. Gudbrand, Guldbrand, Gulbrand—War sword │ │ Ger. Gundekar—War spear │ │ Nor. Gunlaug, Gullaug—War liquor │ │ Nor. Gunleif, (Eng. Cunliffe)—War love │ │ Nor. German. Spanish. │ │ Gudmar │ Gundemar │ Gondomiro } War Greatness │ │ Gulmar │ Gutmar │ Gondomar } │ │ Nor. German. │ │ Gudmund │ Gundemund } War hand │ │ Gulmund │ Gunimund } │ │ Ger. Gunderich; Fr. Gonderic; Sp. Gonderico—War ruler │ │ Sp. Gondesinda—War strength │ │ Nor. Gunnstein—War jewel │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Gunthe was the old German feminine contraction for any of these warlike damsels, and being further endeared into Jutte, or Jutta, was probably the source, under the hands of chroniclers, of the Judiths, who made their appearance among the Franks so long before the days of Scripture or saintly names.[132]

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Footnote 132:

Munch; Michaelis; Nibelung; Weber and Jamieson; Mariana; Thierry; Garland for the Year; Alban Butler; Fleischner, Onomatologie; Lappenberg; Dasent, Burnt Njal; Marryat, Jutland.

SECTION V.—Hagen.

Haghen, Hagano, or Hogni, may be considered as the villain of the Nibelungen. In the Danish version he is the half-brother of Grimhild and Gunther, with an elf-father; in the German, he is their wise and far-travelled uncle, who first related the adventures of the newly-arrived stranger, Siegfried, but always seems to have disliked him, and readily undertook to revenge Brynhild’s injuries upon him. As Loki deceived Frigga, he persuaded his niece to mark where was the mortal spot on her husband’s skin, and contrived that no wine should be taken into the forest, so that Siegfried might be reduced to lie down to drink at the stream, and thus expose the fatal place.

The body bled at his touch, and he was the chief object of Chriemhilt’s vengeance, more especially after he had taken the treasure away from her, placed it in a cave beneath the Rhine, and jealously guarded the secret of the spot. When she invited the brothers to Hungary he was much averse to the journey, till he found that his disclination was imputed to fear, when he became vehemently set upon going, in spite of the omens against it. Taunts and injuries passed between him and Chriemhilt, and the next day the fierce and furious battle began, which raged till Gunther and Haghen alone were left. After Gunther had been killed, Chriemhilt offered Haghen his life, on condition that he would disclose the place where the treasure was, but he refused, and died by her hand.

There is a curious poem, called the Duke of Aquitaine, which is evidently another version of the same notion of Haghen. Hagano, a descendant of the Trojans, is there sent to deprecate the invasion of Attila, and afterwards assists the Burgundian king Gunther of Wurms in an attack on Duke Walther of Aquitaine, and Hildegunna, sister to Gunther, in order to recover a treasure that they had carried off from Attila’s court, where they had been hostages. This version of the great central story of Europe named Hagen, Count of Aquitaine, the uncle of Charles the Bald; but the North has used it more, in the form of Hogen.

The name is either from hagr, deft or handy, or else from hagi, a hook; most probably the latter, perhaps in connection with the other meaning, a thorn or prickle, so that here we may find a personification of the thorn destroying the victor. The word hag is seldom found in names, and is probably imitated from Hagen, without much regard to the meaning. It occurs only in the Danish, as Hagbrand, Hagbart, contracted as Habaar, or Habor; Hagthor, which is incorrectly modernized as Hector; and Hagny. The more usual form in Denmark is Hogne, probably from the German Hagano.

But there has been a confusion between this Hagan, or Hogni, and Haagan, properly Haakvin, from haa, high, and kyn, meaning of high kin, the well-known Norwegian and Danish name of many a fierce viking; sometimes Latinized as Haquinus, Frenchified as Haquin, and called in the North Haaken, or Hakon. Domesday has it as Kaco, Hacon, Hacun, and Hakena; and Hacon still lingers among the fishermen of the Orkneys. Other northern names, with the same opening, haa (pronounced ho), are Haamund, no doubt the parent of our Hammond, and Haavard, whence our Hayward, both alike meaning high protection.[133]

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Footnote 133:

Lettsom; Nibelungenlied; Weber and Jamieson; Munch; Anderson, Royal and Noble Genealogies.

SECTION VI.—Ghiseler.

Ghiseler is one of the brothers of Gunther, an inoffensive personage, and the only one of the party of whom Chriemhild took any civil notice, when she had decoyed them to her court to their destruction. Nevertheless he did not escape, but died in combat with Wolfhart, of Bern, when the champions of Dietrich could not be withheld from the fray.

His name is tolerably clear—Giselhar, the pledged warrior. The first syllable is from gildan, geldan, keltan, to owe, or to pay what was due. The terms ran through all the Gothic tongues, and caused the Anglo-Saxons to call all the offerings due to the gods gield and ghëlstar.

A pledge of mutual obligation was, in Anglo-Saxon, gisel, and is still gidsel in the North; in the German, geissel. Thence, far more probably than from the older word geisli, a beam, or nimbus, was derived the Frank Gisel, as a maiden’s name. A daughter of Pepin, so called, was offered to Leo X. of Constantinople; and afterwards the daughter of Charles the Simple, who became the pledge of amity between the Karlingen and Northmen, by her marriage with Rollo. She was called by the French Gisèle, by the Normans Gisla, in which same form it has lived on in Friesland and in Norway. The commencement is not, however, a very common one in the North, though Giselher is repeated in Gissur Isleifson, Bishop of Iceland, in the eleventh century. Gislaug, the pledge drink, is likewise northern, but though gils is an extremely common termination, almost all the names where it is a commencement are Frankish, or German, and thus probably Giselfrid came to the North as Gisrod.

Giselhilda, and Giselberge, were German, also Gisalhart, and Giselof; and Gisalrico is found among the Spanish Goths. Geltfried and Giltimir are also German forms, and the latter explains Gelimer, the Vandal king in Africa, conquered by Belisarius.

Gils is a common Norwegian name, and no doubt contributed to the English Giles, French Gilles, and Spanish Gil, though all these look to the Greek hermit in France, Aigidios, as their patron. In the North, Ægidius is rendered by Ilian, Yljan, Yrjan, Orjan, but not by Giles: and it would seem as if Julius had been confounded with the name, as well as, perhaps, Giolla, a servant.

Giolla Brigde, or Bridget’s disciple, is thought to have contributed the Scottish examples of Gilbert, which is incorrectly explained by some as Gelb-bert, or yellow bright; but is clearly traceable to the old Frank Giselbert. There were four saints so called, namely, an abbot of Fontenelle, a great friend of William the Conqueror, an Auvergnat knight in the second Crusade, the English founder of the order of Gilbertine monks, and a bishop of Caithness; and it has been a prevalent name in England, Scotland, and the Low Countries, with many contractions, especially in the latter.[134]

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ German. │ │Gilbert │Guilbert │Gilberto │Giselbert │ │Gilpin │Gisebert │ ———————— │Gilbert │ │Gil │Gileber │Dutch. │Gisbert │ │Gibbon │Gilbert │Gysbert │Gispert │ │Gipp │Ghiliber │ ———————— │Giseprecht │ │ │ │Flemish. │ │ │ │ │Gilli │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Footnote 134:

Munter; Munch; Michaelis; Grimm; Took.

SECTION VII.—Ghernot.

Ghernot was Gunther’s second brother, who was free from the guilt of the murder of Siegfried, and greatly displeased with Haghen for depriving Chriemhilt of the treasure; but he shared the fate of his brothers, being killed early in the encounter by the Markgraf Rudiger.

Perhaps, necessity of war, or spear compulsion, would be the best sounding translations of this remarkable name.

Ghere, the same as the northern Gejr and German Kero, is the messenger sent to invite Siegfried and Chriemhild to Wurms, when they paid the visit that had such fatal consequences; and gher or gjer is one of the most frequent of the component parts of names. Its right and original meaning is a spear, the same as that of the Latin quiris and Keltic coir. Thence the Anglo-Saxons called all other weapons waren, and the battle war, a word we still use, just as the French do guerre, and the Spaniards guerra.

Gar is quite in modern German, and gher has dropped out of the language, and thus most of the German names commencing with it have been misinterpreted to mean all, but it is impossible to compare them with their northern cousins without tracing the same spear in both.

The chief favourite amongst these spear titles seems to have been once a Valkyr name Gêrdrûd, or Geirthrud, the spear maid; for, alas! the pretty interpretation that has caused so many damsels of late to bear it, as meaning all truth, is utterly untenable, unless they will regard themselves as allegorically constant battle-maids, armed with the spear of Ithuriel.

The ancient popularity of this name was owing to a daughter of one of the great Pepins, in their maire du palais days. She founded the abbey of Nivelle, and was intensely revered by the Franks and Germans, chiefly on account of the miracles imputed to her. At old heathen feasts, the cups quaffed in honour of gods or demi-gods were prefaced by the words “Wuotansminne, Thorsminne,” meaning in Woden’s or Thor’s memory; but the Christian teachers changed these toasts to be in the memory of the saints, such as Michelsminne for the guardian angel. Johannisminne was the special favourite, and was supposed to be a charm against poison, because the Evangelist was thought to have experienced the fulfilment of the promise, “If ye drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt you,” as typified by the dragon in his cup. The royal nun, Gertrude, was almost as great a favourite as the Apostle with the Germans, and the regular toasts at their banquets came to be Johannisminne and Gerdrutsminne, till drinking to St. John and St. Gertrude were almost a proverb for revelry.

Let us observe, en passant, that minne, lately in honour of Minna Troil erected into a lady’s name, is from the Gothic munan, to remember, from the Saxon form of which we take our mind. Minnie has lately become a favourite name, and must be referred to this source.

A second St. Gertrude, of noble blood in Saxony, was abbess of Heldelfs, had an exceedingly high reputation for sanctity, and died in 1334, leaving her name doubly popular.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ Portuguese. │ │Gertrude │Gertrude │Gertrude │Gertrudes │ │Gatty │ │Geltruda │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Bavarian. │ Netherlands. │ Danish. │ │Gertraud │Traudl │Drutje │Gertrud │ │Trudchen │Traul │Trudje │Jartrud │ │ │ │Trudel │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Slovak. │ Lettish. │ Esth. │ Polish. │ │Jera │Gêrde │Kert │Giertruda │ │Jerica │Gerte │Truto │ ———————— │ │Jedert │Gedde │Truta │ Lithuanian. │ │Jra │ │ │Trude │ │ │ │ │ ———————— │ │ │ │ │ Hungarian. │ │ │ │ │Gertrud │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

There is great confusion between Gerwald and Gerhard; the one meaning spear power, the other firm spear.

Though gar was not a common English prefix, the first Saint Gerhold was Anglo-Saxon. He migrated to Ireland, received the cowl in the monastery of Mayo, founded that of Tempul Gerald, died in 732, and became the subject of one of the Irish legends of saints. It declared that the wife of Caomhan, king of Connaught, turned him out of the fort of Cathair Mhor, with his 300 saints, who thereupon joined him in one of the peculiar prayers of Irish saints, that there never should be another king of the same race for ever. However, he afterwards relented, and only cut off from the throne the offspring of the lady herself, while to those of the king’s former wife he granted the right of sitting first in the drinking house and of arraying the battle. The Irish call him Garalt, and have confused his name with the Keltic Gareth, one of the knights of the Round Table, so that Garrett and Gerald are regarded as identical.

The great prevalence of the name in Ireland is, however, chiefly owing to the Normans. There had been two Frank saints thus called in the twelfth century, Gerard of Toul, and Girroald of Fontenelle; but it was also a Lombardic name, and the old Florentine family of the Gherardi claims the parentage of one of the many Gerolds who accompanied William the Conqueror, the same whose descendant, Maurice Fitzgerald, was one of the companions of Earl Strongbow, the parent of the Fitzgeralds, or Geraldins, of Kildare, the turbulent race, who disputed with the Butlers of Ormond the supremacy of the island. Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, a daughter of this house, was the lady who, in imitation of Beatrice and of Laura, was erected by Surrey into the heroine of his poetry, under the title of the Fair Geraldine, thus leading to the adoption of this latter as one of the class of romantic Christian names. Gerald Barry, the Welsh chronicler who Latinizes himself as Giraldus Cambrensis, may have been rightly Gareth, and the provincial form Jarrett, still common in the North, is probably rather a remnant of the Gareth of Strathclyde, than a version of the Norman Gerald.

Another St. Gerald, bishop of Namur, left his name to be very common in the Low Countries, where we have already shown how curiously the transformation was effected of Gerhard Gerhardson into Desiderius Erasmus. Lastly, a St. Gerhard went on a mission to convert the Hungarians, and the name, or rather the two names, for there is no distinguishing between them, have become universal.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Provençal. │ Italian. │ │Gerard │Gerard │Girart │Gherardo │ │Garrett │Giraud │Guerart │Gerardo │ │Jarett │Girairs │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Netherlands. │ Dutch. │ Frisian. │ │Gerhard │Gerard │Gerhardus │Geerd │ │ │Gerrit │Gerrit │ │ │ │Geert │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Danish. │ Polish. │ Lettish. │ Hungarian. │ │Gerhard │Gieraud │Gerkis │Geller │ │Geert │ │Gêrts │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ German. │ Frisian. │ │Gerald │Giraud │Giraldo │Gerold │Gerold │ │ │Guirauld │ │ │Gerelt │ │ │Girault │ │ │Gerel │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

Gerhardine in German, and Giralda in Italian, are the feminines, besides our own Geraldine. Possibly Giralda may once have been the Valkyr name Geirhilda, which has survived in the North in the form of Jerilla, jer being the northern corruption of geir. Jerlau is thus Geirlaug, and Jeruf, or Jerul, Geirolf.

In like manner, though with different pronunciation, we make Jervis out of the old Norman Gervais, which was probably Geirfuss, or warlike eagerness. It used to be explained as gerfast, all firm, but this is, of course, wrong; though, as I have not found Geirfuss in the roll of northern names, and it would have been Gerfuns in Germany, where Gerwas is common, as is Gervais in France, and Gervaso in Italy, this must be doubtful.

The Gerberge of French history, the queen of Louis l'Outremer, was the same as the Geirbjorg of the North: Gerwin, or spear friend, made the Guarin of France, whence the Waryn of a few English families, and Guarino of Italy.

The old Spanish-Gothic feminine Garsendis was certainly Garswinth, or spear strength, and the equally ancient Garsias, or Garcia, so common in Galicia and Navarre, must have its commencement from the same source, though the last syllable has lost its individuality on the soft Spanish tongues. It was long a royal name, but was dropped about the thirteenth century, and makes its last public appearance in the person of the Peruvian prince and author Garcilasso de la Vega.

The spear raven, Gerramn, is the old English Jerram, that has become lost in Jerome; and the spear prince, Gerbold, has furnished the family name of Garibaldi. Gar is very rare in native Anglo-Saxon names, whether as a beginning or end, but most frequent in all the other branches of the Teuton stock; and its other form, gais, is the most reasonable explanation of the beginning of the name of Geisserich, the king of the Vandals, who has been made into Genserich, and then translated into the Gander king! The remaining forms are:—

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Ger. Gerbert; It. Gerberto—Bright spear │ │ Ger. Gerfrid—Spear peace │ │ │ │ Nor. German. Neth. Frisian. │ │ │ │ Gierlac │ Gerlach │ Garlef │ Spear sport │ │ │ Gerlib │ Garlaf │ Garleff Spear relic │ │ │ │ Nor. Geirmund, Garmund—Spear hand │ │ Nor. Geirny—Spear fresh; Gierrandur—Spear house │ │ Nor. Geirridur—Spear impulse; Gierstein—Spear stone │ │ Nor. Geirthiofr—Spear thief; Geirvör—Spear prudence │ │ Nor. Geirvart; Fris. Gerber—Spear guard │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

SECTION VIII.—Folker.

Of all the champions of Burgundy, none is more full of gallantry and bonhommie than Folker, the mighty fiddler of Alsace, a true knight, always equally ready for music or for fighting. If the Nibelungenlied be really another form of the Eddaic myth, Folker may answer to Bragi, the god of poetry, but he has his own individual character of blithe undaunted courage. Even when the terrible battle has begun, and the heroes find themselves hemmed in by Chriemhild’s warriors, Folker fiddles on, until he dies by the hand of Hildebram.

Folker’s name is from our own word folk, the near relation of the Latin vulgus, whose progeny are found all over Europe in vulgar, vulgo, foule, &c. Most likely Folkvard is really the right version, and would mean people’s guard, and Folker is rather its corruption than independently the people’s warrior, and the same with Folko; they are, therefore, all thrown together in the following table.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │English. │German. │Frisian. │Nor. │ │Fulk │Volquard │Folkert │Folkvard │ │ ———————— │Volkvart │Foke │Folke │ │ French. │Folkward │Fokko │Fokke │ │Fulcher │Folquhard │ │ │ │Feuquiers │Folkhard │ │ │ │Foulques │Folker │ │ │ │Fouques │Folko │ │ │ │ │Fulko │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

In the Foulques stage, this name was home, alternately with Geoffroi, by the counts of Anjou, and with the strange soubriquets of Nerra and Réchin. One of these counts, the grandfather of our Henry II., became king of Jerusalem; but our English Angevins did not perpetuate the name; and though six Fulcos are recorded in Domesday, Fulk never took root in England, and is chiefly remembered because it belonged to Fulk Greville, the friend of Sydney. It was, in fact, with all its varieties, chiefly Burgundian.

Germany shows a few other forms: Folkwin, or Volquin, which exactly answers to Demophilos, or Publicola; Folkrad, Folkrich, and Folkmar; also Folkbert, which some prefer to Wilibert, as the origin of the Savoyard Filiberto, and our Fulbert.[135]

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Footnote 135:

Nibelungenlied; Weber and Jamieson; Munch; Michaelis.

SECTION IX.—Dankwart.

In the Nibelungenlied the father of Chriemhilt, who dwelt at Wurms, was ‘hight Dankrat,’ and the marshal at the court was Dankwart the swift, Hagen’s brother. Innocent as he was of a share in his brother’s crime, he was the first to be assailed while he was dining with Etzel’s knights, and he had to fight his way through Chriemhild’s warriors before he could return to his comrades in the hall, when he kept the door until, like all the rest, he perished in the massacre.

The first syllable of the name is the same as our word thank, and the name means thankful or grateful. The father of Chriemhild was thus Thank-rede, or grateful speech, and from him the Northmen seem to have taken their Thakraad, which in Normandy became Tancred, the knight of Hauteville, whose twelve gallant sons chased the Saracens from Apulia, and were the founders of the only brave dynasty that ever ruled in the enervating realms of the Two Sicilies. The son of one of these gallant knights, Tancredi di Puglia, was the foremost in the first crusade, and the favourite hero of Tasso, in whose epic he is a Christian Achilles; and Tancredi again was the last Sicilian king of the true Norman line, the same whose bickerings with Cœur de Lion make so unpleasant an episode in the third Crusade.

Dankwart, thankful guardian, lingered in Germany; and in 1668, a Yorkshire register records the baptism of Tankard, the son of a ‘Turkey merchant,’ who had probably learnt the name from some of his foreign connections. Dankheri, thankful warrior, was in Normandy Tancar. Dankker is the German surname, and has even come to Tanzen; so that our surname Dance may have the same origin. Thangbrand was the German priest whom King Olaf Tryggvesen of Norway sent to convert Iceland, but whose severity led to his expulsion; and Germany also mentions Dankmar; but the prefix is almost exclusively German.[136]

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Footnote 136:

Nibelungenlied; Munch; Pott.

SECTION X.—Theodoric.

Theodoric of Bern is hardly a genuine hero of the Nibelung, being really the main figure in a cycle of Germanic romances of his own; but as he, under the abbreviation Dietrich, is brought in to play a considerable part in the final action of the tale, this seems the fittest place for treating of him and the names in connection with him.

He seems to have been brought into the Nibelungenlied because the Germanic mind could conceive of nothing considerable passing without him. He is represented as one of the four-and-twenty princes in King Etzel’s train, and as anxious to prevent mischief to the visitors from Burgundy, warning them of Chriemhilt’s enmity, and refusing to attack them at her request. When the great slaughter began, it was Dietrich who conveyed the king and queen safely out of the mêlée, and withheld his men from engaging in it, until almost at the end, when they could no longer be restrained, and rushing into the fray were all slain except old Sir Hildebrand, though on the other hand, Gunther and Haghen alone remained alive of the Burgundians. Dietrich then armed himself, and after a fierce combat, made them both prisoners, and delivered them up to Chriemhilt, fully intending that she should spare their lives; but when her relentless fury had fallen on them, he assisted King Etzel to bury the dead, and to return the horses and armour of their fallen champions to their respective countries.

