The name is absent



864


THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.


[book I.


that is, “ Ear is a terror to every man, when fast
the flesh, the corpse beginneth to become cold and
pale to seek the earth for a consort. Joy faileth,
pleasure departeth, engagements cease.” It is clear
that Ear,
spica, crista, will not explain this, and we
may believe that our forefathers contemplated the
personal intervention of some deity whose contact
was death. This may have been Tiw or Ear, espe-
cially in the battle-field, and here he would be equi-
valent to the
,'Apηc βpoτoλoιγoc μιaιφovoc of Homer.

More than this we shall hardly succeed in
rescuing : but there yet remains a name to consider,
which may possibly have tended t'' Ltinish the more
heathen one of Tiw. Among all the expressions
which the Anglosaxons used to denote a violent
death, none is more frequent than wig fornam, or
wig gesceod, in which there is an obvious person-
ality, Wig
(War) ravished away the doomed : here
no doubt
war was represented as personally inter-
vening, and slaying, as in other similar cases we
find the feminines Hild, Gu¾, which are of the same
import, and the masculines Swylt, Dea¾,
mors. The
abstract sense which also lay in the word
wig, and
enabled it to be used without offence to Christian
ears, may have been a reason for its general adop-
tion in cases where at an earlier period Tiw would
have been preferred. Old glossaries give us the
rendering Wig
Mars, and Hild,Bellona: it is there-
fore not at all improbable that these words were
purposely selected to express what otherwise must
have been referred to a god of perilous influence :
Wig was a more general, and therefore less dan-
gerous name than Tiw, to recal to the memory of a

CH. X∏∙]


HEATHENDOM. WI'G.


355


people prone to apostasy. That the Iattgr survived
in the name of a weekday serves only to show that it
was too deeply grounded to be got rid of ; perhaps its
very familiarity in that particular relation rendered
it safe to retain the name of any deity, as was done
by five out of the seven days. But Christianity
was tolerant of heathen names in other than hea-
then functions, and in the genealogy of the kings
of Wessex, Wig is the father of Gewis, the epony-
mus of the race. I have already expressed my be-
lief that this name represented either Woden or
Tfw, and think it very likely that it was the latter,
inasmuch as the paganism of the Gewissas seems to
have been remarkable, beyond that of other Anglo-
saxon tribes : “ Sed Britanniam perveniens, ac pri-
mum Gewissorum gentem ingrediens, cum omnes
ibidem paganissimos inveniret,” etc.1 “ Intrante
autem episcopo in portum Occidentalium Saxonum5
gentem qui antiquitus Gewisse vocabantur, cum
omnes ibidem paganissimos inveniret,” etc.2 The
events described are of the year 634. We find that
Tfw enters into the composition of the names of a
few plants3 ; on the other hand it is never found in
the composition of proper names, any more than
Tfr ; although
now Tfrberht or Tfrwulf would seem
quite as legitimate compounds as Eadberht, Sige-
berht, Eadwulf, Sigewulf.

FREA', in Old-norse FREYR, in Old-german
FRO.—The god whom the Norse mythology cele-

1 Beda, Hiat. Ecc. iii. 7.    2 Johann. Tj neɪn. Legend. Nova, fol. 38.

3 Thus Old-norse Tysfiola, Tjrhjalm, Tjβvi‰

2 a2



More intriguing information

1. Nonlinear Production, Abatement, Pollution and Materials Balance Reconsidered
2. Strategic monetary policy in a monetary union with non-atomistic wage setters
3. Segmentación en la era de la globalización: ¿Cómo encontrar un segmento nuevo de mercado?
4. Bidding for Envy-Freeness: A Procedural Approach to n-Player Fair Division Problems
5. Bridging Micro- and Macro-Analyses of the EU Sugar Program: Methods and Insights
6. The name is absent
7. The name is absent
8. Poverty transition through targeted programme: the case of Bangladesh Poultry Model
9. Real Exchange Rate Misalignment: Prelude to Crisis?
10. The name is absent