Page:Runic and heroic poems of the old Teutonic peoples.djvu/29



Os (Salzb. AS. os) &lt; *ansuz, a god (cf. Jordanes, c. ., Gothi…proceres suos, quorum quasi fortuna vincebant, non puros homines, ted Ansis, id est semideos, vocaverunt, and the ON. óss), the name of A in the original alphabet. Cf. A(n)suᵹisalas of the Kragehul lance-shaft. But original a seldom remained in AS., and the character became the English Runic letter for æ (æsc). Accordingly a ligature of A and N was invented to express the ō, which arose from -an- followed by þ or s. Later, when the name of the original letter had become æðel, os was used for o in all cases, whatever might have been their origin.Os is a common element in AS. personal names, e.g. Oswald, Oswine, etc.; cf. A(n)suᵹisalas above, and its Gen. pl. esa used in the charm wið færstice (G.-W. . 318) Its precise meaning here is perhaps open to question, though the collocation æsir ok alfar is common in ON. mythological poetry.In the Icelandic poem óss, which likewise represents original *ansuz, = Othin, and it is just possible that this stanza refers to some such episode as that described in Gylfaginning, c. .; þá er þeir gengu með sævartröndu Borssynír (Óðinn, Vili and Vé), ''fundu þeir tré tvau ok tóku upp tréin ok skpuðu af men; gaf inn fyrsti ond ok líf, annarr vit ok hrœring. III ásjónu, mál ok heyrn ok sjón. But it is not very likely that the origin of human speech would be attributed to a heathen divinity, and on the whole it is preferable to assume that the subject of the stanza is the Latin os'', mouth, which would be equally appropriate.