Other German romances, however, elevate this prince to a much higher rank. The Book of Heroes, written by Wolfram of Eschenbach and Heinrich of Ofterdingen, makes Dietrich of Bern, in Lombardy, son of King Dietmar. Hearing of Chriemhilt’s rose garden, which measured seven miles round, and was guarded by twelve champions, he was seized with a desire to do battle with them, for love of battle, not of ladies, though the victor was to receive a chaplet of roses and a kiss from the young lady. The wise old Sir Hildebrand, of the Wolfing line, conducted him and his eleven companion champions to Wurms, where the single combats took place. Dietrich’s knights were successful, and for the most part took the Chaplets, but refused the kisses, because they disdained Chriemhild as a faithless maiden.

A Danish ballad describes ‘Kong Tidrich’s’ tremendous battle with a Lindwurm, the progeny of one that had escaped his great-grandfather Wolfdietrich. He was led to enter on the battle by entreaties for help from a lion whom the dragon had seized; but at first he came by the worst, for his sword broke, and

‘The Lindwurm took him on her back, His steed beneath her tongue, Bore them into the hollow hill To her eleven young.’

She bade them eat the horse to pass away the time while she rested, promising that on her awakening they should devour the knight. In the cave, however, Tidrich found the magic sword of Siegfried and two knives; and in spite of the threats of the young dragons, and the promises of the old one, he killed them all; but the old worm fell so as to choke the mouth of the cave, whereupon the friendly lion dug him out, and supplied the place of the slain steed by carrying him to Bern on his back.

So much for romance. History mentions a real Theodoric, son of Theudemir, and king of the Ostrogoths in Italy, from 475 to 527. He had been sent as a hostage to Constantinople, and there educated; and though he could not write his name, and had a stamp perforated with the letters Theod to enable him to sign his edicts, he was exceeding able, wise, and skilful, and Arian as he was, conciliated the love of the Catholics. Verona was his chief city, and is evidently the Bern of the romances. He lived too late for the historical Attila, who had died in 453; and though there is a report of a previous Theodoric, who meddled in a dissension between Attila’s sons, and took part in a great slaughter that lasted fifteen days, it is most likely that the original Theuderik was a mythical personage, after whom these historical princes were called, and who afterwards received the credit of some of their deeds, and was localized in the places of their dominion. It is in favour of this notion that Dietrich of Berne is one of the many titles of the wild huntsman, though the Lusatians corrupt him into Dietrich Bernhard, and the Low Countries into Dirk-mit-den-Beer, or with the beard. Indeed, Dirk, the Dutch form of Theodoric, was a half-mythical king of Holland.

It was a most universal name, Anglo-Saxon and Visigothic, as well as Frank and German; and two saints made it everywhere popular in the middle ages, though the Dutch at present chiefly use it.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │Span. and Port.│ │Theodric │Theodoric │Teodorico │Theodorico │ │Theodoric │Thierry │Dieterico │ │ │Derrick │Thian │ │ │ │Terry │Thean │ │ │ │Tedric │ │ │ │ │ (Domesday) │ │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Bavarian. │ Frisian. │ Danish. │ │Diotrich │Dietl │Tiaderik │Tjodrckr │ │Dietrich │ ———————— │Tiarik │Didhrikr │ │Diez │ Dutch. │Tiark │Theodrckr │ │Diether │Diederik │Tiado │Tidrich │ │ │Dierk │Tiaddo │Didrik │ │ │Dirk │Todo │ ———————— │ │ │ │Tade │ Slovak. │ │ │ │Tido │Todorik │ │ │ │Tide │ │ │ │ │Dudde │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Polish. │ Bohemian. │ Lettish. │ Hungarian. │ │Dytrych │Detrich │Diriks │ │ │ │ │Didschis │Ditrik │ │ │ │Tiz │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The name of Dietmar, the father of Theodoric, is to be found in many forms; in Theudemir, a Frank, who faithfully served Constantius; in an Ostrogothic Theodomir; Spanish, Theodomiro; and the modern Frisian, Thiadmar, Tiedmer, Tyeddemer, Tidmer. It means people’s greatness.

Dietleib, his friend, is rightly Ditlev; and in the North, Thjodleif, the people’s relic, or what is left to them. He, too, survives in constant Friesland, as Teallef, Taedlef, Tiadelef.

The chief favourite of this class is, however, the people’s prince, occurring both among the Frank and early Anglian kings, and belonging to two French hermits and one English archbishop. It took firm root in Provence, and has an aroma of crusades and courts of love surrounding it; and though it is not in Domesday, it and its contractions survive as English surnames; and in a Gloucestershire parish register of the eighteenth century, the feminine form occurs frequently in every variety of spelling; Tibelda, Tiballa, Tibotta, Tybal.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Spanish. │ Portuguese. │ │Theodebald │Theudobald │Theudebaldo │Theobaldo │ │Theobald │Thiebault │ │ │ │Tybalt │Thiebaud │ │ │ │Tibble │Tibaut │ │ │ │Dibble │ │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Italian. │ German. │ Dutch. │ Netherlands. │ │Teobaldo │Dietbold │Tibout │Dippolt │ │Tebaldo │Diephold │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The people’s wolf was canonized as a Frank hermit, who gets called St. Thiou. Our friend Theodolf, the Icelander, as Fouqué calls him, would have been in his own land Thjodolf, and the contraction is there Kjold, or Kjol, as Kjoil, or Kjoille, is for Thjodhild, the same as the Diuthilt of the Germans, and Theudhilda, a nun-sister of Clovis. St. Audard has undergone a still greater change; he was once archbishop of Narbonne, and called Theodhard, or ward, the Tiard of Friesland, and Thjodvar, or Kjovar, in the North.

The remaining forms are,

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Ger. Dietbert; Frank. Theudebert—People’s brightness │ │ Ger. Dietbrand—People’s sword │ │ Ger. Dietburg—People’s protection │ │ │ │ Nor. German. Frank. │ │ Thjodgjer } │ │ Toger } │ │ Kiogjeir } Dietgar Theodokar—People’s spear │ │ Kygeir } │ │ Kyer } │ │ │ │ Ger. Dietfrid; Frank. Theodofrid—People’s peace │ │ Ger. Theodegisel; It. Teodisclo—People’s pledge │ │ Ger. Diether—People’s warrior │ │ Nor. Thjodhjalm; Ger. Diethelm—People’s helmet │ │ Ger. Dietlind; Lomb. Theudelinda—People’s snake │ │ Ger. Dietman—People’s man │ │ Ger. Diutrat; Frank. Theodorada—People’s council │ │ Ger. Dietram—People’s raven │ │ Nor. Thjodvald, Kjodvald, Kjoval—People’s power.[137] │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Footnote 137:

Weber and Jamieson; Munch; Grimm; Butler; Nibelung.

SECTION XI.—Uta, Ortwin.

Frau Uote was the mother of Kriemhild, who interpreted her dream and predicted the early death of her bridegroom. Ortwin, of Metz, was truchsess, or carver, and was the nephew of Hagan and Dankwart, sharing, of course, their fate.

They are not very interesting personages, but it is curious that they bear the only names, among all the Nibelungen, which have any genuine Anglo-Saxon likenesses; that is, if Uote is, indeed, from the word in Anglo-Saxon, ead, in the North aud, in Mæso-Gothic audr, in High German od, everywhere meaning wealth. Some ascribe it to the same root as good and as Woden, including them with adel, noble; but its derivatives are more easy to follow than its forefathers.

In the North, odel is the term for property to which an entire family retains an equal right, all-od, or allodial property. But when the warriors made incursions on their neighbours, they obtained, in addition, their share of spoil, originally cattle, feh, or feo, i. e., their fee. So feh-od came to be the word for possessions gained by the individual by personal service to his lord, and thus passed from cattle to land itself, when held of the chief on condition of following him in war; and thus we have the feudal system, with its feoffs and, too often, its feuds.

The feminine of this word probably named Uta. It was popular everywhere. Audur-diupaudga, or Audur the deeply rich, was a female viking, one of the first Icelandic settlers, who called a promontory Kambness, because she dropped her comb upon it; nor has her name passed from her own country, while, in Norman-England, it appears first as Auda and then as Alda, answering to Alda the wife of Orlando the Paladin, and Alda queen of Italy in 926, also to another Alda, a lady of the house of Este, in 1393. These are from the Gothic and Scandinavian aud; but the High German form was also represented by Oda and the Low German by the old Saxon Ead, which was soon translated into Ide, the most common of all the early feminines in the Cambrai register, together with its diminutive Idette. Ida was the name of King Stephen’s granddaughter, the Countess of Boulogne, was always used in Germany, and has of late been revived in England, from its sounding like the title of a poetical mountain of the Troad.

It is not quite clear whether Othilie, the Alsatian virgin of the seventh century, who was said to have been born blind, but to have obtained sight at her baptism, is a form of Odel, noble, or a diminutive of Oda, or whether she is Otthild, answering to our Eadhild, one of the many sisters of Æthelstane: and there is the same doubt with Odilo and Odilon, the masculines.

The masculine form of aud was extremely common. We had it in the person of Ida, king of Bernicia; the North owned many an Audr; the Germans used Odde, Orto, and Otto, and when the gallant Saxon counts won the imperial crown, they took the old Latin Otho for the rendering of their name. France, meantime, had called her Burgundian prince Eudon, but when a relay of Norman Audrs appeared, they were Odons; and in the needlework with which Queen Matilda adorned Bayeux cathedral, her husband’s doughty episcopal half-brother is always labelled ‘Odo Eps.’ But though we had previously had a grim Danish archbishop Odo, and though Domesday shows plenty of Eudos and Odos, neither form took root, and both are entirely continental.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ French. │ Provençal. │ Italian. │ German. │ Nor. │ │Odon │Orzil │Otto │Odo │Audr │ │Eudon │ ———————— │Ottone │Otto │Odo │ │Eudes │ Lettish. │Ottorino │Orto │Oddr │ │Othes │Atte │ │Otho │ │ │ │Attinsch │ │ │ │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

Ortvin the truchsess, had his namesake in the Lombard Audoin father to Alboin, also, in the Frank Audwine, blessed by St. Columbanus, beloved by St. Eligius, and bishop of Rouen, whose loveliest church is that of St. Audoenus, now transformed by French lips into St. Ouen. And, at home, we hail the same ‘rich friend’ in Eadwine, the first Christian king of Northumbria, whose conversion is the most striking portion of Bede’s history. His dominion extended over the Lothians, and he disputes with Aodh and the Ædui the naming of Edinburgh. Beloved as he was, his name of Edwin never entirely died away, and became in modern times diffused by the popularity of Goldsmith’s ballad, and of Beattie’s Minstrel. It is just known upon the Continent. Ortwin, or Audoenius, is very possibly the Don Ordoño of the early Spanish kingdoms; but Germany has chiefly dealt in the independent Odvin. Edwin, in spite of Mr. Taylor’s tragedy of Edwin the Fair, is not the same as Edwy, namely Eadwig, rich war, a name well remembered for the unhappy fate of the owner.

Odoacer, as the Romans called him, who was put to death by Theodoric, was properly Audvakr, treasure watcher; not quite the same as the Germanic Ottokar, or Ortgar, happy spear, which is identical with our familiar Eadgar, or Edgar. This name, after being laid to rest with the Anglo-Saxon monarchy, came to life again with the taste for antiques; and Edgar Ravenswood, in his operatic character, has brought Edgar and Edgardo.

Eadmund, or happy protection, is one of our most English names, belonging to the king of East Anglia, who, as the first victim of the Danes, became the patron saint of Bury St. Edmund’s, and the subject of various legends. The sudden deaths of Sweyn, and afterwards of Eustace de Blois, when engaged in ravaging his shrine, made him be regarded as an efficient protector; and Henry III., when he had the good taste to make his sons Englishmen, christened the second after this national saint, so that Edmunds were always to be found in the House of Plantagenet, and thence among the nobility and the whole nation. The Irish called it Emmon, the Danes adopted it as Jatmund, in addition to their own Oddmund, the French occasionally use it as Edmond, and Italy knows it as Edmondo.

The most really noted of all our own genuine appellations is, however, Eadvard, the rich guardian. It comes to light in our royal line with the son of Alfred, and won the popular love for the sake of the young king whom St. Dunstan and the English called the martyr, in their pity for his untimely fate. And again, little as ‘the Confessor’ had been loved in his feeble lifetime, enthusiastic affection attached to him as the last native sovereign; while, on the one hand, it was the policy of the Norman kings to regard him as their natural predecessor, and of the barons to appeal to the laws that had prevailed in his time. All parties thus were ready to elect St. Edward to be the patron saint of England, and, in the ardour of embellishing his foundation of Westminster Abbey, it was natural to give his name to the heir of the crown, afterwards ‘the greatest of the Plantagenets.’ The deaths of his three children bearing Norman or Spanish names confirmed this as the royal name, and the third king so called spread it far and wide. It was carried by his granddaughter to Portugal, and there had its honour so well sustained by her noble son, as there to find another home; and with us it has recurred continually in every rank.

The contraction Neddy, common to all of these, is one of the titles of a donkey.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ Welsh. │ French. │ Italian. │ │Edward │Jorwarth │Edouard │Odoardo │ │Neddy │ Irish. │ │ │ │Teddy │Eudbaird │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Portuguese. │ German. │ Nor. │ Netherlands. │ │Duarte │Eduard │Jaward │Ede │ │ │Oddward │Audvard │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The other less celebrated parallel varieties are:—

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Eng. Eadbald—Rich Prince │ │ Eng. Eadburh—Rich pledge │ │Eng. Eadburge; Nor. Oddbjorg; Ger. Edburge—Rich protection │ │ Eng. Eadbryht—Rich splendour │ │ Eng. Eadfrith; Ger. Otfrid; Prov. Audafrei—Rich peace │ │ Eng. Eadfled; Fr. Audofled—Rich increase │ │ │ │ Nor. German. │ │ Oddgrim │ Ortgrim } │ │ Audgrim │ } Rich helmet │ │ │ │ Nor. Odgisl—Rich pledge │ │ │ │ Nor. German. French. │ │ Audgunnr │ Oddgund │ Augen } │ │ Ougunna │ │ } Rich war │ │ Augunna │ │ } │ │ │ │ Nor. Odkel, Odkatla—Rich kettle │ │ Fr. Authaire—Rich warrior │ │ Oddlaug—Rich liquor │ │ Nor. Oddleif; Ger. Ortleip, Ortleib—Rich relic │ │ Eng. Eadmar; Nor. Odmar; Ger. Otmar—Rich greatness │ │ Nor. Oddny—Rich freshness │ │ Eng. Eadred—Rich council │ │ Eng. Eadric, Edric; Ital. Odorico—Rich king │ │ │ │ English. Nor. German. │ │ Eadulf │ Odulf │ Oddulf } │ │ │ Oulf │ Ortwulf } Rich wolf │ │ │ │ English. German. │ │ Eadwald │ Edvald } Rich power. │ │ Edwald │ Odvald } │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Eadswith, Eadgifu, and Eadgyth, all once separate names, together with Adelgifu and Ælfgifu, seem to have been all mixed up together by the Normans. Eadgyth was undoubtedly the name of Earl Godwin’s daughter, of whom Ingulf said, ‘Sicut spina rosam, genuit Godwinus Egitham;’ but in the roll of her lands in Domesday, she is Eddeva, Eddid, and Edeva, and for some little time Edeva seems to have been used among the Normans, though the queen of Henry I. was not allowed to retain anything so Saxon. Aline and Edith were used in a few families, but Edith survived the others.

Giav or give is not a very common commencement; but in the Vilkina Saga, King Gjuko is the father of Gunnar and Gudrun, and the whole family are called Giukungr. In German, in the Book of Heroes, he is Gibicho, and there was really a historical Burgundian King Gibica, mentioned as a law-giver; but in the Nibelungen-nôt, Gibich is only a vassal king of Etzel’s. The North had Gjaflaug, liquor giver, no doubt the Hebe of the Norse banquets, Gjavvald, in German, Gevald, and perhaps Gabilo and Gavele, the Gebelius of Latinists. Germany had likewise Gebahard, a firm or perhaps a strong giver, which still survives under the unpromising sound of Gebhard.

Gyda, or Gytha, that most difficult name, sometimes sounds like Gith, the contraction of Eadgyth; but it was evidently northern, having belonged to the proud damsel of Hordaland, who refused to marry Harald Harfagre, unless he was sole king of all Norway. Afterwards it was borne by the semi-Danish ladies of Earl Godwin’s family, and melted into Gjutha, then became confounded with Jutta, which was considered as short for Juditha.

SECTION XII.—Sintram.

Sindolt was the schenke, or butler, at the court of Wurms, in the Niebelungenlied; and in the Vilkina Saga, Sintram is one of the heroes of Thidrek’s following. The derivation of the first syllable is uncertain. Michaelis takes it from the old High German sinths, a journey. Professor Munch refers Sindre to a word meaning sparkling or spark, and mentions a mythological dwarf who was a famous smith, and was yclept Sindre; also a poet in Harald Harfagre’s time, whose appellation was Guthorm Sindre, or the sparkling. Sundre or Sondre is, the same authority tells us, more used in the Thellmarken in Norway than elsewhere; and another possible derivation for it is from ‘sondra,’ to sunder. The forms Sunrir and Sunris are there found; and Germany had a few others, such as Sindwald, or Sindolt, Sindbald, the Sinibaldo of Italy, Sindbert, Sindolf, and the above-mentioned Sindhram, chiefly interesting to us as chosen by Fouqué for the name of his masterpiece, the wonderful allegory spun out of Albert Durer’s more wonderful engraving.

SECTION XIII.—Elberich.

The elf king Elberich here brings in his own fairy kindred. In the Nibelung, he is watching over the fatal treasure when Siegfried comes to claim it, and, dwarf as he is, does such fierce battle over it that Siegfried was ‘in bitter jeopardy;’ but he is at length overcome sworn to Siegfried’s service, and brought by him to Wurms, where he has no more to do but to lament when Haghen makes away with the treasure.

He is called very ancient, and well he may be, for he had appeared in the Book of Heroes long before the time of even Hughdietrich, when King Otnit of Lombardy had set forth to win the daughter of the king of Syria, and Elberich showed himself under a linden tree in the guise of a beautiful child. Otnit was about to pick him up, but received from him a tremendous blow, and after a sharp fight came to terms, and thenceforth he assisted him in his enterprise, gave him magic armour, and assisted him to gain the lady. Much of this story is repeated in the French romance of Huon de Bourdeaux, where Auberon, as he is there called, gives the knight an ivory horn wherewith to summon him to his aid in an emergency, and thus arose the English Oberon, the elf-rik or king, the graceful but petulant fairy whom Drayton marries to the Irish Mab, and Shakespeare to the Greek Titania. He had his human namesakes, too; Alberich was in fashion as a Frank name, as Ælfric was as a Saxon; and the Domesday Book shows that while we had plenty of the latter native form, Edward the Confessor had already imported two specimens of ‘Albericus comes,’ and these or their sons contracted into Aubrey, which was known to fame as almost hereditary among the De Veres, earls of Oxford. France, too, had her Aubri; and Alberico was used in Lombardy, where likewise the notable and terrible monarch Alboin, whose name as Alboino is still common among the peasantry, bore the name that Anglo-Saxons called Ælfwine, or elf-friend, perhaps likewise an allusion to the aid and friendship of ‘Oberon the faëry,’ whose first protégé was a Lombard. Alwine is the feminine used in Germany, and perhaps may be our Albinia.

The elf of England and Germany, the alfr of the North, was a being dear to the imagination of the people. His name means the white, the same word already mentioned as forming the Latin albus, and designating the Elbe and the Alps, as well as appearing in the Elphin of Cymric legend. The elves, or white spirits, were supposed to be beautiful shadowy gifted beings, often strangely influencing the life of mortals, so that in old Germany the Alfr were the genii of man’s life, like the Disir of the North; and Elberich probably originally attended Otnit in this capacity. Christianity did not destroy the faith in the elf-world, but the existence of these beings was accounted for by supposing them children of Eve, whom she had hidden from the face of her Maker, and He had therefore condemned to be hidden from the face of man. They were thought to mourn for their exclusion from Redemption, and to seek baptism for their infants; but in process of time their higher attributes dropped off from them, and they were mixed up with the malicious black dwarfs. They took to stealing young maidens, as the Scottish Burd Ellen, and to exchanging infants in the cradle; and Scotland created an Elfinland, which was a striking element of worldly vanity. In England, the traditions of the Keltic spirits, pucks and pixies, were mixed up with them, and our Elizabethan poets treated them as the males of the French fairies; and what comes to us so recommended, surely we must accept.

