Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/509

 us. vii. JUNE 28, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

501

LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 1913.

CONTENTS. No. 183.

NOTES : The Eowas of ' Widsith,' 501 The Forged ' Speeches and Prayers ' of the Regicides, 502 Epi- taphiana, 503 -Geffrey's Ahnshouses, Kingsland Road, 504 The Original of Little Dorrit A Hatfield Charter Arrigo (or Henry) Pleunus " Lettre de cachette" Records of the City Livery Companies, 505 The Earliest Work on Lawn Tennis Burns's Friend Thomson, 506 Romney Marriage Licence Amice, Countess of Leicester The Crown of the Kings of Greece, 507.

QUERIES : Bibliography of Johnson's Works, 507 The Story of Old Mother Nim-Nam " Pull one's leg" Samuel Pepys and Sir William Sanderson Authors of Quotations Wanted Water -Stealing Device in Ancient Rome Admiral Edmund Williams, 508 Byron and the Hobhouse MS. -Rev. John Smith, Rector of Enniskillen The Twelve Good Rules Guido delle Colonne in Eng- land : L. F. Simpson Gundrada de Warenne Miss Catherine Fanshawe : ' Polities' Andrew or George Melly, 509 Wonderment Pamphlets of the Stuart Era Fanny Brawne Rev. William Lancaster Robert Riddell Milkmaids' Grease-Horns, 510.

REPLIES: Demolition of Dickensian Landmarks in Bir- mingham, 510-Myless, Essex, 512 " Furdall," 513 Sintram and Verena Ink-horns and Ink-glasses De Foe and Napoleon 'A Londoner's London' Sir John Moore, 514 Files : Tools in the Middle Ages The Wreck of the Royal George Portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots 'The Tomahawk': Matt Morgan, 515 Storey's Gate Tavern and Coffee-House Botany Unions planted with Roses, 516 Proposed Emendation in Asciham Scolopendras ' Critical Review 'Society of Friends : " Thou," " Thee " "Honest" Epitaph. 517 Pinkstan James Peter Barrow The Sign of the Dripping-Pan, 518.

NOTES ON BOOKS:-' The Life and Letters of William Cobbett ' 'The Loss of Normandy (1189-120A).'

Booksellers' Catalogues. Notices to Correspondents.

THE EOWAS OF ' WIDSITH,' LINE 26.

" OSWINE WEOLD EowuM " is a half -line in ' Widsith ' which has resisted all attempts made to elucidate it. MR. R. W. CHAMBERS describes the ruler as unknown, and suggests that Oswine be identified with somebody else of a different name, sc. Oslaf. As to the Eowas, MR. CHAMBERS rightly asks for an identification which will deposit them as neighbours of the Wernas and the Yte, between which tribes they occur in Widsith's list :

Billing Wernum. Oswine weold Eowum ond Ytum Gefwulf.

Students of ' Widsith ' almost universally identify the Eowas with the Aviones of Tacitus's ' Germania,' and there need be no doubt about the verbal identity of Sow- and

avi-. Cf. Gothic awi and awistr with O.E. eowe and eowestre, which mean " ewe " and " sheepfold " respectively.

But three assumptions are tacitly made here : (1) identity of vocalic quantity ; (2) its brevity ; and (3) that a tribe of warriors would be willing to be known as eowas (ewes). If we wrote eowas, however, we should, in the first place, be ascribing a very different qualifying name to a tribe that was able apparently to maintain itself between the Wernas and the Jutes ; for Eowas (e) may mean the Vultures or the Griffins. In the second place, -low is not West Saxon, the true dialect-form being -Iw. Cf. W.S. hlw, nlwe, with non-W.S. Mow, neowe (v. Prof. J. Wright's ' O.E. Grammar,' 90).

Eowum therefore postulates W.S. Iwum, and these represent earlier non-W.S. *Geo- wum and W.S. *Giwum. G here is the palatal spirant, the English y, and the difference between the two forms is similar to that between the polite pronunciation of " ewe " and the rustic one, namely, yew and yd. In W.S. glw means a griffin, and the personal name derived from it is " Giw-is," as in the pedigree of King Alfred in MS. A of the i Saxon Chronicle,' scr. 892. This was pronounced like Yeewis.

In the ' Historia Ecclesiastica ' of Bede we get the tribe-name forming its plural in i (II. v., Geuissorum ; III. vii., Geuuissorum, MS. C). In Asser we find " Gegwis " in King Alfred's pedigree, and in the ' Annales Cambriae ' we get " Giuoys," annal 900. In the ' Brut y Tywysogion ' either " Iwys " or " Giwys " may be indicated. The name was antiquated even in Bede's time. He says (III. vii.) : " Occidentales Saxones qui antiquitus Geuissse vocabantur."

The retention of g in the Latin form into which Bede threw the word was unnecessary. Latin eu was, no doubt, pronounced like O.E. Gew-. Giw-, and we know that " Eu- thio " and " Eutiis " indicated the Jutes in the sixth and seventh centuries. This prepares us for another form of Geuissa, namely, *Euissa, but that does not occur. We get " Ebissa," however, in the ' Historia Brittonum,' cap. xxxviii. p. 178, and b : : u is one of the commonest scribal errors in MSS. of the O.E. period. We find it not only in proper names, as Gudbaldi. Derbentio, Deibi, but in such everyday expressions as abunculi. olibis, brebiter. " Ebissa," then, represents *Eu-is for Gew-is, and the cousin of Hengist's son Ohta is necessarily the eponymus of the " genera Geuuissorum."