Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/250

 202

NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vi. SEPT. H, 1912.

Widsith himself tells us that Angel lay to the east of the home of King Eormanric which was in the e\>el Gotena, the " native land of the Gotas." He says (1. 7) that he

HreScyriinges I ham gesohte eastan of Ongle | Eormanrices ;

i.e., "sought the home of the Hrefcking Eormanric from the east, from Angel."

"Hrefi" (e) is Anglian.* The West Saxon form .is *Hrsefi, answering to an Old Saxon *Hrac5, *HarS. The facts that the Gotas were called Hrseogotas ; that their king was called HrseScyning; and that the Geatas were called Hrseomenn, point to a partial fusion of two Old Germanic races, namely, Gautas and HrseSas, or Hraftas. I say partial because the primitive Gautas were represented in the fifth century by the Gautar of Sweden. The section of the Gautas which became fused with the HrfJeSas was probably_ known at an inter- mediate period as HrseSgautas. This coali- tion in its turn became subdivided into O.E. HraeSgeatas and O.S. Hraogotas.

It may be objected that the name of the Old Saxons ought to appear as HraSgotan (or, perhaps, HarSgotan). In pure O.S. there need be no doubt that this dithematic folk-name did assume a regular form. But in " HreSgotum " the dialects are mixed, and we get the common name of the two tribes in the dialect of the speaker, or poet ; and the particular name of one of them, i.e., of the Gotas, in their own dialect, to wit, the Old Saxon. Exactly the same thing occurs in 1. 113, where we find mention of Eastgota : there the common term east is in the dialect of the speaker, i.e., in O.E., and the particular one is in O.S. The true O.S. form is Ostgota ; the true O.E. is Eastgeat ; cf. Angelgeat, Winilgeat, WoSel- geat, &c.

The Eastgota whom Widsith knew and praised c. 450 is identified by many scholars as the OstrogOtha who lived in the third century, and who is mentioned by Cassio- dorus, c. 532. We are even assured that there is " identity of name," i.e., that Gothic -gotfia is identical with (O.S.) -gota, and O.E. east with Gothic Aust-r>Ostro. The latter equation is equivalent to saying that East is identical with Easter. The assertion that the O.E. Unwene (the name

" Heftcan " of ' Widsith,' 1. 112 (cf. 1. 58), is H5S- cen, King of the Geatas, the predecessor of Hygelac. Commentators of ' Widsith ' declare that " Heftcan " is unknown.
 * In this connexion it may be pointed out that

iven by Widsith as that of the son of Castgota) is the same as the Gothic Hunuil, the son of Ostrogotha, is equally unreliable, and should never have been made.

From what has been said it follows that Got- is not G6th- ; that Eormanric's people the Gotas were not Goths ; and that the Hermanaric who ruled the Goths was not the Eormanric who ruled the Gotas.

ALFRED ANSCOMBE.

THE ROYAL SOCIETY'S 250TH ANNIVERSARY.

(See ante, p. 181.)

AFTER the Plague began to abate, ' The Record ' states that " on the 14th of March,. 1666 " (Evelyn gives the date as the 22nd), " the meetings were resumed at Gresham College," which had been the Society's first meeting-place ; but they were inter- rupted by the Great Fire, which broke out on' Sunday night, the 2nd of September, and the meetings which were due on the 5th and 12th were not held. The Society appears, however, to have met on the 19th and some following weeks in Dr. Pope's lodging, or in other rooms in the College ; but it had to leave, as the building was required, on account of the Fire, as an Exchange until a new Exchange could be built.

It was not until the 9th of January, 1667,. that the regular meetings were resumed, when, Evelyn states, Mr. Henry Howard, afterwards sixth Duke of Norfolk, invited the Society to meet at Arundel House in the Strand, and this became the headquarters of the Society until near the end of the year 1673. In addition to this kindness, when he became Duke Howard, at Evelyn's sugges- tion, "likewise bestowed on the Society that noble library which his grandfather especially, and his ancestors, had collected." Evelyn explains that he would not have induced him to part with the library, but for his- negligence of the books, " suffering the priests- and everybody to carry away and dispose of what they pleased ; so that abundance of rare 'things are irrecoverably gone." On the 31st of October, 1667, Evelyn celebrates his birthday by presenting to the Society

" the Table of Veins, Arteries, and Nerves, which great curiosity I had caused to be made in Italy, out of natural, by a learned physician, and the help of Veslingius (professor at Padua), from whence I brought them in 1646."