These elves, in their more dignified days, played a considerable part in our native nomenclature; nay, the most honoured of all our English sovereigns wrote himself upon his jewel Ælfred, i.e., Elf in council, wise as a supernatural being. Some have tried to read the word Alfried, all peace; but there is no doubt that the Elf is the right prefix. The English loved to continue his name, but it was Latinized as Aluredus, and thus Alured is the form in which it is borne by many persons recorded in Domesday, and is still kept up and regarded as a separate name, though Alfred has been within the last century resumed in England; it is much used about the good king’s birth-place at Wantage in Berkshire, and has of late been adopted in France and Germany.

Ælfhæg was as high as an elf; whether given to a very small infant, or supposed to refer to a being of unearthly stature, does not appear. It was the very inappropriate name of the archbishop who, under Ethelred the Unready, was pelted to death at a Danish banquet because he would not oppress his flock to obtain a ransom. The offence given by Lanfranc in refusing to regard him as a true martyr may be judged by the large numbers called after him in Domesday. In Sussex they are set down as Ælfech; in Hants as Ælfec; in Nottingham as Ælfag; and thanks to the Latinism of Alphegius, our calendar calls him Alphege.

Ælfgifu, or the elf gift, was the unfortunate Elgiva of history, a not unsuitable name for one whose beauty was like a fatal fairy gift, bringing ruin on her and on her husband; but it was also used to translate into Saxon that of the Norman Emma, which was regarded as too foreign for the Saxons. Knut’s first wife, Ælfwine (elf darling), the daughter of Ælfhelm, Earl of Southampton, is recorded by Dugdale as Ailive; and Aileve, Ælveva, or Alveva, is very common in Domesday. Aileve indeed continued in use for many years.

In fact, it was England that made by far the most use of elf names. The North was perhaps the next in the use of them, having an immense number of instances of Alfr in the Landnama-bok, but there the elf at the end of a word has such an unfortunate tendency to transform himself into a wolf, that it is impossible to tell which was the original, the same person being sometimes written Thoralf, and sometimes Thorulf. There are few instances preserved from the other Teutonic branches, except as we have seen the two Lombardic names, that seem direct from Elberich.

English names in Æthel often contract into El, and when followed by an f, appear to be elves; but they must be pursued to their original form before being so rendered.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Nor. Alfdis—Household fairy │ │ Nor. Alfgejr; Eng. Ælfgar—Elf spear │ │ Nor. Alfgerdur—Elf woman │ │ Nor. Alfheidur, Alfeidur—Elf cheerfulness │ │ Eng. Ælfhelm—Elf helmet │ │ Nor. Alfhild—Elf battle maid │ │ Nor. Alfliotr—Elf terror │ │ Eng. Ælfric—Elf king │ │ Eng. Ælfthryth, Elfrida—Threatening elf │ │ Eng. Ælfwold—Elf power │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Alvaro and Elvira are the Spanish forms of these elf names.

A bishop of Lichfield, whose name was Ælfwine, was always called Ælla, and thus there is reason to suppose that elves named both the Ælle of Deira, whose name caused Gregory the Great to say that Alleluja should be sung in those regions, and also the later Ælla, who put Ragnar Lodbrog to death. Otherwise these would be referred to the word in Gothic, aljan, meaning battle, found in the Old German Ellanheri and Ellanperaht.

Some of our commencing els are no doubt from the fairy source; but there are others very difficult to account for, beginning in Anglo-Saxon with ealh, which is either a hall, or without the final h, the adjective all, by which in fact they are generally translated. The most noted of them is Ealhwine, the tutor of Charlemagne’s sons, generally called Alcuin, though his name has remained at home as Aylwin. Some Aylwins, are, however, certainly from Ægilwine, or awful friend; Ealhfrith, Ealhmund, and Ealhred, are also found, and one of these must have formed the modern Eldred. Among ladies are Ealhfled, and Ealhswyth, or Alswitha. On the whole it seems to us that the hall is the more probable derivation; the h so carefully used in the Saxon Chronicle is unlike a contraction.[138]

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Footnote 138:

Munch; Weber and Jamieson; St. Pelaye, Huon de Bourdeaux; Grimm; Keightley; Lappenburg; Landnama-bok; Domesday; Scott, Minstrelsy of Scottish Border; Sharon Turner; Kemble, Names of the Anglo-Saxons.

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V. THE KARLING ROMANCES

SECTION I.—The Paladins.

Another remarkable cycle of romantic fable connected itself with a prince, not lost in the dim light of heroic legend, but described by a contemporary chronicler, and revealed in the full light of history. However, in reality, the records of Eginhard were, no doubt, as unread and unknown as if they had never existed, and with the notion that a magnificent prince had reigned over half Europe, there was ample scope for tradition to connect with him and his followers all the floating adventures that Teutonic, Keltic, or Latin invention had framed; and, by-and-by, literature recorded them, using them as her own world of beauty and of wonder, until nothing but the names were left in common with their originals.

France, Germany, Lombardy, and Spain, all looked back to the same emperor, and hung their traditions around him, with a far more national sentiment than it was possible for them to possess for the British Arthur. In the Charles who bore the surname of the Great, all the legends centred. He was at once emperor, and, like his grandfather, champion of Europe against the Saracens, with whom in popular fancy, both his own Saxons and his grandson’s Northmen were fused together; he was besieged, like his grandson, in Paris, and lost all his best followers in the pass of Roncesvalles, by the treachery of the Navarrese.

These were the materials that fancy had to work upon. The existing feudal system supplied the machinery, and not with utter incorrectness, since it had actually then existed in its infancy, and the chiefs of the Frank court were veritably obliged to pay martial service to their head for the lands that they had received from him on the conquest of the country. Pfalz, the same word which we now call palace, the central court, furnished the title for the feudatories employed at the court; Pfalzen, a word that continued in use in its proper region, Germany, naming the Pfalzgraf of the Rhine, whence we have learnt to speak of the Count Palatine and the Palatinate.

Pfalzen, then, on French tongues, became Paladins, and Paladins were supposed to have been not so much political as military, so that we regard the term as meaning a champion of high prowess. There was an idea likewise of a council of these Paladins as the twelve peers of France in the golden age of her constitution; and the Docipairs, as the Douzepairs were sometimes run together, stood on a level in romantic imaginations with the Seven Champions of Christendom, or the Knights of the Round Table.

Spanish ballads, German lays, and Provençal songs, had been working up the stories of the Paladins, when somewhere about the year 1100, there came forth a French translation of the supposed chronicle of Turpin, who had really been archbishop of Rheims in the reign of Charlemagne. The chronicle was confirmed in 1122 by the infallible authority of the Pope, and was translated again and again, amplified and referred to by every one who wrote or sung of the Paladins, for the events they celebrated, whether it contained them or not.

The influence of the Karlingen upon our subject has been great. First, some of the genuine historical characters left hereditary Christian names; next, several were adopted in romantic and chivalrous families, and in the poetical ages of literary Italy, they became absolutely frequent.

Paladins, however, connect themselves with hardly any genuine female names of the same period. The Ossianic Fenians have their wives and beloved maidens, the knights of the Round Table are united with ladies of Cymric title, like their own, and evidently as traditionary as themselves; the dames of the Nibelungenlied are intimately connected with the whole structure of the legend; but the knights of Charlemagne have brought with them few genuine ladye loves. Orlando once had a wife, the Alda, or Belinda, of the old traditions; but even the Clarice of Renaud in the Quatre Fils Aymon, betrays a late French, or rather Romanesque, influence; and far more do the Doña Clara, Belerma, and Sebilla of the Spanish ballads, show how late they must have arisen; whilst Angelica, Marfisa, Bradamante, Fiordespina, and Fiordiligi, and the like, are absolute Italian inventions.

The Frankish ladies seem, in fact, to have been held in little estimation. Chivalry had not blossomed into respect for womanhood, and they had probably been left behind by their lords in the march of civilization. The female names from time to time cast up in the surging tide of affairs seldom appear except for disgrace or misfortune, so that we come to the conclusion that womanhood in the Frank empire was seldom happy or honourable except in the cloister. Thus, no traditional names of woman came down with the Paladins; and when love became an essential part of the machinery of the Italian poets, they had to invent, and entitle, the heroines for themselves.

SECTION II.—Charles.

Most heroes gain by becoming the subjects of romance, but this has been by no means the case with the great Karl of the Franks, for though ‘il Rè Carlo’ be three rolled into one, he has lost the heroism of him of the hammer, and the large-minded statesmanship of the first emperor, obtaining instead the dulness and weak credulity of him who was called the Bald.

The three Charleses are matter of history, and the Carlo Magno of romance and ballad is little more than a lay figure, always persuaded to believe traitorous stories of his best friends, and meeting with undignified adventures, as in the case of the enchanted ring that bound his affections to lady, bishop, and lake. We therefore pass on at once to this name, which a foolish old story thus accounts for. As an infant he was put out to nurse, and when brought home, much grown, his mother exclaimed, ‘What great carle is this?’ whence he continued to be so called, instead of by his baptismal name of David. This tale may have been suggested by the fact, that the veritable Charles the Great, when laying aside his state he became a scholar in his palace hall, under the teaching of the English Alcuin, assumed the appropriate title of David.

Karl was in fact, as we have shown in the chapter on ancestral names, the regular family name of the line, used in regular alternation from its first appearance with the grandfather of the hammering Charles, who perhaps took his soubriquet from Thor, and gradually acquiring more and more ignominious epithets till it sunk into obscurity in Lorraine, whence it only emerged again when the Karlings intermarried with Philippe Auguste, and brought the old imperial name into the French royal family, where five more kings bore it. They sent it to Naples with Charles of Anjou; and his son, Charles Robert, or Caroberto, being elected to Hungary, had so many namesakes that Camden was led to suppose that all Hungarian kings were called Carl. It went to Germany when the son of the blind king of Bohemia received it from his father’s connection with the French court, and afterwards reigned as the 4th Karl of Germany, taking up his reckoning from the old Karlingen. Again, the second ducal house of Burgundy was an off-shoot from the line of Valois, and it was from Charles the Bold that the name was transmitted to his great grandson of Ghent, soon known to Europe as Carlos I. of Spain, Karl V. of Germany, Carolus Quintus of the Holy Roman Empire. He was the real name spreader from whom this became national in Spain, Denmark, and even in Britain, for his renown impressed James I. with the idea that this must be a fortunate name; when, in the hope of averting the unhappy doom that had pursued five James Stuarts in succession, he called his sons Henry and Charles. The destiny of the Stuart was not averted, but the fate of the ‘royal martyr’ made Charles the most popular of all appellations among the loyalists, and afterwards with the Jacobites, in both England and Scotland, so that rare as it formerly was, it now disputes the ground with John, George, and William, as the most common of English names.

Another namesake of Charlemagne must not be forgotten, namely, the son of St. Olaf, of Norway, whom his followers, intending an agreeable surprise to the father, baptized after the great emperor by the name of Magnus, whence the very frequent Magnus, of Scandinavia, and Manus of Ireland.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ Keltic. │ French. │Span. and Port.│ │Charles │ GAEL. │Charles │Carlos │ │Charlie │Tearlach │Charlot │ German. │ │ │ ERSE. │ │Karl │ │ │Searlus │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Italian. │ Swedish. │ Danish. │ Dutch. │ │Carlo │Karl │Karl │Carolus │ │Carolo │Kalle │Karel │Carel │ │ │ │ │Karel │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Polish. │ Bohemian. │ Illyrian. │ Lusatian. │ │Karol │Karel │Karlo │Karlo │ │Karolek │ ————————— │Karlica │Karlko │ │ │ Slovak. │Karlic │ │ │ │Karol │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │Lettish. │ Esthonian. │ Hungarian. │ Dantzig. │ │Karls │Karl │Karoly │Kasch │ │ │Karel │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The two feminines are of late invention. The first I have been able to find was Carlota or Charlotte, of Savoy, who married Louis XI., and thus introduced this form to French royalty. Charlotte d'Albret had the misfortune to be given in marriage to Cesare Borgia, and had one daughter, who married into the house of La Tremouille, whence the brave Lady Derby carried it into England, and our registers of the seventeenth century first acknowledge Charlet. The Huguenotism of the house of La Tremouille connected it with that of Bouillon, where the heiress Carola, or Charlotte, was married in 1588. The house of Orange probably thence derived it, and it became known in Germany, whence it was brought to us in full popularity by the good queen of George III. A sentimental fame was also bestowed on it, as the name of Göthe’s heroine in Werther.

Carolina, the other form, seems to have been at first Italian, and thence to have spread to Southern Germany, and all over that country, whence we received it with the wife of George II., by whom it was much spread among the nobility, and is now very common among the peasantry.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Spanish. │ Italian │ │Charlotte │Charlotte │Carlota │Carlotta │ │Lotty │Lolotte │Lola │Carlota │ │Chatty │Caroline │ │Carolina │ │Caroline │ │ │ │ │Carry │ │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Swedish. │ Slovak. │ Lettish. │ │Charlotte │Lotta │Karolina │Latte │ │Lottchen │ │Karolinka │ ————————— │ │Caroline │ │Karla │ Dantzig. │ │Lina │ │ │Linuschca │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Ceorl was the name of an early king of Mercia, and of a thane of Alfred’s, who defeated the Danes, and Carloman was almost as common as Carl in the old Karling family.[139]

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Footnote 139:

Sismondi; Roscoe; Michaelis; Pott; Anderson, Genealogies.

SECTION III.—Roland, &c.

When the army of Charles the Great was marching back from Spain, the Gascons, Navarrese, and Goths, who were afraid of being swallowed up by his empire, if they exchanged his protection for that of the Arabs, plotted together, fell on the rear of his columns as they were passing through the defile of Roncesvalles, close to the little town of Fuente Arabia, and slaughtered the whole division that were guarding the baggage. ‘There was slain Rotlandus, prefect of the Armorican border.’

So says Eginhard, the contemporary chronicler, and as he mentions only two other nobles as having been killed, it is natural to conclude that this Rotlandus was a man of mark. Who was he? Certainly Warden of the Marches of Brittany, but was he a Frank Hruodland (the country’s glory), the repressor of the Kelts, or was he a Breton in the Frankish service? The Cymry have laid claim to him; they say that the rolling word is intended to render Tallwch, a rolling or overwhelming torrent, the name of the father of Tristrem; and in the later romances, this knight has actually been turned into Rowland, which thus has become a favourite national Welsh name.

It is far more likely that ‘Rotlandus’ was Frank, but the next question is, what were the deeds that made his birth worth contending for, and the war song of Rou be the chant of the gallant minstrel Taillefer, to cheer the Normans on to their victory at Hastings?

Eginhard is utterly silent. Turpin tells us that Rolandus was the emperor’s nephew, the son of his sister Bertha, and of Milo de Anglars. With Turpin, the expedition to Spain is the prominent feature of the reign, and he gives us an account of a mingled battle and controversy between Roland and Ferragus, a giant of the race of Goliath, and only vulnerable in one point, where, however, Roland managed to pierce him. Very soon after follows the ambush of Roncesvalles, the enemy being Saracens, not Christians, but conducted by the traitor Ganelon. After a terrible battle, Roland, sorely wounded, lay down under a tree, and apostrophizing his good sword Durenda, in the most tender manner, thrice struck it upon a block of marble, and shattered it in twain, lest it should fall into the Saracen hands. Then he blew upon his horn, which had such wondrous tones that all other horns split at the sound, and this blast was with such effort that he burst all the veins in his neck, and the sound reached the king, eight miles off! He then commended his soul to heaven, and made a most pious and beautiful end.

That block of marble is magnified by popular fame into the mountain itself, and la Brèche de Roland is supposed to be the cleft made by his sword! The Northern Lights, too, are said to be King Charles riding by, and Roland bearing the banner. The Spaniards, so far as they were Christians and Teutons, felt with the Franks; so far as they were Celtiberians, against them, and the result was a collection of admirable popular ballads, all prime authorities with Don Quixote, in which il rey Carlos and his peers are treated as national heroes. Nevertheless they are proud of his defeat at Roncesvalles, declare that the emperor broke his word to Don Alfonso of Leon, and that the attack was therefore made in which Don Alfonso’s nephew, Bernardo de Carpio, was leader, and demolished the invulnerable Conde Roldan, by squeezing him to death in his arms.

It is the Spaniards alone who have transferred to Roldan the invulnerability of Achilles, Siegfried, and Diarmaid; the French and Italians bestow it only on Ferragus, who is, as already mentioned, an evident Keltic importation through the Breton poets, being either the Irish Fergus, or the Welsh Vreichfras, though he has since become a Moorish giant.

The English, having their own Arthur to engage their attention, did little more than versify Turpin, but allowed Roland’s sword to be carried away by his friend Sir Baldwin, and took vengeance for his death.

But it was the Italians who did the most for their Orlando. Some floating Valkyr notion had attached itself in German fancy to his mother, who was at first Bertha the goose-footed, and then the large-footed, and romance further related that she was the emperor’s sister, who had secretly married the knight Milone di Anglante, and therefore was driven out of the court, and forced to take refuge in a cave, where the hero was born, and was called Rotolando, from his rolling himself on the ground. His father went to the wars, and Berta became the diligent spinner before alluded to, but she was still so poor that his young companions each gave her boy a square of cloth to cover him, two white, and two red, whence he always bore those colours quartered on his shield. Afterwards he was taken into favour, and became the chief Paladin.

Here Luigi Pulci took him up, and made him the hero of a poem called the Morgante Maggiore, from a giant whom Orlando converted, and who followed him faithfully about through all his adventures. Orlando is here a high-spirited Christian knight, brave, pious, and faithfully attached to his wife Alda. When slain at Roncesvalles, he mentions her in his last and very beautiful prayer, and his sorrow for his comrades, and parting with his horse and sword, are very touching.

It was Bojardo who deprived Orlando of his old traditional character of the high-minded champion, that crusading days had dwelt upon. Led, perhaps, by the idea of the frenzy of Amadis de Gaul, he made Orlando fall desperately in love with the fair and false Angelica, princess of Catay, and leave the court and all his duties just as the Saracen king Gradasso was invading France, to obtain possession of Durindana, Orlando’s sword. The action of the poem is taken up with the adventures imposed upon Orlando by the mischievous beauty, and the pursuit of him by the other Paladins, and finally it leaves off with the whole chivalry of Charlemagne besieged in Paris by the Saracens.

Orlando was only innamorato according to Bojardo; Ariosto took him up and made him furioso. Continuing the poem where it had dropped from Bojardo’s hands, Ariosto made Angelica fall in love with an obscure youth, and marry him, whereupon Orlando, after the example of Amadis de Gaul, went into the state of frenzy that Don Quixote tried to imitate; and the Christians suffered as much as the Greeks did without Achilles, till the champion’s senses were brought back from the moon; when he returned to his duty, restored fortune to the Christians, and saved France from becoming tributary to the infidel.

Charles VIII. of France, in his romantic youth, named one of his short-lived children, Charles Roland, by the way of union of the two heroes.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │English. │ French. │ Italian. │ Spanish. │ │Roland │Roland │Orlando │Roldan │ │Rowland │ │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │Portuguese. │ German. │ Netherlands. │ │ │Rolando │Roland │Roeland │ │ │Roldao │Ruland │ │ │ │ │Rudland │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The derivation of the first syllable is the word hruod in Frank, hrothr in the North, and in modern German ruhm, meaning fame or glory.

Hruod is a most prolific word. As Hruodgar, famous spear, it figures in the Nibelungenlied, where the Markgraf Rudiger is the special friend of Dietrich, and for a long time, like him, refrains from the fray, though at last he plunges into it and is killed.

There seems to have been a veritable Hruodgar living in the time of Pepin, who married a lady whose father’s name was Hector, whence it was taken for granted that she descended from Hector of Troy. Therefore the House of Este bore the white eagle in their coat of arms, because it was said he of Troy had a shield azure with a silver eagle! Roger, Olivier, and Roland are mentioned together as subjects of minstrel songs. In the old romances there is a Ruggieri de Risa, or Reggio, who marries an Amazon, called Galaciella, but is soon after murdered, and she is carried off by sea by her enemies, whom, however, she manages to overpower and destroy on the voyage, but only to be driven to a desert island, where she dies at the birth of her twins, Ruggiero and Marfisa. This Ruggiero is the prime favourite of the Italian poets. Bojardo tells how he was bred up on lion’s marrow by the enchanter Atlante, in Africa, and when his education was finished, was sent to France with the wonderful hippogriff, or winged horse. And Ariosto, probably in compliment to the House of Este, made his adventures the main plot of the Orlando Furioso, and completed it by converting him to Christianity, and marrying him to the brave and amiable Amazon, Bradamante.

