Page:Runic and heroic poems of the old Teutonic peoples.djvu/36

 67 Ing wæs ærest mid East-Denum gesewen secgun, oþ he siððan est ofer wæg gewat; wæn æfter ran; ðus Heardingas ðone hæle nemdun.

71 Eþel byþ oferleof æghwylcum men, gif he mot ðær rihtes and gerysena on brucan on bolde bleadum oftast.

74 Dæg byþ drihtnes sond, deore mannum, mære metodes leoht, myrgþ and tohiht eadgum and earmum, eallum brice.

77 Ac byþ on eorþan elda bearnum flæsces fodor, fereþ gelome ofer ganotes bæþ; garsecg fandaþ hwæþer ac hæbbe æþele treowe.

73. H. blade. 74. H. mann inserted above dag. 67. Ing (Salzb. AS. Ing, Goth. Enguz), the letter for ng in the original alphabet; occasionally it is used for ing, e.g. Bir^ngu on the stone from Opedal, Norway; Ing is doubtless the epouym of the Ingwine, a name applied to the Danes in Beowulf, vv. 1044, 1319, where Hrothgar is styled eodor Ingwina, frean Ingwina. The earliest reference to Ing is to be found in the Ingaevones of Tacitus, c. ii., and Pliny, whom Professor Chadwick (Origin of the English Nation, pp. 207 ff.) has shown there is some reason for identifying with the confederation of Baltic tribes who worshipped Nerthus, id est Terra Mater, on an island in the ocean, perhaps the Danish isle of Sjaellnnd. But in later times the name is almost exclusively confined to Sweden; e.g. Arngrim J6nsson's epitome of the Skioldunga saga (Olrik, Aarb.f.n.O., 1894, p. 105): tradunt Odinum...Daniam...Scioldo, Sveciam Irtgoni filiis assignasse. Atque inde a Scioldo, quos hodie Danos, olim Skiolldunga fuisse appellatos; ut et Svecos ab Ingoni Inglin<ja. In Icelandic literature, e.g. the Ynglinga saga, the name Ynglingar is applied to the Swedish royal family, and the god Frey, their favourite divinity and reputed ancestor, is himself styled Yngvi-Freyr and Ingunar freyr (the lord of the prosperity of the Ingwine or the husband of Ingun). It is significant, moreover, that the name of his father Njo.r'Sr is phonetically equivalent to Nerthus, and his own cult as a god of peace and prosperity is evidently descended from that of the selfsame goddess (cf. Chadwick, O.E.N. p. 230 ff.). 69. wSn sefter ran, doubtless to be connected with the following passages, Tacitus, Germania, c. XL: They have a common worship of Rerthus, that is Mother Earth, and believe that she intervenes in human affairs and visits the nations in her car, etc., and the story of Gunnarr Helmingr in the Flateyjarb6k Saga of Olaf Tryg^vason, which relates that there was in Sweden an image of the god Freyr, which in winter time was carried about the country in a car, gera monniim drbdt, to bring about an abundant season for men; cf. Vigfusson and linger, Flateyjarb6k, i. 338, translated in Sephton's Saga of K. Olaf Tryggvason, p. 258 ff. 70. Heardingas, not elsewhere in AS., perhaps a generic term for "warriors" as in Elene, vv. 25, 130. It corresponds however to the ON. Haddingjar and the Asdingi, a section of the Vandals (from haddr, " a