Bojardo probably adopted Ruggiero because his country was Reggio, a country with which the name had become connected, when Roger de Hauteville had founded the kingdom of Sicily, and Ruggero, the son of his elder brother, Robert Guiscard, had been count of Apulia. These were both, of course, direct from the northern Hruodgeir, as was the turbulent Roger de Montgomery, who gave so much trouble in Normandy. It was once a famous knightly name, but is now too much discarded. Roger must once have been very frequent in England, since Hodge is still proverbial for a rustic,—whereas as a rule he is never so called, though the Registrar-General noted an extraordinary number of Roger Tichbornes in the year of the claimant’s trial!

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ Spanish. │ German. │ │Roger │Roger │Ruggiero │Rogerio │Rüdiger │ │Hodge │ │Rogero │ │Roger │ ├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤ │ Nor. │Netherlands.│ Russian. │ Polish. │ Lettish. │ │Hrodgjer │Rogier │Rozer │Rydygier │Rekkerts │ │Raadgjer │Rutger │ │ │ │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

Hrothgar was also a famed name among the Angles. It appears in Beowulf, as the chief of the Scyldings, the son of Healfdane. There, too, are found Hrothmund and Hrothwulf; and the northern names of Hroar and Hrolfr are contractions of these, though the characters they belong to are not the same as those in Beowulf. Hrolf Krake was the subject of a northern Saga; and the father of our Norman kings, whom we are wont to call by his Latinism of Rollo, formed from the French stammer of Rou, was in fact Hrolf Gangr, or at full length, Hrothulf, Fame-Wolf. A name of fame and terror it was, when the mighty man, too weighty for steed to carry him, was expelled from his own land, and fought for a home, not for plunder, among the fertile orchards of Neustria, when his followers' rude homage overthrew the degenerate Karling, and ‘the grisly old proselyte,’ in his baptism, assumed, without perhaps knowing of the similarity, the French Robert. This change prevented his original name from being very prevalent among the Normans; and the German form, Rudolf, is chiefly from a sainted Karling prince, who was bishop of Bourges, and from whom Rudolf of Hapsburg must have derived it. From him it became imperial, and other countries received it, without knowing it for their old friend.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Spanish. │ Italian. │ │Rodolph │Rodolphe │Rodulfo │Rodolfo │ │Rolf │Raoul │ ————————— │Ridolfo │ │ │Roul │ Portuguese. │ │ │ │Rou │Rodolpho │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Bavarian. │ Frisian. │ Swiss. │ │Rudolf │Ruedolf │Rulef │Ruedi │ │ │ │Rulves │Ruedeli │ │ │ │Rotholf │Rudi │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

│ Swedish. │ Nor. │ Lettish. │ Hungarian. │ │Rudolf │Hruodulf │Rohlops │Rudolf │ │Rolf │Hrolfr │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Robert, the name assumed by Rolf Gauge at his baptism was Frank, rather than Northern, inasmuch as bjart is an uncommon conclusion among his native race. Hruadperaht, or bright fame, was the original form, the property of a bishop, who somewhere about the year 700 founded the first Christian church at Wurms. Honoured alike in France and Germany, he became Ruprecht in the latter, and Robert in the former. Like St. Nicolas, he is in Germany supposed to exercise a secret supervision over children; in some places Knecht Ruprecht dispenses Christmas gifts, but he more often keeps watch over naughty children, and thus answers to the English Robin Goodfellow, or Hob Goblin. Red was long supposed to be the origin of the name, which some made Redbert, or bright speech, others Redbeard! The German form, however, disproves both of these, and Ruprecht continued in honour in its own country, naming in especial that wise Pfalzgraf of the Rhine, who in 346 founded the university of Heidelberg; and on the deposition of the crazy Bohemian Kaisar Wenzel, was elected Emperor of Germany, and reigned for nine years with great success and glory. It was after him that the infant, born at Prague, during the brief greatness of the Winter King, received that name of Rupert, which was so terrible to the Roundheads, but which for the most part they translated by their native Robert—native, because thoroughly Anglicized, for it was of French growth, had belonged to two or three saints, and to the hymn-writing and much persecuted king called the pious, the second of the Capet or Parisian dynasty; but after the son of St. Louis carried it off to the House of Bourbon, it scantily appeared among the royal family. Normandy, however, cultivated it after it had been chosen at the baptism of her first duke, and sent it to Apulia with the astute Robert Guiscard, whence Roberto became national in the Neapolitan realms, and was adopted by the Angevin line, among others by the king who patronized Petrarch. The next Duke of Normandy who bore it was that wild pilgrim, whose soubriquet varies between the Devil and the Magnificent. The disinheritance of his equally wild, but more unfortunate grandson, Robert Courthose, diverted it from the English throne, but a flood of knights and nobles had poured in and established it so completely, that in a few generations more Hob was one of the established peasant names in England. Robin was its more gracious contraction—let our dearly beloved archer be who he will—either as ballad tells, the outlawed Earl of Huntingdon, or as late critics would have us believe, only another manifestation of Robin Goodfellow, or of the wild huntsman. Robin was the epithet by which Queen Elizabeth was wont to address the two earls, step-father and stepson, who so long sunned themselves in her favour; and though it has now acquired a homely sound, and the popularity of the full name has somewhat waned, it is still frequent. To Scotland it was brought by the Anglo-Norman barons, and when the English Bruces had made their distant drop of Royal Scottish blood float them to the throne, Robert the Bruce became a passionately beloved national hero, and his name one of the most favoured in the Lowlands. In Ireland it is called Roibin, a gentleman called in English Robin Lawless being in Irish, Roibin Laighleis.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ Scotch. │ French. │ Italian. │ │Robert │Robert │Robert │Roberto │ │Robin │Robin │Robers │Ruberto │ │Hob │Robbie │Robi │Ruperto │ │Bob │Rab │Robinet │ │ │Rupert │ │Rupert │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

│ German. │ Bavarian. │ Slovak. │ Lusatian. │ │Hruodebert │Ruprecht │Ruprat │Huprecht │ │Ruprecht │Prechtl │ │ │ │Rupert │ │ │ │ │Rudbert │ │ │ │ │Robert │ │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Not behindhand in glory is the northern Hrothrekr, or Germanic Hruoderich, famous ruler. In Gothic Spain, it was indeed Rodrigo, who lost his country to the Moors, but became in his people’s minds the centre for pity as much as for blame, and the subject of the beautiful legends that Southey has embodied in the finest of his poems. And it was Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar,‘Ruy mi Cid Campeador,’ in whom ballad lore delighted. This became one of the most frequent of all the grand-sounding names prefaced by Don, and Rodriguez and Ruiz to be very common surnames.

The northern Hrothrekr was not long in being shortened to Hrorekr, and thence came the name of that Norseman, who, according to Russian historians, was invited by the Slaves to be their protector, and founded the Norman dynasty of Ruric, which continued on the throne during the troubled days of Tatar supremacy. Roric and Godwald were the first Northmen to obtain fiefs in France. In Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, Roderick has a sort of false honour, being adopted as the equivalent of the native Keltic names, the Welsh Rhydderc, and the Gadhaelic Ruadh; for Roy and Rorie, though rightly and traditionally so called by their friends, would now all make Teutons of themselves, and use the signature of Roderick.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ Spanish. │ │Roderick │Rodrigue │Rodrigo │Rodrigo │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Nor. │ Russian. │ │ │Roderich │Rothrekr │Rurik │ │ │ │Hrorek │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

There are numerous other forms from this prolific source. Rother, who figures in Lombardic history, is the German Hruodhari, or famous warrior, and in the North divides with Hrothgar the property of the strange abbreviation, Roar, and in the harsh old Latinisms of Frank names is Crotcharius.

There too is found Chrodovaldus, which in German was once Hrodowald, and afterwards Rudold, perhaps, too, the Danish and Scottish Ribolt, and in the North Roald, and in Italian Roaldo, the founder of an order of monks. Nay, Romeo de' Montecchi himself, the Montague of Shakespeare, bore a common Lombardic name, softened down from the Chrodomarus of Frankish Latin, as in Germany Hruotmar is Rudmar and Romar. Hromund, or Romund, must not be confused with the derivatives of Ragin, though it is most likely that the Irish Redmond is a Danish legacy from this source.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Nor. Hrodbern—Famous bear │ │ Frank. Chrodogang—Famous progress │ │ Nor. Hrothild; Ger. Hrodhilde; Frank. Chrodehilda—Famous │ │ heroine │ │ Ger. Hrodfrid—Famous peace │ │ Ger. Hrodhard—Famous strength │ │ Ger. Hrudo; Frank. Chrodo; Nor. Hroi—Fame │ │ Nor. Hrodny—Famous freshness │ │ Nor. Hrollaug—Famous liquor │ │ Nor. Hrolleif—Relic of fame │ │ Nor. Hrodsind; Frank. Chrodoswintha—Famous strength │ │ Ger. Hrodstein—Famous stone. │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Ruod must have been evolved from the word meaning speech, razda in Gothic, rœdo in Anglo-Saxon, whence advice became rede in Old English and Scottish, and rath in modern German.

Rad is chiefly a Frankish prefix, though we had one king Redwald. Radegond, or war council, was a Frankish queen who became a nun at Poitiers, and left a name still used by French girls in that neighbourhood. King Ordoño of Gallicia married, about the year 910, a lady recorded as Radegonda, or Arragonda, or Urraca, so that the perplexing Urraca may possibly be a contraction of this name. In the Spanish vernacular a magpie is called urraca, but probably from the likeness of the word to the note of the bird.

Radegist or Radelchis, and Radegar, were princes of Beneventum. Radbad, the Frisian Rabbo, and Radbert, seem to be Old German forms, but it is a word liable to be confused with hramn, and with rand, and though a common masculine termination in England, in the North it is only a corruption of fred, peace.

SECTION IV.—Renaud.

To the French, Renaud de Montauban was a far more popular and national hero than even Roland.

His name, Raginwald, was common among the Franks, and his origin is suspected to be an Aquitanian Rainaldus, who in 843 was killed in fighting with the Bretons, when in the miserable days of Charles the Bald, they invaded France under Nominoë, and were joined by the traitorous Count Lambert.

Charles the Bald, as has been said, seems to have sat for the picture of his grandfather, the Bretons turned into the Saracens, Count Lambert’s treachery went to swell the account of Gano, and Rinaldus could fall at Roncevaux quite as well as at Mans!

He is just mentioned by Turpin as among the knights who accompanied Charlemagne, and were killed at Roncesvalles; and the Spanish ballads dwelt much upon the exploits of Don Reynaldos; indeed it appears that he enjoyed Don Quixote’s special admiration for having carried off, in spite of forty Moors, a golden image of Mahomet, which he wanted to melt up for the payment of his men!

Such an exploit was decidedly in the line of the French hero Renaud, or Regnault, who is in romance a sort of prince of freebooters. He and his three brothers go by the title of the Quatre Fils Aymon, and he is a sort of chivalrous Robin Hood to the French mind, insomuch that country inns may still be found with the sign of the Quatre Fils Aymon. In the old French tale, the outlawry of Renaud is accounted for by his having been insulted by the emperor’s nephew Berthelot, while playing at chess, and replying with a blow of the golden board that struck out the offender’s brains. He and his brothers then were banished, lived a freebooting life, built the castle of Montalban in Gascony, the king of which country bestowed on him in marriage his daughter Clarice, and finally went on pilgrimage, made his peace with the emperor, turned his hand to the building of Cologne Cathedral, and was killed there by his jealous fellow-workmen.

In Italy Rinaldo became a wild, high-spirited Paladin, always fighting and falling in love, and retaining little in common with his French original, except the possession of his matchless horse Bayard, or Bajardo, which fought as well as his master, and on his loss ran wild in the woods. In the Morgante, Rinaldo mistrusts Gano, and avoids the ambush of Roncesvalles, but is afterwards carried with his brother Ricciardetto by two devils, to revenge the slaughter, which they do most effectually.

In the Orlando Innamorato, Rinaldo is at first ensnared by Angelica’s beauty, but is cured by drinking unwittingly of the fountain of hate, while she drank of the fountain of love, and was enamoured of him. He is carried off by Malagigi to an enchanted island of delight, but returns during the great siege of Paris, takes a counter-draught of the fountain of love, fights in single combat with Ferrau, but is interrupted by Bajardo straying into a wood, whither he pursues the animal, and is there deserted by Boiardo, to be taken up by Ariosto, and after many adventures brought to relieve the Christian army in the utmost danger, and to give his sister Bradamante in marriage to Ruggiero.

Some have thought that Tasso’s one fictitious hero, Rinaldo, was partly borrowed from the Paladin, going as he does to the enchanted gardens of Armida, and being only brought back when the crusading host was in the utmost jeopardy. The chief mission of this latter Rinaldo was, however, it may be suspected, to be a compliment to the House of Este.

Some even think Roland himself only another version of Ragenwald, but the one Paladin is undoubtedly traceable to Hruoland, as is the other to Ragenwald, though I am inclined to think that the Rolandsaulen, that accompany the Irminsaulen at the gates of old cities, may perhaps be rightly from Raginwald, judgment-power.

The Normans received this name from two sources, the French Regnault or Renaud, generally from the Paladin, and from their own northern Ragnwold or Rognwald. So Domesday has it in various forms, as Ragenald, Reynald, and Rainald, the latter fourteen times after the Conquest; and amongst them all we have derived our Christian name of Reginald, and the surname of Reynolds. The Scots took their form from the northern Rognvald, belonging to a great Jarl of the Orkneys, a noted skald, and thus obtained Ronald, which is in Gaelic Raonmill.

Ragn, or judgment, the leading word in this class of names, is connected with the Latin rego, to rule, and as rectus sprang from the one, so the Gothic raihts and our right arose from the Teutonic forms, as well as to wreak, and the German rache, vengeance, both from the old idea of justice. Ragn, though primarily meaning justice, is also used, as judgment is, in the sense of wisdom. Reginald Pole was in his own time known as Reynold. We get the longer name from his Latinism as Reginaldus.

Some of Renaud’s freebooting fame may have come from a person whose name so closely resembles his own, that it is by no means easy to distinguish their progeny; namely, Raginhard, or firm judge. A nobleman of this name was Count of the Palace, or Pfalzgraf, to Louis de Debonnaire, and engaged in a conspiracy against him, with Bernard, king of Italy. They were made prisoners, and condemned; the emperor commuted the sentence to the loss of their sight; but his wife, who wanted Bernard’s inheritance, took care that so savage a person was sent to perform the operation that they both died in consequence.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ Scottish. │ Gaelic. │ Italian. │ │Reginald │Ronald │Raonmill │Rinaldo │ │Reynold │Ranald │ │ │ │Rex │ │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Spanish. │ French. │ German. │ Polish. │ │Reynaldos │Regnauld │Reinwald │Raynold │ │ │Renaud │Reinald │ │ │ │Regnault │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Esthonian. │ Lettish. │ Frisian. │ │ │Rein │Reinis │Reinold │ │ │Reino │ │Rennold │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Another Reginard is said by Le Grand to have been a cunning politician, who lived in Austrasia in the ninth century, and much troubled his lord by sometimes taking part with the Germans, sometimes with the French, by which means he became so much detested that he was the subject of many songs in which he was called the Little Fox. At any rate, in the great animal epic, the fox has taken the name of Reinart, or Reinecke Fuchs, and as early as 1313, when the sons of the wily Philippe le Bel were knighted, the edifying spectacle was represented before them of the life of Renard the Fox, who became successively physician, clerk, bishop, archbishop, and pope, eating however hens and chickens all the while, much after the fashion of their father’s unhappy tool at Avignon. Renard has thus become the absolute name of the animal in France, to the entire exclusion of the ancient golpe, and in England Reynard is his universal epithet. It was not however confined to the creature, but was once prevalent among the human kind.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Provençal. │ Italian. │ │Reynard │Regnard │Rainart │Rainardo │ │ │Renart │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Frisian. │ Polish. │ Hungarian. │ │Raginhart │Renert │Raynard │Reinhard │ │Reinhard │Rinnert │Raynard │Reinhard │ │Reineke │Rennart │ │ │ │Renke │Rienit │ │ │ │Renz │ │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Another old Frankish form is Raginmund, much in use in southern France, where there was a long line of counts of Toulouse, called Raymond, one of whom was celebrated by Tasso in the first Crusade as a gallant knight, but the last of whom, Raymond Berenger, one of the earliest examples of double names, went down before the sword of the first Simon de Montford, as a supporter of the Albigenses. The counts of Barcelona, in Spain, bore the like name, and the old Romanesque territories are still its usual home.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ Provençal. │ Italian. │ German. │ │Raymond │ Raimons │Raimondo │Reinmund │ │ ————————— │ ————————— │ │Reimund │ │ French. │ Spanish. │ │ │ │ Raimond │Ramon │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Terrible to us, but glorious to Denmark, was the name of Ragnar. Once we had it peacefully in East Anglia, as Raginhere, the warrior of judgment, but in that same East Anglia it was to have a deadly fame. The historical Ragnar seems to have been decorated with a few mythical exploits of some more ancient hero, for he is one of the dragon killers. His first wife, Thyra, had her bower encircled by a deadly poisonous serpent, the ravager of the whole country, until he won her hand by the slaughter of the serpent, having guarded himself from its venom by a suit of hairy garments covered with pitch, whence he obtained the soubriquet of Lodbrog. Afterwards he married a poor but beautiful maiden called Krake, who, after she had borne him four sons, disclosed that she was the last of the Wolsungen, the daughter of Sigurd and Brynhild. Nay, Icelandic families connect themselves through her with the heroes of Wurms! And after this it is strange to find Jarl Ragnar sailing up the Seine, and ravaging Paris, in the days of Charles the Bald, being in fact the Agramante of the poets. Again he was the cause of bitter woe to England, falling into the hands of King Ælle of Northumbria, and being put to death by being thrown into a pit filled with vipers, where, till his last breath, he chanted the grand death song that is worthy to stand beside the dirge of King Eric Blödaxe. It was revenge for his death that brought his fierce sons with that dire armament which ravaged England—the invasion that was fatal to Edmund of East Anglia, ruined the great abbeys of the fens, and though finally mastered by Alfred, made the North of England Danish. This name of dread was brought to Normandy by his kindred, and figures in Domesday as Raynar, a frequent surname in England. In France it was cut down to René, a name that crept into the House of Anjou, and was bestowed on the prince—too much of a troubadour and knight-errant for a king—who vainly tried on so many crowns, and was hated in England because ‘Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter.’ Why the feminine of this name, Renée, was chosen for the younger daughter of Louis XII., does not appear, but when she married into the House of Este, it was translated into Renata, and the Italians, in their revived classicalism, seem to have fancied it had some connection with regeneration. Renira is the Dutch feminine form.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Provençal. │ German. │ │Rayner │Reignier │Raynier │Reiner │ │Rainer │Renier │ ———————— │ ———————— │ │ │René │ Italian. │ Nor. │ │ │ │Renato │Ragnar │ │ │ │Ranieri │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Raginmar, great judgment, still exists in Germany, as Reinmar, or Reimar, and is the most probable origin of the Ramiro, so frequent among the early kings of the small struggling Pyrenean realms.

Ragnhild, a favourite with old Norwegian dames, has become in Lapp, Ranna.

The German contraction rein has been often translated into pure, but this is an error, as these names can almost uniformly be traced back to ragn.

The remaining forms are—

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ German. English. │ │ Ragnfrid, M. │ Renfred, M. } Judgment of peace │ │ Ragnfrida, F. │ } │ │ │ │ Nor. │ │ Ragnfrid, F. } │ │ Ragnrid, F. } Fair judgment │ │ Randid, F. } │ │ Randi, F. } │ │ │ │ Ger. │ Prov. │ │ Raginbald │ Rambauld } │ │ Reinbold │ } │ │ Renbold │ } Prince of judgment │ │ Rembald │ } │ │ │ │ Ger. Reginbrecht, Reinbert—Splendour of judgment │ │ Nor. Ragenheid—Wise impulse │ │ Ger. Reinger—Spear of judgment │ │ Nor. Reginleif—Relic of judgment │ │ │ │ German. Frisian. │ │ Raginward │ Remward } │ │ Reinward │ Renward } Guardian of judgment │ │ │ Remma } │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

And lastly Regina, called in Bavaria Reigl and Regl, was originally less the Latin queen than the feminine of ragn. Nor in effect is the meaning far apart.[140]

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Footnote 140:

Roscoe, Bojardo and Ariosto; Sismondi, Histoire de France; Mallet; Northern Antiquities; Spanish Ballads.

SECTION V.—Richard.

Richard, or Richardet, was one of the Quatre Filz d'Aymon, who, according to one version, was the person who gave the fatal blow with the chess-board, instead of Renaud. He is not a very interesting personage, being rather the attendant knight than the prime hero, the rescued, not the rescuer; but under his Italian name of Ricciardetto, he has a whole poem to himself, a mere scurrilous satire upon friars, and was the lowest depth to which romantic poetry fell.

It was not to this Paladin that his name owed its frequency, but to Ricehard, or stern king, an Anglo-Saxon monarch of Kent, who left his throne to become a monk at Lucca, and was there said to have wrought many miracles. The third Norman duke bore the name, and transmitted it to two successors, whence we obtained as many as twenty Richards at the Conquest, and have used it as a favourite national name ever since. Two more saints bore it, the excellent bishop of Chichester, and a hermit, who was made bishop of Andria, in Apulia. Three times has it been on the throne, though finally discarded by royalty after the enormities imputed to the last Plantagenet; and latterly it has lost a little of its popularity, though it has never been entirely disused.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ Netherlands. │ │Richard │Richard │Riccardo │Rijkert │ │Ritchie │ ——————————— │Ricciardo │Riikard │ │ (Scot.) │ Portuguese. │Ricciardetto │Riik │ │Diccon │Ricardo │ │ │ │Dick │ ——————————— │ │ │ │ │ Polish. │ │ │ │ │Ryszard │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The leading syllable is from the same source as ragn; it is he who executes judgment, the ruler or king, the same word as the Indian rajah, and the Latin rex. It was reiks in Gothic, rich in old German, ryce in Anglo-Saxon; and its derivative reich was the origin of the Neustria and Austrasia, the oster reich and ne oster reich, eastern and not eastern, realms, of the Franks, and of the present Austria or eastern kingdom. Reich is the home term for the German empire at the present day. Our adjective rich is its sordid offspring, and in France a wealthy peasant is un richart.

Rik is more in vogue as a Gothic and Frank commencement than among most of the other Teutons, though all use it as a conclusion. Richard is its only universal name; but among the first foes of the Romans, we find among the Suevi, Rechiarius, who is the same with the German Richer, or kingly warrior, and the French saint, Riquier. Ricimar, the name of the terrible Goth who for a short time held Rome, is the great king, and was the maker and dethroner of the four last Augusti; and his namesakes, Ricimer and Rechimiro, appear in Spain, and may, perhaps, be the right source of Ramiro. Recared, Richila, Riciburga, are also Gothic.

The Franks show Rigonthe, or royal war, a daughter of Fredegonda; Rictrude, a saint, as well as Richilde, also a queenly name, which continued for some time in use, and is better than the Richenza and Richarda, sometimes used in England as the feminines of Richard. Richolf endures in Friesland as Rycolf, Ryklof, or Rickel, and Germany once had Ricbert.

One great name of this derivation is the northern Eirik. The first syllable is that which we call aye to the present day, the word that lies at the root of the Latin œvum, the German ewig, and our own ever. Ei-rik is thus Ever King. An ancient Erik was said to have been admitted among the gods, and Earic was the second name of Æsc, the son of Henghist; but it was the northern people who really used Eirik, which comes over and over in the line of succession of all the Northern sovereignties, figures in their ballads, and, in the person of King Eirik Blödaxe, is connected with their finest poetry. In the present day it is scarcely less popular than in old times, and has the feminine Eirika.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ German. │ Nor. │ Swedish. │ │Eric │Eric │Erich │Eirik │Erik │ ├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤ │ Polish. │ Slovak. │ Lettish. │ Esth. │ Lapp. │ │Eryk │Erih │Erik │Erik │Keira │ │ │Areh │ │Eers │ │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

Two other names of the North have the same commencement, Eimund, ever protecting, or eternal guard, commonly called Emund, and Eilif, the ever-living, answering to the Greek Ambrosios. Eilif is also written Eiliv, Elliv, Ellef, and even Elof, and Latinized in Elavus.[141]

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Footnote 141:

Roscoe; Munch; Butler; Michaelis.

SECTION VI.—Astolfo.

Astolfo is to the Paladins what Conan is to the Feen, the butt or grazioso. In his full-blown perfection he is first cousin to Orlando, being the son of Milone’s brother Ottone, and was also related to Rinaldo, according to the quaint genealogies of the chivalrous heroes that exact heraldry loved to draw up. He joined the four sons of Aymon, when they left the court after the quarrel at chess, and shared in their wild exploits; but apparently permitted no meaner interlopers in the trade, for when he caught a party of robbers, he insisted on some unfortunate hermits being their executioners, declaring such an office was quite as pleasing to Heaven, ‘che dire il Pater nostro,’ and finally pummelling them into compliance. In Bojardo, Astolfo gained possession of a magic lance, brought by Angelica from Catay, which unhorsed all its antagonists, and secure in its aid, refused when he was required to deliver up to Gradasso, Bajardo and Durindana, which had been left in his charge while their masters were wandering after Angelica, but challenged Gradasso to single combat, defeated him, and then went in search of his cousins. Ariosto conducts him into the enchanted palace, where every one was pursuing something lost; Rinaldo, his horse, Bradamante, Ruggero, Ruggero, Bradamante.

One blast of Astolfo’s horn, also magical, destroyed the enchantment, and he became possessed for the time of the Hippogriff, upon whom he soared to the terrestrial paradise, and was conducted by St. John to the moon, where he obtained possession of Orlando’s senses, and restored them to him. The later writers, who added to the burlesque element and diminished the chivalrous, made more and more of Astolfo’s boastfulness, till he is quite the buffoon of their poems. He was finally killed at Roncesvalles; and the Spaniards call him Don Estolfo.

The person killed at the same time as Rotlandus is called, by Eginhard, Anselmus, and he, no doubt, contributed in the idea of the Astolfus, Count of Champagne, whose burial after the battle is recorded by Archbishop Turpin. But the real bearer of the name of Astolfo was one of the enemies of the Karlings, namely, Astolfo, king of the Lombards, who held his court at Pavia, and whose encroachments on the Roman territory were the first cause of the interference of the Franks in Italy. He was besieged by Pepin at Pavia in 755, and forced to come to terms; but he was evidently a very considerable sovereign; and Ernesto, Marchese d'Este, was killed in battle with him in 745. His promotion to be a Paladin is accounted for by his having been a Christian, and the character he bears, by the possibility of there having been satirical songs and poems upon him, especially at the time when Charlemagne ill-treated his granddaughter, Desirata. Astolfo is still a current name in Lombardy, though we do not find it anywhere else, and its congeners only in Scandinavia.

The meaning of the last syllable is, of course, wolf; the first is aast or ast, love or wishes, or if the sense of hot impetuosity be allowed, Astolf is the swift wolf. Aasta was rather a favourite name with the maidens of the North, and Asta is not disused, though too often treated as the short for Augusta.

Astridur is from hridhur, an impulse, and thus would mean swift impulse, or the impulse of love. It was greatly used by the royal ladies of the North, among whom may be specified the mother of St. Olaf, and a daughter of Knut, called by Danish pronunciation, Estridh, but transmuted into Margaret.

The diminutive of Ast, under various mispronunciations, named that most terrible of vikings, Hasting, whose ravages, though kept from England by the policy originated by Alfred, were fearful all along the French coast, and even extended to Italy. It is he who is said to have many times submitted to baptism, and then returned to his fury again; and there is a curious report, that Rollo’s Normans found him settled in France, and reproached him with the tameness of his old age, so that he dashed away again, and returned to his ships and his piracy. Hastinc occurs in Domesday, and Warren Hastings' family claimed descent from the old Sea King.[142]

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Footnote 142:

Roscoe; Sismondi; Munch; Michaelis; Histoire de Normandie.

SECTION VII.—Ogier le Danois.

One of the Paladins was, undoubtedly, the legacy of a much more ancient myth, namely, Ogier le Danois. He does not play a very prominent part in the poems of the Italians, but as Ogier the Dacian he is one of Turpin’s catalogue of knights, and a ballad especially dear to Don Quixote thus commences:—

‘De Mantua sale el Marques, Danes Urgel el leal.’

It proceeds to tell how he found Valdovinos, his nephew, dying under a tree, having been assassinated by the emperor’s son, Carloto. The ballad further relates how the Marques proceeds to court, gets Carloto tried by his peers and doomed to death, and though el Rey Carlo banishes them all for uttering the condemnation, the sentence is carried out.

This Italian marquis is an exceedingly droll development of the old Teutonic hero, Holger Danske. In Italy he is Oggieri, Oggero, or Uggieri il Danese; in French, Ogier le Danois; and, at times, le damné, or il dannato, which title is further accounted for by the story that he was a Saracen who became a Christian, and that his friends wrote from home ‘tu es damné,’ whence he chose to be thus christened. In the Reali de Francia, Charlemagne cuts off, with his own hand, the head of an unfortunate Oldrigi, whose blood was too noble to be shed by any one else. Now this Oggier was without doubt a contribution from the stores of Norman tradition; for Holger, or Olger, Danske is the grandest national hero of Denmark. There is a ballad, given by Weber, where he and Tidrek the Strong have a tremendous battle, and he comes off victor. Moreover, he has eaten of the fruit of the trees of the sun and moon, and has become immortal, and there he sits with his fellows in the vaults of the Castle of Kronberg, near which are two ponds, called his spectacles. A peasant, with a plough-share on his shoulders, once lost his way, and wandered in; he found a circle of tall old men in armour, all asleep round a stone table, with their heads resting on their crossed arms. Holger Danske, who sat at the head of the table, raised his head and the stone broke asunder, for his beard had grown into the stone. He asked his guest some questions about the upper world and dismissed him, offering his hand. The peasant, dreading the gigantic grip of the old champion, gave his ploughshare. ‘Ha! ha!’ said Holger, as he felt its firmness, ‘it is well. There are still men in Denmark. Tell them that we shall come back when there are no more men left than can stand round one tun!’ But the ploughshare had been twisted round by his fingers. Can this return of Holger be the Roger Bon Temps of the French peasantry?

But Holger, though I have placed him among the Paladins, might have gone even farther back than the days of Dietrich. He is a mythical king, well nigh a god, originally called Haaloge, and owing, as his sacred island, Haalogaland, or Heligoland.

His name itself is holy, our very word holy—the halig of the Anglo-Saxons, the hellig of the North, the heilig of Germany, and these words sprang from those denoting health; as the Latin salve, hail, salvus, safe, and salvatio, safety, are all related to soundness.

Leaving this, as not belonging to our main subject, we find that Helgi, the Norse form of the word for this holy old mythic king, was exceedingly popular in the North. Helgi has a poem to himself in the elder Edda. A son of Burnt Njal was called Helgi, and forty-two cases are found of the name in the Landnama-bok, and thirty-four of its feminine, Helga. In Domesday there are five called Helgi, besides fourteen Algars, very possibly meant for Holger; and it may be suspected that the Helie of the early Norman barons may have been as much due to the Helgi of their forefathers as to the prophet whom they learnt to know on Mount Carmel. Perhaps, too, Helga was the source of Ala, or Ela, by which name a good many Norman ladies are recorded, the best known of whom was Ela, heiress of Salisbury, the wife of one William Longsword and mother of the other, one of the founders of Salisbury Cathedral, and the witness of a vision of her son’s death in Egypt.

Helgi’s descendants towards the East are far more certain matters. Helgi, called Oleg by the Russian historians, was the son of Rurik, the first Norman grand prince of Kief, and his daughter, Olga, visited Constantinople, and was there baptized by the name of Helena, which makes the Russians suppose her two names to translate one another; but they have fortunately not discarded either Oleg or Olga, which thus remain mementoes of the northern dynasty among the very scanty number of Russian names that are neither Greek nor Slavonic.

In its own country Helgi gets contracted into Helle, and Helga into Hæge.[143]

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Footnote 143:

Munch; Roscoe; Keightley; Marryat, Jutland.

SECTION VIII.—Louis.

With the throne of the Franks, the Karlingen took their favourite prefix of the old Salic line, hlod.

This word, the same in root as the Sanscrit çru, Greek κλύω (kluo), Latin cluo, Anglo-Saxon hlowan, may possibly have been originated by the cow, to whose voice, in our own language, the verb to low is now restricted. All mean to make a noise; and the dignity of that noise increased, for κλυτός (klutos) was Greek for renowned, κλέος, fame, as we saw when dealing with Cleomenes, Cleopatra, &c.; and in Latin, clueo, was to be famous, clientes or callers beset the honoured man, and laus was praise or fame; and so not only have we loud in English, lyde in the North, for the ordinary adjective, but hlod or hlud was the old German term for renown, and los for which French knights afterwards fought and bled, and a score of other words, less relevant to our purpose, will easily suggest themselves as current in every European tongue, first cousin words from laus or from hlod.

The rough aspirate at the beginning was once an essential portion of the word, and among the Franks it must have been especially harsh, since their contemporary Latinists always render it by ch.

Chlodio, as they call him, is numbered as the second of the long-haired Salians, the father of ‘Meroveus,’ and leader of the incursions of the Franks about 428. His grandson married the Burgundian maiden, called by the Valkyr title of Hlodhild, or Chlodechilda, as the Latin civilization of her day called her, when it hailed her with delight as the converter of her husband to Christianity. Although canonized, her name was not in great use for a good many generations, and to this she probably owes it that, when it was revived as belonging to a royal saint, for the benefit of the daughter of the good dauphin, son of Louis XV., it had not been shorn of its aspirate like all the cognate ones. It has since become a favourite with French ladies.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ French. │ Italian. │ German. │ │Clotilde │Clotilda │Klothilde │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The husband of Clotilda was known to his own fierce Franks as Hluodowig, or famous war, or consecration; but when his success after his prayer to the God of Hluodhild had brought him to abjure his Teuton gods, and receive baptism from St. Remi, the pope accepted the only orthodox sovereign of Europe as most Christian king and eldest son of the Church by the appellation of Chlodovisus, or Clovis, the retranslation into French.

Among his successors was found many a fainéant who had nothing of him but his prefix and his long hair, and one who is counted as Clovis II. When these had passed away, Charles the Great gave the name of the great founder of the former line to one of his younger sons, the only one who lived to succeed him.

What Hlodwig Haman’s War was called in his own day may be seen by the curious barbaric Latin poem sung by his soldiers in honour of their exploit in setting him at liberty, when he had been treacherously made prisoner by Adelgis, Duke of Beneventum, a song that shows Latin in its first step towards the tongues of southern Europe.

‘Audite omnes fines terre errore cum tristitia, Quale scelas fuit factum in civitas Beneventum Lluduicum comprenderunt, sancto pio Augusto.’

‘Lluduicus’ is now known to the French as Louis le Debonnaire, a title that some ascribe to his piety, others to his weakness. The Germans took him as Ludwig, and thenceforth these two varieties held a double course, while the softer Provençals made him Aloys, which is now regarded, owing to a saint of its own, as a separate name. Three monarchs of the Karling line bore this favourite name, and the fifth descendant of Hugh Capet brought it in again, to come to its especial honour with the saintly Crusader, ninth king so called, from whom it became so essentially connected with French royalty, that after the succession of the Bourbons, no member of the royal family was christened without it. Indeed, hardly any one of rank or birth failed to have it among their many names, till its once-beloved sound became a peril to the owners' heads in the Revolution, and it has in the present day arrived at sharing the unpopularity of François.

Elsewhere it is chiefly a French importation; the Welsh use Lewis as an Anglicism of Llewellyn, and the Irish of Lachtna; and the Scots make rather more use of it from their old alliances and connection through the Scottish guard. The Scottish Lodowick is probably taken from the northern form of the original word; just as with the Italians, Luigi is the mere Italian version of Louis, Lodovico the inheritance from the Lombards or Germans, and in this shape was long current in northern Italy, belonging in particular to the unfortunate Sforza, of Milan, who perished in the first shock between France and Italy.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ Breton. │ Scottish. │ French. │ │Ludovick │Loiz │Lodowick │Clovis │ │Lewis │Loizik │ │Louis │ │Louis │ │ │Looys │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Provençal. │ Italian. │ Spanish. │ Portuguese. │ │Aloys │Lodovico │Clodoveo │Luiz │ │Chlodobeu │Luigi │Luis │ │ │Lozoic │Aloïsio │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Swiss. │ Swedish. │ Dutch. │ │Ludwig │Ludi │Ludwig │Lodewick │ │Luz │ —————— │ │Lood │ │Lotze │ Bavarian. │ │ │ │ │Wickl │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Polish. │ Bohemian. │ Slovak. │ Hungarian. │ │Ludvik │Ludvik │Ludvick │Lajos │ │Ludvis │ │Ljudevit │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The Provençal Aloys apparently was the first shape that threw out a feminine, the Aloyse or Heloïse, whose correspondence with Abelard was the theme of so much sentiment, and whose fame, brought by the archers to Scotland, no doubt was the origin of the numerous specimens of Alison found in that romantic nation. According to Dugdale, the wife of the Norman William Mallet was Hesilia or Helewise, no doubt the same as Heloïse. Heloïse had nearly died away in France when Rousseau’s romance of La Nouvelle Heloïse brought it as well as Julie into fashion again.

The votaresses of St. Louis had, however, chosen to come much nearer to his name, and by the end of the fifteenth century Louise was in great vogue at the French court; it travelled everywhere with French princesses, came to us with the House of Hanover, and has now a thorough hold of all ranks.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ Spanish. │ │Louisa │Louise │Luisa │Luisa │ │Louie │Lisette │Eloïsa │ ————————— │ │ ————————— │Loulou │ │ Portuguese. │ │ Scotch. │Heloise │ │Luiza │ │Leot │Louison │ │Luizinha │ │Alison │ │ │ │ │Ailie │ │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Swedish. │ Polish. │ Lettish. │ │Ludowicke │Ludovica │Ludvika │Lusche │ │Luise │Lovisa │Ludoisia │Lasche │ │ │Lova │Lodoiska │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The eldest son of the great Clovis was Hlodmir, or Clodomir, great fame, made more euphonious in German as Ludomir, and furnishing such surnames as Luttmer and Lummers.

All his sons were murdered by their uncles, except one, who was shorn of his long locks to save his life, and was put into a convent, where he became a holy man, was canonized, and his harsh name of Hlodowald, or Clodvald, became the pleasant one of St. Cloud, best known for the sake of the palace near Paris. Another St. Chlodvald, of Metz, is commonly called St. Clou.

One of the uncles who killed the poor boys was Hlodhari, or Chlotachari, famous warrior, a terrible savage, but the last survivor of the brothers, and counted in the Frank history as Chlother, or Clotaire. Others of his race likewise were so baptized, and when the name passed to the Karlingen it was as Lothar. So was called the son of Louis le Debonnaire, whose portion, known at first as Lotharingen, came to be in Latin Lotharingia, and still remains Lorraine. Lothar did not pass away from Germany; one emperor, after the separation, was so called; and it fell into many forms of surnames, in especial into Luther; and when Martin Luther had rendered this almost saintly to his countrymen, they over-hastily explained it by lother, pure; while the Bohemians found a similar word in their own tongue, meaning a swan. Oddly enough, Huss signified a goose, and the saying arose that the Bohemian goose had let fall a quill, which had been picked up by a swan of far more distant flight.

Luther has a few namesakes in his own country on his own account, but, in general, Chloter has died out of Christian nomenclature.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ German. │ Spanish. │ │Lothario │Clotaire │Lothar │Clotario │ │Lowther │Lothaire │Luther │ ————————— │ │ │ │ ———————— │ Lettish. │ │ │ │ Italian. │Lutters │ │ │ │Lotario │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Chlodoswintha, or famous height, was a Frank princess, without namesakes beyond her own race; in fact, the use of this prefix seems to have been exclusively Frank.[144]

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Footnote 144:

Sismondi, Histoire des François, Littérature du Midi de l'Europe; Friedrich Pott; Michaelis; Thierry, Récits des Temps Mérovingiens.

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VI. DESCRIPTIVE NAMES

SECTION I.—Nobility.

The names connected with any great cycle of interest have been nearly exhausted, and only those remain that seem to have been chosen more for sense than connection, though afterwards continued for the sake of their owners. Several of our own truly English or Anglo-Saxon names are among these, and in especial those with the prefix meaning noble, Æthel, Athel, Adel, Edel, or in High German, Adal. It is thought to come from the universal word atta, a father, and thus to convey that the owner has forefathers, the essence of nobility, as with the pater and patrician of Rome, and the hidalgo, the son of something, of Spain. Adel, or Æthel, is a favourite prefix in all the Teutonic branches except the Scandinavian, where it does not occur at all. It is essentially Gothic,—witness Athalaric, the formidable but gentle conqueror of Rome, who well deserved his name of Noble-King. He is generally, however, called Alaric, and his name has been deduced from al, all; but the right reading seems to be that which identifies his appellation with our own English Æthelric, and the Uadalrich of Germany.

Udalrich, archbishop of Augsburg till the year 973, is notable as the first person canonized by the pope according to the present forms, which could not, however, have included the half-century of posthumous probation, as he was placed in the calendar only twenty years after his death. Contracting his name to Ulrich, Germany made him a favourite national saint; and we find him and his feminine spread throughout the countries influenced by the empire, and the feminine particularly prevalent in Denmark, whither it was carried by German queens. Though the ensuing table places all the forms of Athalaric together, it should be kept in mind that the forms beginning with A are the modern namesakes of the great Goth, those with U and O the votaries of that saint, and Adelrich is considered as a different name from Ulrich.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ German. │ │Æthelric │Alaric │Alarico │Adelrich │ │Alaric │Ulric │Ulrico │Alarich │ │Ulrick │Olery │ │Uadalrich │ │ │ │ │Ulrich │ │ │ │ │Alerk │ │ │ │ │Oelric │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Bavarian. │ Swedish. │ Frisian. │ Swiss. │ │Rickel │Alarik │Ulrik │Uoli │ │ │Ulrik │Olrick │Ueli │ │ │ │Ulerk │Uerech │ │ │ │Ulk │ │ │ │ │Ucko │ │ │ │ │Ocko │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Polish. │ Bohemian. │ Slovak. │ Lettish. │ │Ulryk │Ulric │Ureh │Uldriks │ │ │Oldrich │Ulrih │ │ ├───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┤ │ FEMININE. │ ├───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┤ │ German. │ French. │ Roman. │ Polish. │ │Ulrike │Ulrique │Ulrica │Ulryka │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The successor of Alaric, who laid him in his river-grave, is known to us as Ataulfus. In his own time he was Athaulf, the Noble-Wolf, and his likeness stands in our own roll of English kings as the father of Alfred, namely, Æthelwulf; but this good old name was dropped in England, while its German cousin, in honour of a sainted bishop of Metz, of the ninth century, became very common in the principalities of the empire, and was imported with the house of Hanover in the barbarous Latin form of Adolphus. Its feminine, coined in Germany, is Adolfine, usually called Dofine, and now extremely common. This may possibly be the source of the Dolphine given as the name of one of the daughters of Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria, as the habit of making barbarous feminines was just beginning in her time.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ German │ Finn. │ │Ethelwolf │Adolphe │Adolfo │Adolf │Ato │ │Adolphus │ │Udolfo │Odulf │Atu │ │Dolph │ │ │ │ │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

Athanagild, or Athalagild, Noble Pledge, was another of these early Goths, and afterwards we meet the same meaning in Adelgis, or Adelchis, the brave son of the last Lombardic king, whose noble spirit, under his misfortunes, is the subject of a fine tragedy of Manzoni. The duke of Beneventum, who made Louis le Debonnaire prisoner, was Adelgis; but it is curious to find the soldiers in the dog-latin poem above alluded to, terming him Adalfieri. Odelgis was old High German.

Æthel was so much used by the royal families of Kent and Wessex, that the diminutive, Ætheling, was latterly applied to designate the heir to the crown, and was thus continued even after the Conquest to the son of Henry I., who perished in the white ship.

Æthelbryht, or Noble Splendour, named our first Christian king of Kent, also a brother of King Alfred’s, and a missionary of the royal blood of Northumbria, who preached in southern Germany, and died about the year 700, at Egmond, where, as St. Adelbrecht, he became patron. His name was taken at baptism by one who became archbishop of Magdeburg, who, in his turn, bestowed it on his pupil, the Bohemian Woyteich, Army-Help. This convert was afterwards bishop of Prague, and was martyred near Dantzic while preaching to the heathen Prussians in 997. Adelbrecht could not fail to become national wherever the saint had set his foot; and when shortened to Albrecht, was adopted by Italy, and thence sent to Jerusalem with a Latin patriarch, who, being beatified, rendered Alberto freshly popular in the South. Albrecht, and the feminines Alberta and Albertine, were, however, almost entirely German, until the late Prince Consort brought the name to England, where it bids fair to become one of the most frequent of national names. Some fancy it comes from Allbright; but the German saints, whence it was taken, are evidently direct from our English Æthelbryht, though in Germany Adelbert and Albrecht are now treated as two separate names. Bela, which belonged to an excellent blind king of Hungary, is believed to be the Magyar form of the name.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Provençal. │ Italian. │ │Ethelbert │Albert │Azalbert │Albert │ │Albert │Aubert │ │Albertino │ │ │Albret │ │ │ │ │Aubertin │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Wallachian. │ Finn. │ Danish. │ │Adalbert │Averkie │ │Albert │ │Albrecht │ ————————— │Alpu │Bertel │ │Ulbricht │ Polish. │ │ │ │ │Albert │ │ │ │ │Olbracht │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Æthelred, Noble-speech or counsel, the brother of Alfred, was almost canonized by his subjects, and is sometimes called Ethered, whence the Scottish Ethert. The nickname of our last Ethelred was a play on his name “onreade,” not meaning so much tardy as without counsel—Noble-rede the Un-reedy. Ethelred must not be confused with Etheldred, the feminine name, properly Æthelthryth, meaning in Anglo-Saxon the Noble-threatener, connected with the German Ediltrud, or noble maiden. Most likely names ending in trut had been brought to England, and as the Valkyr sense was forgotten, the native meaning of threat was attached to the word, and the spelling adapted to it. St. Æthelthryth was a queen who must have been a very uncomfortable wife, and who, finally, retired into a monastery, getting canonized as St. Etheldreda, and revered as St. Audry. From the gewgaws sold at her fairs some derive the term tawdry; and, at any rate, Awdry has never been extinct as a name among the peasantry, and has of late been revived, though with less popularity than the other more modern contraction, Ethel, which is sometimes in modern times set to stand alone as an independent name. Addy is the common Devonian short for Audrey.

Germans do, however, seem to have used the word without another syllable, for Adilo, or Odilo, was an old name, and Ado and Addo are still current in Friesland, no doubt, the same as the Ade of the Cambrian registers. Adela and Adèle, too, occur very early; indeed, there is reason to think that just as in England the son was the Ætheling, in Frankland the daughter was the Adalheit, or the Adelchen. This word heit is translated as the root of the present German heiter, cheerful, and thus would mean noble cheer; but I suspect it is rather heid, condition, answering to the hood or head at the end of our abstract nouns, e. g. hardihood, and that the princess royal of each little Frankish duchy or county was thus the ‘Nobleness’ thereof.

All the feudal princes of the tenth and eleventh centuries seem to have had an Adelheid to offer in marriage, and to have Latinized her in all manner of ways, while practically they called her Alix (or Alisa in Lombardy), a name that was naturalized in England, when Alix la Belle married Henry I. Alice is our true English form, though it has been twisted into Alicia, and then referred for derivation to the Greek Alexios, so as often to appear in Latin documents of the later middle ages in the form of Alexia; whereas in earlier times, before its origin was forgotten, it is translated by Adelicia, Adelisa, or Adelidis.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Provençal. │ Italian. │ │Adelaide │Adelaide │Azalaïs │Adelaïda │ │Adeline │Adeline │ │Alisa │ │Adeliza │Adelais │ │ │ │Adela │Adèle │ │ │ │Alice │Alix │ │ │ │Alicia │Aline │ │ │ │Elsie │ │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Netherlands. │ Slovak. │ Lettish. │ │Adelheid │Adelheid │Adelajda │Audule │ │Adeline │Adelais │ │Addala │ │Adele │ │ │ │ │Else │ │ │ │ │Ilse │ │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The French made great use of all the forms of the name; the Germans, in honour, perhaps, of the Italian Queen Adelaide—whose adventures before her marriage with the Emperor Otho were so curious—preferred that variety, and from them we received it again with our good Queen Adelaide, from whom it is becoming frequent amongst us. The German Alice is Else, a favourite old peasant word. This same contraction is common in northern England, but gets confused with Elizabeth, as in Scotland, with Alison; and in Ireland, the prevalent Alicia is, perhaps, meant for Aileen, or Helen.

The Adeleve of early Norman times is probably meant for Æthelgifu, Noble-gift, a frequent Saxon lady’s name, which we generally call Ethelgiva.

Æthelwold, the Saxon historian of royal blood, is Noble-power. Æthelheard, or noble resolution, answers to Adelhard, a cousin of Charlemagne, and abbot of Corbie, whom his contemporaries glorified as at once the Augustin, the Antony, and the Jeremiah of his day, and who, being canonized, left Alard and Alert to Friesland, and Aleardo, Alearda to Provence.

Æthelstan, the Noble-stone or jewel, was second only to Alfred in ability and glory, and his name lived on to the Conquest, when it is set down as Adestan and Adstan.

Adelhelm, the Noble-helmet, named the excellent and poetical Aldhelm, bishop of Sherborn, from whom the headland on the Dorset coast was once called St. Aldhelm’s head, but is now corrupted into St. Alban’s head.

Adelgar, or Noble-spear, was chiefly continental, first figuring in the beautiful Scottish ballad of Sir Aldingar, but better known in Lombardy, where Allighero sprang from it, and gave his patronymic to Dante Alighieri. Algarotti was another Italian derivative; and in France, Augier and Augereau; in Germany, Oehlkar, show that it once must have been much in use. It is not always easy, however, to separate between the words from Adel and from Hilda. The remaining varieties are—

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Ger. Adelar—Noble eagle │ │ Ger. Adelbar, Alpero—Noble bear │ │ Ger. Adelbold; Eng. Æthelbald—Noble prince │ │ │ │ Ger. Odelburga } │ │ Eng. Æthelburg } Noble defence │ │ │ │ Eng. Æthelburh—Noble pledge │ │ │ │ German. │ │ Adelfrid } │ │ Adalfrid } │ │ Ulfrid } Noble peace │ │ Ulfert } │ │ Olfert } │ │ │ │ Eng. Æthelfledh—Noble increase │ │ Ger. Adelgard—Noble protection │ │ Ger. Adelgund; Fr. Adelgonde—Noble war │

│ │ │ Ger. Adelhild—Noble heroine │ │ Ger. Udalland, Uland—Noble land │ │ Ger. Adelinde, Odelind; Eng. Ethelind (mod.)—Noble snake │ │ Ger. Adelmann, Ullman—Noble man │ │ Ger. Adelmund; Eng. Edelmund (Domes.)—Noble protection │ │ Ger. Adelmar; Eng. Ethelmar; Fr. Ademar, Adhemar—Noble │ │ greatness │ │ Ger. Adelschalk—Noble servant │ │ │ │ Ger. Adelswind—Noble strength │ │ Ger. Adeltac—Noble day[145] │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Footnote 145:

Pott; Michaelis; Lappenburg; Butler; Palgrave; Turner.

SECTION II.—Command.

The Gothic bidyan has resulted in our verb to bid, the German baten, the Danish byde, besides bote, a messenger, and the budstick, bidding-stick, or summons to the muster.

All these were in the sense of command; but from the same root grew the race of entreating words, the Scandinavian bede, German bitten, and English beg. When these entreaties were devotional, the Germans made the verb beten, and our term for prayer, bede, passed on to the mechanical appliance for counting beads—the beads of the rosary, while the pensioner bound to pray for his benefactor was his bedesman.

It is doubtful whether this, or the Welsh bedaws, life, gave his name to the Venerable Bæda, but no doubt to himself and his contemporaries it suggested the idea of prayer. There is no doubt, however, in the case of Baudhildur, or Bathilda (the commanding heroine), the daughter of king Nidudr, the lady whom Volundr carried off with him when he fled from her mother’s cruelty. After her was called Bathilda, an Anglo-Saxon slave, who was elevated to be the wife of the second Hluodwig, and lived so holy a life, and exerted herself so much to obtain the redemption of slaves, that she was canonized, and, as la reine Bathilde, was greatly venerated in the believing days of France. Denmark also used this name, having probably taken it from England. There ‘Dronning Bothild,’ the wife of king Ejegod, spread the name among the maidens, so that it passed to Norway as Bodild, Bodil, and even to the contraction Boel.

Of English birth, too, was the Commanding-wolf—Bedvuolf, or Bodvulf—who, with his brother, St. Adolf, went, about the end of the sixth century, to seek religious instruction in Gallia-Belgica. Adolf became bishop of Maestricht, and eponym to the Adolphuses. Bodvulf came home, and founded the monastery of Ikano, where he died in 655, and was canonized. The monastery was destroyed by the Danes, and the situation forgotten, but the saint’s relics were carried away by the fugitive monks, and dispersed into various quarters, giving title to four churches in London, besides St. Botolf’s bridge, commonly called Bottlebridge, in Huntingdonshire, and St. Botolf’s town, in Lincolnshire, usually known as Boston, whence was called its American cousin Boston, with little relation to the saint. The tower of the church of St. Botolf, looking forth over the Wash, was a valued landmark, and thence the saint was apparently viewed as a friend of travellers, and connected with the entrances to cities, much as St. Christopher is elsewhere. Camden even supposed him to be Boathulf, or boat helper, and his day, the 17th June, is a market day in Christiania, under the term of Botolsok, or Botsok. In Jutland there is a church of St. Botolv; and in the North the names of Botol and Bottel are kept up; while, in England, there only remain to us the surnames of Bottle and Biddulph. The Old German forms of the two names above-mentioned are Botzhild, Botzulf; and Botzo, or Boso, a Commander, was now and then used as a name with them, as in the instance of the troublesome duke of Burgundy, whom French historians generally call Boson, and who is apt to be translated by böse, wicked.

Boto, Botho, Poto, are also found in Germany, and the very earliest specimen of this class of name is to be found in Botheric, commanding king, the name of the governor whose murder in the hippodrome caused Theodosius to give his bitterly repented command for the massacre of Thessalonica. Now and then bot occurs at the end of a word, as in the Spanish prince Sisebuto, the messenger of victory, or victorious commander.

These are not the same with some that look much like them, derived from the Northern bød, German badu, A.G.S. beado, war. Beadwig, in the Wodenic ancestry, is thus battle war, and the Gothic king of Italy, Totila, is probably made by the Romans from Bødvhar, battle pleader, a name still used in the North as Bødvar. Bødmod, Bødulf, and Bødhild, or Bødvild, have also been in use.[146]

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Footnote 146:

Munch; Michaelis; Pott; Sismondi; Butler; Camden; Le Beau; Kemble.

SECTION III.—Brightness.

The root brâj furnished the Greek φλέγεεν, Latin flagrare, and Gothic bairht, the Anglo-Saxon beohrt, or byrht, the Old German percht, and Northern bjart.

It is a component of Frank, German, and Anglo-Saxon nomenclature, but is rarely found in genuine Norsk; the only instance in the Landnama-bok is Biartmar, who is noted as of Irish birth, so may have brought an Anglo-Saxon name.

Bertha, the most obvious of all the progeny of biart, has been treated of in her character as a personification of the bright Epiphany night, mixed up with an old epithet of Frigga and with the spinning Holda. So, in Swabia, these legends have formed a masculine, Berchthold, who has become the wild huntsman in that quarter. Berchtvold was really an English prince of the Heptarchy, and Brichtold is in Domesday. Perahtholt is a veritable Old German name, making the modern Bartold—Niebuhr’s name,—the Italian Bertaldo, and French Bertould. Bertalda is not so likely to be the feminine of this word as to come from Berchthilda, like the name of Bertille, a sainted abbess of Chelles.

It is not easy to discover whether the most popular of all thus commencing should be regarded as a single corrupted name, or the produce of two, of which one has the second syllable hramn, a raven, the other rand, a house. The patron saint of all alike is Bertichramnus, bishop of Mans till 623, and his Latinism leaves no doubt that he was Bright-raven. It was chiefly popular in France, whence we must have obtained it, although there is no instance of it in Domesday, and it was especially glorious in the fourteenth century, for the sake of gallant Constable du Guesclin, ‘the eagle of Brittany,’ whom Spanish chroniclers, by a droll perversion of his appellation, called ‘Mosen Beltran Claquin,’ when he came to fight their battles.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ English. │ Scotch. │ French. │ Provençal. │ Italian. │ │Bertram │Barthram │Bertrand │Bertran │Bertrando │ ├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤ │ Spanish. │Portuguese. │ German. │ Lusatian. │ Hungarian. │ │Beltran │Bertrao │Bertram │Batram │Bertok │ │ │ │Berdrand │Batramusch │ │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

The wolf was sure to accompany the raven; so Perahtolf, or Bertulf, was canonized as an abbot in Artois, and left the German Bertulf, and our own Bardolph, the flaming comrade of Falstaff.

Bertwine, or Bright friend, was the St. Bertin of France, and the Bertuccio of Italy, often found in the old Lombardic towns.

Brihtric was the English earl who so gallantly died in defending England from the Danes in the unhappy days of Ethelred the Unready, and another Brihtric was the unsuccessful suitor of Matilda of Flanders, on whom she wreaked an unworthy vengeance after the Conquest. All the Brihts in Domesday seem to be of Saxon birth, since they use the English instead of the Norman French commencement, which was already Ber, as in the instance of Bertrade de Montfort, Bright speech, the countess of Anjou, who deserted her husband for Philippe I. of France. The remaining forms are—

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Ger. Bertar; Fr. Berthier—Bright warrior │ │ { Brichteva—Bright gift │ │ { Bricfrid—Bright peace │ │ { Brichtmar—Bright fame │ │ Eng. { Brichsteg—Bright warrior │ │ { Britfleda—Bright increase │ │ { Brichstan—Bright stone │ │ { Bricsteg—Bright maid │ │ Ger. Bertrud—Bright maid │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Bert is one of the most indispensable conclusions among all the German range of names, and is far more common there than as a commencement.

Another word meaning bright, or glittering, is the Northern jar, jor, jer, the German ir. Iring, or Irinc, is a semi-mythological person. Old German tradition declared him to have been the counsellor of Irnvrit of Thuringia, and that when both had been taken by the Franks, he was deceived into slaying his sovereign, after which, in his rage, he killed the victorious Frank, laid him under his master’s body, and then cut his way through the enemy, and returned home.

He appears again in the Nibelungen-noth as the Markgraf Irinch of Tenemarche, or Denmark, in company with Irnvrit of Düringen, i.e. Thuringia: he wounds Hagen, but is slain by him, and lamented over by Kriemhild. His name was sometimes subsequently used, and is, perhaps, what French histories call Harenc.

Jørund is a northern name with a similar prefix, and means a brilliant or glittering man; but it gets called Jøren, and mixed up with Jorgen, or George.[147]

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Footnote 147:

Grimm, Deutcher Mythologie, Deutche Heldensage; Munch; Alban Butler; Sismondi; Ayale-y-z-urita.

SECTION IV.—War.

In Ulfilas' Bible, ‘the multitude of the heavenly host’ is translated ‘Haryis hunniakundis managei.’ In Anglo-Saxon, an army is here, in old German heri, in the North her, all perhaps coming from the ear, and to hear, as having been summoned, like the legion from being chosen. Thence the leader was the English Heretoga, and German Herzog, finally translated into the Latin dux, and becoming political and territorial. The doings of the herr were expressed by various old words, of which the Scottish to harry is the direct descendant. Heerfurst, or army leader, may be the Ariovistus of Cæsar.

The single warrior was har in the North, hari in Germany, and as ar is often found at the end of names. Many German critics translate the word by the army, instead of the warrior; but Professor Munch considers that the warrior, hari, was the original meaning, and that herjar, his plural, afterwards came to mean the army.

The oldest and most famous of all the family is introduced to us by Tacitus as Chariovalda, a Batavian prince. It is the hardened sound of Harivald, Warrior power, or ‘Army wielder,’ a name that the Germans soon called Heriold, and the North Harald. This soon became one of the most renowned northern names. Harald Harfagre, or the fair-haired, was he who vowed never to trim his locks till he was sole king of Norway, and thus sent Thorer the Silent to Iceland, and Rolf-ganger to Normandy. Harald Krake, king of Sleswig, was baptized in the presence of Louis le Debonnaire, and used the already mentioned vow to forsake Thunner, Scaxnot, and all their works. He afterwards introduced St. Anschar to Denmark, but like all the first Christian kings of Scandinavia, was himself expelled from his realm by his subjects. Harald Hardrada, or the resolute, was the very crown of the poetic sea-kings of Norway, meeting with romantic adventures in Constantinople, singing the praises of his Russian bride all across the sea, exchanging gallant messages with his namesake Harold Godwinson at Stamford Bridge, and dying as poetically as he had lived at the foot of his banner Landwaster. It was from the Danes that Harold came to England with the son of Knut, and to the son of Earl Godwin, the usurper, more than half a Dane in blood and temper, who, because he died in battle with the Normans, is regarded by the popular mind as an English patriot, and has in very modern times had a good many namesakes. Harald, or, as the Frisians call it, Herold, is only properly national in Scandinavia and the islands from Iceland to Man.

Next in note is what the Franks called Charibert, when it belonged to the king of Paris, whose daughter brought Christian doctrine to Kent, and prepared the way for St. Augustine. St. Haribert was archbishop of Cologne about the year 1000, and at that time the name became extremely common among the French nobility. A Norman settler had brought it to England even in the time of Edward the Confessor; and one of the many Herberts founded a family in Wales, which, in the time of Henry V., was one of the first to follow the advice to use one patronymic instead of the whole pedigree of names. It is probably owing to the honours in various kinds of the branches of this family that Herbert has of late years become an exceedingly prevalent Christian name in England. Except that the Frisians call it Harber and Hero, and Italy puts an o at the end, it has no variations. Herman is confused with Eormen; and the other forms are—

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Ger. Herberge—Warrior protection │ │ Ger. Herbold—Warrior prince │ │ Nor. Herbrand; Ger. Herbrand—Warrior sword │ │ Nor. Herbjorn—Warrior bear │ │ Ger. Herdegen—Warrior blade │ │ Ger. Hertag—Warrior day │ │ Nor. Hergils—Warrior pledge │ │ Nor. Herlaug—Warrior drink │ │ Nor. Herleik—Warrior sport │ │ Nor. Herleif—Warrior relic │ │ Ger. Herimar—Warrior greatness │ │ Nor. Hermod; Ger. Hermund; Frank. Charimund—Warrior protection │ │ Nor. Herjolf; Ger. Heriulf; Frank. Chariwulf—Warrior wolf │ │ Ger. Heraric—Warrior king │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

The warrior names were of the fiercest order. Leid (if it do not mean a road) was the same with the word in modern German, meaning hurt or mischief, and expressed spite or violence. The North had Liedulf, afterw—ards contracted into Leiul, and no doubt the Scottish Lyulf, and German Lethard, Lethild, Laidrad, Laidwald, Laidwig.

In the same spirit we have neid or nöt, meaning violence or compulsion, though it has resulted in the German neid, envy, and our need, want. We have it in the name of St. Neot, the relative and rebuker of King Alfred in his haughty days, and the hero of a legend of little fishes daily renewed for his food. Also Nidhard was a great chronicler of Frank history, and left a name surviving as Nyddert, in Friesland, and cut into Nitz, in Germany. There, too, were Notburg and Notger, Nidbert in France, and in the North, Notulf, afterwards written Notto. The terminal nôt is, however, more common.

Wig or Vig is war itself, and is found in the genealogy of Odin. Wægdæg, or War day, is an ancestor of the Deiran kings.

Vigleîk still subsists in the North, and so does Viglaf, relic of war, the same as that of Wiglaf, the chronicler.

The other forms are—

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Ger. Wigbert; Fris. Wicbo—Bright war │ │ Nor. Vigbrand—War sword │ │ Ger. Wigbald—War prince │ │ Ger. Wigburg—War protection │ │ Nor. Vigfus—War eagerness │ │ │ │ German. Frisian. Nor. │ │ │ │ Wighard │ Wygard │ Vighard } │ │ Wichhard │ Wiart │ } │ │ Weikard │ Wiert │ } │ │ Wigo │ │ } War firmness │ │ Wigi │ │ } │ │ Viga │ │ } │ │ │ │ { Wigher, Wicher—Warrior │ │ { Wighelm—War helmet │ │ { Wiglind—War serpent │ │ Ger. { Wigmann, Wichman—War man │ │ { Wigmar—War fame │ │ { Wigram—War raven │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

These are almost all German. The terminations in wig are often owing to German pronunciation of the word veh, or vieh, consecration, and sometimes of the northern veig, liquor.

The strange northern name of Snorre, famous for the sake of that Froissart of the North, Snorre Sturleson, comes from snerra, strife.

Styrke is the strong, the same word as that in which the old chroniclers describe William the Conqueror, as ‘so very stark.’ Sterkulv and a few other forms have been found in the North.

Toke is a very curious old name. It seems to mean the mad or raging, and, growing into Tyke or Tyge in Denmark, was the name that was Latinized into Tycho by the celebrated astronomer Brahe, who did not leave his madness behind him with his name. The famous Jomsburg sea-rover, a sort of northern Lycurgus of the tenth century, was Palnatoke, supposed to be properly Toke, the son of Palne. Palne is an unexplained name used by the Danes, and perhaps borrowed from the Wends; but there are a few other instances of it, among them the Anglicized Earl Pallig, the husband of Sweyn’s sister Gunhild, who was killed by Ethelred the Unready.

Thiostr means hardness or harshness, and was in use in the North as Triostulf, since contracted into Kjostol, Thiostvald, Thiostar; and probably Tostig, the ungracious son of Godwine, who brought Harald Hardrada to invade England, took his name from thence.

SECTION V.—Protection.

Bar—the word for strength—has been most fertile in produce. Its progeny are far too numerous to describe; but the most notable at present in use are the Berg, the strength of the hills, a mountain, and Burg, a fortress.

The names derived from it are, in combination, the bjorg of the North, in the masculine, meaning protector, and borg, the feminine, meaning, perhaps, protection,—the berge of the Germans and burg of the Anglo-Saxons answering to the same. The Anglo-Saxon ladies also bear names ending with burh, also from the same root, and meaning a pledge, the strength of an engagement, and the origin of our verb, to borrow. Burrhed, king of Mercia, bore this name; but instances of it are not very common.

Birger, Byrger, Birge, are the masculines much used in Scandinavia; and the combinations were Biorgulv, Bergthor, Bergthora, the faithful wife of Njal, and Bergliot, the daughter of Thorer the Silent,—the same name that has been already mentioned as the northern one that has been mixed with the Irish Brighid, and which would mean protecting ugliness. Other forms are Bergswain, protecting youth, Berghild, answering to our Mercian princess Burgenhild, and Borgny, apt to be cut down to Borny.

This is the word to which the Burgundians owed their title, as dwellers in burghs, instead of wanderers on the open plain.

Another large race of names comes from the Gothic warjan, Anglo-Saxon warian,—the ‘ware’ of rustic shouts in England like the ‘gare’ of France, the latter syllable of beware and aware, and the wehrer of Germany. The quality of precaution furnished the North with its favourite terminations var and vara, indicating the possession of the prudent virtue that makes a man wary. It does not begin names, but it often ends them, both in the North and Germany, as Geirvar, Hervar, Amalvara, Hildiwara, &c.

The inhabitant was the natural defender, and in Anglo-Saxon and Norsk ware became synonymous with the dweller, as Cantwara, the defenders of Kent, for the Kentishmen; Burgwara, the burghers; and in the North, Vikvarjar, bay defender. Ware, a defender, is thus a commencement in the German Warimunt, Guarding protection, the Vœrmund of the Mercian genealogy, and Vermund of the North, while its surviving representatives in France are Guiremond and Vermont.

Warenheri, or Protecting-warrior, is the Guarniero of Tasso, the Garnier of France, whence this form came to England as a surname after the Edict of Nantes, whilst Warner had been the legitimate descendant of the native Vœrnhare.

Warand, the German participle name, may have assisted in forming Guérin and Warren, unless there was a Warewine to account for it. Warnfrid or Warno, Werinhold and Warnebold, are also German.

The defender was with us the Weard, guard-warden, and weardian was to ward or guard; as in French garde and garder, in the North vördhr, in Germany wart, warten. This is the favourite termination, the ward of England passing the wart of Germany, the vard of the North; but of rare appearance as a commencement, though there is an instance of a German Wartgar, or guardian-spear.

These are extremely like the words taken from to gird, like gerda, gaard, &c., but they are essentially different: watching is here the idea of safety, as enclosure is there.

The termination mund, so common among all the Teuton nations, has been a very great difficulty. Some regard it as the German mund or munths, a mouth. The fact, however, appears to be that mund means a hand in the elder languages, and from a hand was early transferred to him who used his hand in protection.

All the best authorities agree in translating mund as protection; but as mund, a hand, is a feminine noun, the derivation from this source is a little doubtful, as the only lady’s name thus terminated is Rosamond. It is never a prefix.

Names ending in mund, hand, are often confused with those finishing in mod or muth, meaning courage or wrath, the mood of England and muth of Germany. Even in very early times, Thurismund, or Thurismod, would be indifferently written; but mod is not very common, and is apt to shorten into mo, as Thormod, Tormo.

The Germans used to imagine that all their names ending in hulf meant help; but this pleasant faith was destroyed by the northern wolf, and only one real help name is extant, the Helfrich of modern Germany, and Hialfrek of the North, which own an ancient precedent in the old Frank Hialperik or Chilperic.

The pronunciation of ward runs so naturally into hard, that many names, which when traced to their roots, turn out to terminate with ward, are spelt in German and French as if they were hard. The word hard does, however, really enter into the composition of a few names, chiefly German. There is, however, a semi-mythical northern lady called by the amiable name of Harthgrepa, Firm-grip or Hard-claw; and HartheKnad, or, as we call him, Hardicanute, seems to have had this distinguishing epithet added to his father’s name. The most noted of the other forms was Hardwine, Firm friend, the Hardouin of old French chroniclers, called in Italy Ardoino.

Harding, firm Hartrich, firm king Hartwig, firm war Hartmund, firm protection Hartmod, firm spirit.

The names in rand have likewise been a difficulty; but the word is best referred to the Gothic razn, a house, and likewise a shield, from the protection both afford.

Rand is a northern prefix, and its derivatives are not easy to distinguish from those of Regin and Raven. Röndolfr, or House wolf, was certainly a northern name, and the same seems to have belonged to St. Radulphus, bishop of Bourges in 888, and to thirty-eight Radulfs in Domesday Book, then to the good justiciary, Ranulf de Glanville, under Henry II., to the crusading Earl Randle of Chester, and subsequently to many a Randal, Randolf, and Ralf, or, as we foolishly spell the word, Ralph.

The North had Rannveig, House-liquor, by way of a lady, and have shortened her into Rannog and Ronnau, also Rannmod, Randvid, Randve, or Randverr, house consecration.

Fast—in the sense of firm, not of quick—is found in the northern Fastolf, in the Frank queen, Fastrade, Firm council, in Fastburg, Fastmann, Fastmund. Lidvard, an old Norse name, that with us has run into Ledyard, in its own country into Levor, is the gate ward.

Tryggve, a favourite old northern name, is the true or trusty. The same word sometimes serves as a termination, as in Sigtryg or Sihtric.

SECTION VI.—Power.

Magan is the Gothic and Saxon to be able, whence our defective may, and a number of other words in all the various northern tongues, in especial main or chief. The names from it are chiefly of German origin. Maginfred, or Powerful-peace, was a fine Old German name, which, by the time it came to the brave but unfortunate Sicilian, son of Frederick II., had been worn down to Manfred, whence he was called by his subjects Manfredi, by his French foes Mainfroi, and by his English contemporaries Mainfroy.

Meginhard, main power, was a chronicler of the early ages, and in 1130 appears in the Cambrai registers. The Germans used it as Mainhart, and the English surname Maynard is from it. Meginrat made Meinrad, or powerful council, and Maginhild is still in use in the North as Magnild.

The main land is, in fact, the chief land, the main, the chief sheet of water, or sea, and might and main are so closely connected together, that Maginhild is the most natural step to Mahthild, Main heroine to Might heroine; for maht is really the modern German macht, and our own might, and both these mighty names were in early use in Germany. Mahthild was the wife of the emperor Henry the Fowler, and afterwards became the sainted abbess of Quedlingburg. Another Swabian Mechtild was canonized after being abbess of Adilstetten; and so fashionable did the name become, that all the French maidens, who were not Alix, seem to have been Mahthild; and in Italy it was borne by the Countess Matilda, the friend of Gregory VII., whose bequest was one of the pope’s first steps to the temporal power, and who is introduced by Dante in the flowery fields of Paradise. The Flemings call it Mahault, and thus term the lady, who, as the wife of William the Conqueror, brought it to England. Molde, as the Normans were pleased to term it, was regarded as so decidedly a Norman name, that the Scottish-Saxon Eadgyth was made to assume it, and it continued the regnant royal name until it sunk beneath the influences of the Provençal Alienor. It seems as if Matilde had been freshly introduced in Flanders when Count Philip married Matilda of Portugal; and this, and the old traditional Mehaut, went on side by side, just as in England did the full name Matilda, and the Anglicized Norman contraction Maude. Of late years Maude has been fashionable, though not so near the original, nor so really graceful in sound as Matilda. The earlier Mall and Moll were from Matilda, not Mary, which came much later into use.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │English. │French. │Italian. │Bavarian. │ │Matilda │Mathilde │Matilda │Mechtild │ │Molde │Mahaud │ ————————— │Mechel │ │Mall │Mehaut │German. │Melchel │ │Maud │ │Mathilde │ │ │Tilda │ │ ————————— │ │ │Tilly │ │Hamb. │ │ │ │ │Tilde │ │ │ │ │Tille │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Maatfred and Maatulf were old masculines.

From may and might we pass to our other defective auxiliary can. ‘Knowledge is power,’ is an idea deeply rooted in our languages, for the difference between I ken and I can is well-nigh imperceptible. The Sanscrit gna, forming the Greek verb γιγνώσκω (gignosco), reappears in the Latin nosco, and the Anglo-Saxon cnawan. Another Anglo-Saxon form is cunnan, answering to the Danish kjende, Iceland kunna, German kennan. Thence our word cunning, knowing, and cuth, the past participle, known, noted, or dexterous, whence came several North-Anglian names, Cutha, Cuthwealh, Noted power; Cuthred, Noted council; Cuthwine, Noted friend; Cuthburh, Noted pledge; and chief of all Cuthbryht, the great saint of Lindisfarn in his lifetime, of Durham after his death, when the wanderings of his relics rendered his fame so great that Cuthbert is still national among the peasantry of Northumbria and the Lothians.

Kann seems to have been originally a past tense of ken, and the Teutonic mind concluded that to have learnt is to be able, for all adopted the word can without an infinitive, and varied it into past tenses. To be able was likewise to dare, whence the old Teuton kuoni, Frank chuon, Saxon cene, German kuhn, bold.

Be this as it may, a large class of names has arisen from these words of knowledge and action, earliest of the bearers of which should stand Kunimund, king of the Gepidæ, and Chunimund, king of the Suevi, both meaning Able protection. Chuonrath, Able council, or Bold-speech, was also Suevic, and in the form of Konrad, afterwards a world-wide name in the Swabian house of Hohenstaufen, till the last of their generous though impetuous blood was shed on the scaffold of Corradino, as Naples fondly termed its unfortunate young heir, the Conradin of history. Pity for his untimely fate assisted to spread the name through all the German dependencies, and it has become so common that, like Vasili, Tom, and Heinz, Künz has descended to cats. It has the feminine Cunzila; and our old Mercian King Cenred represented it in England.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Provençal. │ Italian. │ │Conrad │Conrade │Cohat │Corrado │ │Cenred │Quenes │ │Currado │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Bavarian. │ Swiss. │ Swedish. │ │Konrad │Kadl │Chuedli │Konrad │ │Kunz │Kuenl │Kudli │ ————————— │ │Kurt │Kuenz │Chuedler │ Netherlands. │ │Kuno │Kunl │Kored │Koenraad │ │ │ │Koredli │Court │ │ │ │Chuered │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Danish. │ Russian. │ Bohemian. │ Slovak. │ │Cort │Konrad │Kunad │Kunsch │ │ │Kunrat │ ————————— │ │ │ │Kondratij │ Lusatian. │ │ │ │ │Kunat │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Kunigund, or Bold war, was the name of a daughter of the counts of Luxemburg, who was wife to Henry of Bavaria, the sainted emperor, and shared in his canonization, rendering her name national in Bavaria. Another royal saint reigning in Hungary added to its honours, nor has it ever sunk into disuse.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ French. │ Italian. │Portuguese. │ German. │ Bavarian. │ │Cunigonde │Cunegonda │Cunegundis │Kunigunde │Kunl │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

The West Saxon Cenbyrht is the same with the German Kunibert; and Wessex likewise reckoned among her kings Cenfyrth, or able peace, Cenfus, bold impetuosity; while Mercia has Cenhelm and Cenwulf.

Alternating with these are Cynric, Cynebald, Cynewald, Cyneburh, Cynethryth, whose first syllable is cyn, kin, or kind, meaning, of course, kindred or lineage. Some refer Kunibert and Kunigund to this same kin instead of kuhn. This word cyn is one of those regarded as the root of king, cyning, the son of his race or kindred.

Another word seems to have had the same double meaning of ability being strength; for svinn, which is wise in the northern tongues, is in those of central Europe, strong; the English swith, Gothic swinths, German swind; whence the present geschwind, and swift; moreover, swindig is much, or many, in vulgar Dutch, and to swindle is probably to be too much for the victim.

Suintila was an old Gothic king of Spain, Swithbert, one of the early Anglo-Saxon missionaries, especially honoured as the converter of the kindred land of Friesland, where he was revered as St. Swibert. Swithelm was another Saxon form; but the most noted amongst us was Swithun, the bishop of Winchester, tutor to King Alfred, and endowed with many supposed miracles, the best known of which was the forty days' rain, by which, like other honest English saints, he testified his displeasure at having his bones meddled with. The Germans have had Swidburg, Swintfried, Swidger; but in general this has served as a feminine termination, as in Melicent, Frediswid, and in all the many swiths and swinds of the Franks and Goths.

Whether this be the root or not, Svein is in the North a strong youth, generally a servant, but in the form of Svend becoming the favourite name of the kings of Denmark, belonging to him whom Ethelred’s treachery brought down on England, where it was called Swayn, and translated into Latin as Sueno, while Tasso calls the crusading Swend, Sveno. Svinbjorn occurs in Iceland, and is our Swinburn. Svenke, again, is the active or slender youth. It is amusing to see how, from a strong man, the swain became a young man, then a bachelor, then a lover, and, finally, a shepherd.

Another of the mighty words that have been formed into names is vald, the near relative of the Latin valeo. Our verb to wield continues the Anglo-Saxon wealdan, which named the wealds of Kent, nay, and the world itself.

Vald still stands alone in the North, and once was the name of a Frank abbot of Evreux; St. Valdus, in Latin, St. Gaud, in French.

The leading name is, however, Waldheri, Powerful-Warrior appearing as the young prince of Aquitaine, who, in the curious Latin poem which seems to represent the Frankish Nibelungenlied in the south of France, flies from Attila’s court with his fellow-hostage, the Burgundian Hildegunna, and her treasure, and repulses the pursuing Gunther and Hagano. This same Walther was said to have afterwards reigned thirty years in Aquitaine, and, no doubt, the name was already common there, when, about 990, it came to saintly glory, through a monastic saint of that dukedom, who, being followed by two others, caused it to be spread far and wide. Indeed, there are twenty-eight Walters in Domesday, and Cambrai made plentiful use of it in the same form, till, about 1300, the spelling was altered to the French Gautier. Walther von Vogelwied, the Minnesinger, who bequeathed a perpetual dole to the birds of the air at his tomb, well deserved that the memory of his name should be kept up in Germany, and it has always been very popular. Wat, as a contraction, is as old as Rufus’s time, and Water was in use, at least, in Shakespeare’s time, when he shows the prophecy of Suffolk’s death by water fulfilled by the name of his assassin.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ Irish. │ French. │ Italian. │ │Walter │Thaiter │Waltier │Gualtiero │ │Water │ │Gualtier │ ———————— │ │Wat │ │Wautier │ Spanish. │ │Watty │ │Gatier │Guttierre │ │Wattles │ │Gautier │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Portuguese. │ Netherlands. │ Lettish. │ Dutch. │ │Gualter │Gualterus │Waters │Wolder │ │Gualterio │Walter │ ———————— │ │ │ │Wouter │ Swiss. │ │ │ │Wout │Watli │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Waldemar is an old German form imported by the Normans to England, and sometimes supposed to have been carried to Russia, and to have turned into Vladimir; but this has been traced to a genuine Slavonic source, though it is used by the Russians to represent Walter.

This commencement is almost exclusively German; its other varieties are Waldobert, or Walbert, the Gualberto of Italy, Waldrich, and, perhaps, Walpurg, though she is more probably from val, slaughter.

Frodhr, Wise or learned, is sometimes an epithet, but is also used for a name, and Latinized into Frotho. The Germans have it in combination as Frodwin, wise friend, Frodbert and Frodberta, whence the French make Flobert and Floberte.

The root mah, which made the Sanscrit mahat, Zend maz, Greek megas, Latin magnus, Kelt mawr, comes forth again in Teutonic, with mære, or mara, in Anglo-Saxon, with its comparatives mœrre and mœriste, whence our more and most. This same sense of greatness formed the word maara, fame, and maren, to celebrate, both old German, and it is the commencement of the Frank chieftain’s name from whom all the princes of the earlier race were called Meerwings, Merowig, or Famed men, the Meerwig of German writers and Meroveus of Latinity, whence the Merovée of French history.

Our own Anglian Mercians had among their royal line Merowald, Merehelm, and Merewine; but, in general, mer, or mar, is used as a termination rather than a commencement, and then is always masculine. Merohelm is also called Merchelm, so the French saint, ‘Marculphe,’ may have been Merowulf, though he now looks more like Markulf, a border wolf.[148]

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Footnote 148:

Munch; Sismondi; Butler; Junius; Kemble; Michaelis; Lappenburg; Mariana; Weber and Jamieson; Donovan.

SECTION VII.—Affection.

The Teutons had a few names denoting affection. Dyre is the same in Norse as our own word dear, or dyr in Anglo-Saxon. An inlet on the north-west corner of Iceland is still termed Dyrefiord, from one of the first settlers, and Dyre was the hero of a ballad in the Kæmpeviser, answering to the Scottish Katharine Janfarie, the original of young Lochinvar. The old Germans had Dioro and Diura, and the Anglo-Saxons affectionately called the young sons of their nobility Dyrling, or darling.

Leof, the German lieb, beloved, is much used by the Anglo-Saxons. Two bishops, one of Wells, and afterwards primate, the other of Crediton, were called Leofing, or Lyfing. The first was certainly properly Ælfstan, so it is probable that in both instances Leofing was merely an endearing name that grew up with them, and displaced the baptismal one; but its Latin translation, Livingus, shows the origin of the surname of Livingstone.

England also had Leofwine, Beloved friend, the only native name borne by any of the sons of Earl Godwin. An earlier Leofwine was a member of St. Boniface’s mission, and converted many of the heathens on the banks of the Weser; and as St. Lebwin is patron of Deventer, probably occasioned the name of Lubin, which, from being borne by French peasants, crept into pastoral poetry.

Another of the same mission party was Leobgytha, or Dear gift, called also Liuba and Liebe, who was sent for from her convent at Wimborne to found one of the earliest nunneries in Germany. It is probably from her that Lievine became an old Cambrecis name.

Leof seems to have been the special prefix of the earls of Mercia, for we find among them, besides Leofwine, Leofstan and Leofric, the last the best known for the sake of his wife and of Coventry.

The continental instances of the prefix are among the Spanish Goths, Liuva, Leovigildo, and Liuvigotona; and among the Franks, Leobhard, or Liebhard, a saint of Touraine.

The only present survivor of all the varieties is probably, if we exclude the occasional Puritan Love, the Cornish and Devon feminine Lovedy.

Far more universal are the names derived from the old word vinr, or wine, meaning friend or object of love, the same which has left a descendant in the German wonne, affection, and the Scottish adjective winsome. It is a continual termination, as must have been already observed, and we had it as a commencement in our great English missionary Winfrith, or Friend of peace, the Devonian bishop who spread Christianity over Germany, but who is far better known by the Latin surname which he assumed, namely, Bonifacius. Winibald was another of our missionary saints, and Germany has also had Winrad, Winrich, and Winmar, but the Welsh Wenefred must not be confused with it.

Mild, or mild, is exclusively Saxon; nay, almost exclusively Mercian, for it only occurs in one family; that of King Merowald, who named his three daughters Mildgyth, Mildburh, and Mildthryth. All became nuns, the two latter abbesses, one in Shropshire, the other in the isle of Thanet, and they were canonized as Milburga and Mildreda. Milborough, as the first became Anglicized, was found within the last century in Shropshire, and Mildred was never entirely disused; it belonged to the daughter of Burleigh, and has lately been much revived, under the notion that it means mild speech; but red is always masculine, and, as has been before said, thryth commands or threatens, so that Mildthryth is the gently strict.

SECTION VIII.—Appearance.

Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs was verily named after a beard. Skegg means neither more nor less than a beard, and strange to say, Bardr and Skegg were both fashionable names in the North; indeed, one Icelandic gentleman rejoiced in the euphonious title of Bardr Bla-skegg, or Beard Blue-beard.

But we have an independent name of this class. William de Albini, the second husband of Henry I.’s widow, Alix of Louvaine, wore moustachios, which the Normans called gernons, and thus his usual title was William als Gernons; and as the common ancestor of the Howards and Percys, he left this epithet to them as a baptismal name, one of the most whimsical of the entire roll. From the Percys it came to Algernon Sidney; and partly through his admirers, partly through inheritance, and partly through the love of trisyllables, has become diffused in England.

Faxe meant the hair or tresses, as may be seen in the names of the horses of day and night, Skinfaxi and Hrinfaxi. Two instances of it are found in the Landnama-bok, Faxi, a colonist from the Hebrides, and Faxabrandr, most likely an epithet due to some peculiarity of hair, probably whiteness, or perhaps fieriness; but it was not common, though it came to England to be the surname of Sir Thomas Fairfax.

The name of our excellent friend Wamba in Ivanhoe must probably have been taken from one of the Visigothic kings of Spain, with whom it was most likely a nickname, like that of Louis de Gros in France, for it means nothing but the belly. Epithets like this were not uncommon, and sometimes were treated as names, such as Mucel, or the big, the sobriquet of the earl of the Gevini; or Budde, the pudding, the person who showed Knut the way over the ice. Many of those used in England were Keltic, showing that the undercurrent of Cymric population must still have been strong.

It is remarkable how very few are the Teuton names taken from the complexion—in comparison with the many used by the Kelts, and even by the Romans—either because the Teutons were all alike fair, or because they thought these casual titles unworthy to be names. Bruno was exclusively German, and may perhaps be only a nickname, but it came to honour with the monk of Cologne, who founded the Carthusian order, and has been used ever since; and the North has Sverke, Sverkir, swarthy or dark, a famous name among the vikings.

Far more modern is the name of Blanche. The absence of colour is in all tongues of Western Europe denoted by forms of blec. In Anglo-Saxon, blœc or blac is the colour black, but blœca is a bleak, empty place, and blœcan is to bleach or whiten; blœco, like the German bleich, stands for paleness. It is the same with German and Norse, in the latter of which blakke hund is not a black dog but a white one. All these, however, used their own weiss or white for the pure uncoloured snow; while the negative blœc, or colourless, was adopted by the Romance languages, all abandoning the Latin albus in its favour. It is literally true that our black is the French white; black and blanc are only the absence of colour in its two opposite effects.

Blach, Blacheman, Blancus, and Blancard, all appear in Domesday; but Blanchefleur and Blanche, seem to have been the produce of romance. The mother of Sir Tristrem was Blanchefleur, a possible translation of some of the Keltic Gwenns or Finns, and it probably crept from romance to reality among the poetical people of southern France. The first historical character so called was Blanca of Navarre, the queen of Sancho IV. of Castille, from whom it was bestowed on her granddaughter, that child of Eleanor Plantagenet, whom her uncle, King John, employed as the lure by which to detach Philippe Auguste from the support of Arthur of Brittany. The treaty only bore that the son of Philippe should wed the daughter of Alfonso of Castille; the choice among the sisters was entrusted to ambassadors, and they were guided solely, by the sound of the name borne by the younger, that of the elder sister, Urraca, being considered by them hateful to French ears, and unpronounceable to French lips. John was punished for his policy, for Blanche’s royal English blood was the pretext of the pope in directing against him her husband, Louis the Lion, but no choice could have been a happier one for France, since Blanche of Castille was the first and best of her many queen-regents.

From her the name became very common in France. One of the daughters of Edward I. was so called, probably from her, in honour of his friendship for her son; it became usual among the English nobility, and is most common in Italy, though it is somewhat forgotten in Spain.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ Spanish. │Portuguese. │ │Blanch │Blanche │Bianca │Blanca │Branca │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

A Swedish heroine called Blenda made this name, from blenden, to dazzle, common in her own country, but it is not known elsewhere.

Koll, with a double l, meaning head, is sometimes used in northern names, but far less commonly than kol, cool, or rather in the act of cooling after great heat. The great blast-bellows with which the gods charitably refreshed the horses of the sun, are called in the Eddaic poetry, isarnkol, or iron coolers, and there may have been some allusion to this in the names of Kol and Kale, which alternated in one of the old northern families. But as the cooling of iron involved its turning black, kolbrünn meant a black breastplate, and was thus used as a by-name; and it may be in this sense of black that kol enters into the composition of Kolbjorn, black bear, Kolgrim, Kolgrima; Kolskegg would thus be black-beard; but Kolbein can hardly be black-leg, so, perhaps, it may refer to the bones being strong as wrought iron; and Kolfinn and its feminine are either cool-white or refer to Finn’s strength. Colbrand is in English romance the name of the Danish giant killed by Guy of Warwick, at Winchester; but the Heptarchy displays a very perplexing set of Cols, as they have been modernized, though they used to be spelt Ceol. There were three Ceolwulfs in Bernicia, Mercia, and Wessex; Ceolred in Mercia, Ceolwald in Wessex, Ceolnoth on the throne of Canterbury. Are these the relatives of the northern kol, cool, or are they ceol, keel, meaning rather a ship than merely the keel, as it does now? Or, on the other hand, are both these, and the northern col, adaptations of the Keltic col or gall, like those already mentioned of Finn? Their exclusive prevalence among the Scandinavians and Anglo-Saxons would somewhat favour the notion.

The northern feminine terminal, frid, belongs to this class, and means the fair, or pretty, from the old northern fridhr, though it is most deceitfully like fred, or frey, peace, and is probably from the same root.

Teitr is a northern man’s name, meaning cheerful: Zeiz answers to it in old German; and though the analogue in Anglo-Saxon does not otherwise occur in any Anglo-Saxon work, yet we find from Bede that Æthelburh, the daughter of Æthelbeorht and Bertha, of Kent, who carried her Christianity to her husband, Eadwine, was also called Tâte, by which we may gather that she was particularly lively and cheerful.

SECTION IX.—Locality.

A large and interesting class of names relate to country, and express the birthplace or the wandering habits of the original bearers.

The word land was one of these. Its primary meaning seems to be the abode of the people. Long ago we spoke of the Greek λαος, prominent in Laodamia, and many other of the like commencement. An almost similar term runs through the Teutonic tongues; the Saxon leod, German leute, Frank liade, Northern lydhr. The leod, or leute, seem to have been the free inhabitants, including all ranks, and thence we have the laity, for the general people, and the lewd, which has sunk from the free to the ignorant, and then to the dissipated.

The great region of these names taken from the people is Germany. Leutpold, the people’s prince, was a canonized Markgraf of Austria, in the days when that family had hardly yet begun its course of marrying into greatness, and making Leutpold better known at every stage, and by each new dialect differently pronounced, till it turned into Leopold, and was confounded with the old lion names. Indeed, in the old Swiss ballad on the battle of Sempach, translated by Scott, Leopold the Handsome is called the Austrian Lion. The recurrence of the name in the modern imperial line has made it European, and the close connection of our own royal family with the wise king of the Belgians has brought it to England. Of course, it has not escaped a modern German Leopoldine.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ German. │ Slav. │ │Leopold │Léopold │Leopoldo │Luitpold │Leopoldo │ │ │ │ │Leupold │Poldo │ │ │ │ │Leopo │Poldi │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

Leutgar, the people’s spear, was a good bishop of Antrim, who was speared by the people, or, at least, murdered by them, in the furious wars of the long-haired kings, and was revered as a martyr under the Latin form of Leodigarius. A priest of Chalons was canonized by the same name, which is in France Leguire, and was brought as a territorial surname to England as St. Leger.

Liutgarde seems to have been a Frank saint, but there is no account of her in Alban Butler; but hers is one of the favourite old names at Cambrai. Liutprand, the people’s sword, is one of the chief chroniclers of early French history, and the other forms are Liuther, the only one accepted by the North, and that in the form of Lyder.

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Ger. Liutbert; Fries. Liubert—People’s brightness │ │ Ger. Liutberga—People’s protection │ │ Fr. Leodefred, Leufroi—People’s peace │ │ Ger. Liutmar; Fries. Luttmer, Lummer; Fr. Leodemir—People’s │ │ greatness │ │ Ger. Leuthold, Liutold; Ags. Leodwald—People’s power │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

The land itself was compounded into names chiefly among the Franks, Germans, and Lombards, often as a conclusion, but now and then at the beginning. Lantperaht, or the country’s brightness, is the most noted of these, having been borne by three saints of Maestricht, Lyons, and Venice, and having thus become national in all the countries around; but it is universally corrupted into Lambert, and has been generally derived from a lamb.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ German. │ Dutch. │ │Lambert │Lambert │Lamberto │Landbert │Lambert │ │ │Lanbert │ │Lambert │Lammert │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

Landerich, or country’s ruler, was an early Frank saint, who has left Landry to be still frequent among the Flemish and French peasantry.

Landfrang, lord of the country, was the Lombardic Lanfranco, whence the Lanfranc of the archbishop of Canterbury, whom William the Conqueror imposed on the English Church, but who brought in fresh vigour and learning. Landfrid has left the surname Laffert to France; its contraction Lando belonged to a saint, and has the feminines Landine and Landoline. There are also recorded Landolf, Landrad, Landrada, and Landinn.

If Germany and Italy talked of dwellers in the land, the North, with its seas and numerous islets, distinguished the islanders with the word Ey, or Øi, the word that we use to this very day in speaking of Guerns_ey_ Jers_ey_, &c., of an eyot in a river; and even in Sodor, that puzzling companion to the Isle of Man, which once was the Sudeyas, or South Isles, the Hebrides.

The most famous northern island name is Eystein, or Øistein, much in use among the early kings, and especially honoured for the sake of the good brother of Sigurd the Crusader, who stayed at home and worked for his people’s good, while Sigurd was killing blue men in the land of the Saracens. The Danish Eystein was turned into Austin, or Augustin, to be more ecclesiastical, and this may be the origin of some of our Austins. Eyulf, or the island wolf, has become, in the course of time, Øiel and Øiuf. Eyvind, who appears in the Landnama-bok with the unpleasant sobriquet of Skalldur Spiller, or the poet spoiler, is supposed to have been the Island Wend, a reminiscence of the Wends on the shores of the Baltic. It was a very common name, and became Øvind and Even, while Eymund, in like manner, was turned into Emund. An island thief was not wanting, as Eythiof; nor an island warrior, as Eyar; also Eyfrey, Eylang; and the ladies Eygerd, Eydis, Eyny, and Eyvar, or, as Saxo calls her, Ofura.

An island is also sometimes holm, whence the northern Holmstein and Holmfrid, with Holmgeir, which gets mixed with Holger.

Persons of mixed birth were drolly called by the actual fractional word half, in Germany Halbwalah, half a foreigner, or half a Wallachian, and Halbtüring or half a Thuringian; and in the North, generally, Halfdan, half a Dane. So early was this in use that there was a mythical king, Halfdan, from whom the name was adopted by many a true-born Dane and Northman, and has been Latinized as Haldanus.

Travellers had their epithets, which probably came to be family names. Lide, Wanderer, was compounded in Haflide, sea wanderer; Vestlide, west wanderer; Vetilide, winter wanderer; and Sumalide, or summer wanderer, which last was current among the lords of the Isles, and kings of Man, in the shape of Somerled, or, in Gaelic, Somhle; but ‘the heirs of mighty Somerled’ did not long keep up his name.

Travellers again had their name from fara, the modern German fahren, and the scarcely disused English to fare, meaning to journey. The most noted instance is Faramund, who, in the guise of Pharamond, is placed at the head of the long-haired Frankish dynasty, far travelled it may be, from the river Yssel whence the Salic stock took the title that was to pass to one peculiar law of succession; also Farabert, Farulf, and Farthegn, contracted into Farten, and Faltin, and then supposed to be a contraction of Falentin, or Valentine. Thegn did, in fact, originally mean a servant, so that Farthegn was either the travelled servant, or the travelled thane. Fargrim appears in Domesday; but these names are not easy to divide from those taken from waren, to beware.

Even the exile had his sorrows commemorated in his children’s names. No doubt if we could meet with the story of the original Erland, we should find that he was born under the same circumstances as Peregrine Bertie, for the name is from the old northern er, out, or away from, and land. Erland is the Outland, the banished man, and he must have been beloved, or celebrated, for Erlendr, as the Icelanders had it, occurs plentifully, with its diminutive Erling, and perhaps the corruption Elling.

The unfortunate Bishop Hatto’s name was anciently Hazzo, and is translated a Hessian.

Viking has been used as a Christian name in Norway in comparatively modern days, in memory of the deeds of the terrible Vikingr of old; but, in spite of the resemblance in sound, it must not be suspected of any relation to sea-kings, being only the inhabitant of a vik, or bay, of course the most convenient abode for a sea-rover.

The sea, haf, or hav, as it was called in the North, named Haflide, Hafthor, and Hafgrim, as well as the mythic hero, Haflok, the Dane, whose life, according to his legend, was saved by his faithful servant Grim, the founder of Grimsby, in Lincolnshire, the native place of our own Sir Henry Havelock, who was bewailed by the Danish school-children as their own ballad hero. The two feminine terminations laug and veig may have been in its honour, but it is much to be feared that they only meant liquor, and at the best were allusions to the costly mead of the gods, the drink of inspiration, or the magic bowls that inflamed the Berserks. Nay, men rejoiced in the name of Ølver or Ølve, meaning neither more nor less than Ale, øl, which acquires a v in the oblique cases and plural. Ø1ver and Olaf have, no doubt, been confounded into the modern Oliver.

Knud, or Knut, a very common northern name, is a very puzzling one. Its origin and nationality are Danish, and it only came to Norway by intermarriages, nor does it appear at all in the Landnamabok. The great Dane who brought it here is called by the chroniclers Canutus, from some notion of making it the Latin hoary, and thus we know him as Canute; but even in Domesday, one landholder in Yorkshire, and another in Derbyshire, are entered as Cnud. The whole North, and the inhabitants of the Hebrides, use the name, which comes from the same root as our knot, and properly means a protuberance, a hill, or barrow.

SECTION X.—Life.

Life played its part among Teutonic names. One old word conveying this sense was the Gothic ferchvus, Saxon feorh, and Northern fiorh. The Anglo-Saxon feorh also meant youth, and thus passed on to mean a young man.

There are not many names from thence, but one of the few has been a great perplexity, and has been explained in many ways, i. e. the Gothic Ferhonanths, the last syllable being nanth, daring, so that its sense would be, ‘adventuring his life.’ It was the Spanish Goths who used this gallant name, and made it with their Romance tongues into Fernan and Fernando. San Fernando, king of Castille, and father of our own Eleanor, made it a favourite for his royal line; and a younger son of Castille so called, being heir of Aragon, carried it thither, and thence it passed to southern France, where the grandson of old King René was Ferrand or Ferry. Aragon again bestowed it upon Naples; but it was there prolonged into Ferdinando, whilst Spanish elisions had at home turned it to Hernan, as the conqueror of Mexico termed himself. It was bestowed upon the second son of Juana la Loca, who was born in Spain, and long preferred there to his brother, though it was to the imperial throne that he was destined to succeed, and to render his Spanish name national through Germany, where Ferdinand has long been a sore puzzle; sometimes explained by fart, a journey, and sometimes by fried, peace, but never satisfactorily. The contraction Nandel was the shout of the mob in the ears of Ferdinand, the obstinate, narrow-minded man who won his cause by mere force of undivided aim. It is so popular in Spain and Germany as in each to have a feminine, Fernanda and Ferdinandine.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Spanish. │ Italian. │ │Ferdinand │Ferdinand │Fernando │Ferdinando │ │ │Ferrand │Hernando │Fernando │ │ │Ferry │Hernan │Ferrante │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Polish. │ Lettish. │ │ │Ferdinand │Ferdynand │Werlands │ │ │Nandl │ │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Ferahbald and Ferahmund were forgotten old German forms, and Fjorleif was known in the North.

This is, probably, relic of life, as otherwise the word would be a reduplication; but the termination leif or lif is sometimes used, being our very word life.

There are two words which may be said to form names of progress, the German gang, from to go, sometimes commencing as in Gangolf, but more usual at the end of a word; and the Northern stig, from the universal root stig, found in the Greek ἔστιχον, and in our step and stile, also stairs, for the usual sense of the word implies mounting upwards; and the name of the semi-Danish archbishop of Canterbury who crowned Harold, and was one of the Conqueror’s lifelong captives, was the participle Stigand, mounting, and was long extant in the North, as well as the Danish Styge and Stygge.

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