Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 10.djvu/317

 Origin and Meaning of Proper Names.

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��and fame of their first hero. He re- ceived divine honors. The day on which Tuisco was specially honored was named Tuesday, and the people who paid him divine honors were called "■Teutones," whence we ob- tain the modern words Teutsch and Dutch, Teutonic and Germanic ; there- fore are the sacred and military names of the same people both derived from hei-oes.

The same race are sometimes called Goths. This word means brave or good in war, as among all early na- tions valor is equivalent to goodness. The bravest fighter was the best man : so among our ancestors Goth, Gott, God, and good are but one and the same word differently spelled. When ap|)lied to a deity, a tribe or nation, it meant hrave or fierce^ not kind or beneficent^ as in modern use. It was a title of Odin, or Woden, the bloody warrior of the North, who swept over nations from the Indus to the North- ern ocean like a hyperborean tem- pest, and was literally the god of hosts. From him the fourth day of our week is named Wednesday or "Woden's day."

It has been said by an eminent crit- ic that "Odin or Woden, the former Scandinavian in its origin, from the Norse ' odr,' the latter Germanic, from ' wod,' raging, mad, wooe, de- notes one possessed with fury." The Scandinavian Odin and the German Woden were the same god, whose name indicates his character. The Goths, or braves, were divided into Ostro-Goths and Visi-Goths, or East- ern and Western Goths. The Wes- tro- or Visi-Goths, in the early part of the fifth century, under Alaric or Al-ric, '■'■all rich," or very rich, enter-

��ed Italy and pillaged Rome. In their subsequent conquests they formed a union with the Vandals, who are com- monly supposed to be a Gothic tribe deriving their name from the Teutonic word " wenden," to turn or wander, denoting a collection of roving tribes or wanderers like the Asiatic Nomads. Dr. Latham thinks the word Vandal is the same as Wend, which is the German name for Slavonian. Car- lyle speaks of the northern llaltic countries being vacated by the Goths and occupied by immigrating Sclaves called Vandals or Wends in the fourth century, and adds, the word '■'■slave," in all our Western languages, means captured Sclavonian.

The Vandals, under Geuseric. Gans- ric, "wholly rich," conquered Mau- ritania in 429. In their victorious march into Africa they conquered Spain, and named the province as- signed to them from themselves Van- dalitia, which in process of time was softened into Andalusia.

The etymological history of Euro- pean names of places and of men points directly to the j^eculiarities of both. Our ancestors were warlike : their national, local, and individual names show it. The Greeks gave the general appellation of Scythian to all the tribes north of the Black sea. Some suppose this to have been a Teutonic word assumed by themselves, and borrowed by the Greeks from the verb "schiitten," to shoot, because they were expert bowmen. The word Saxon is supposed to be affiliated with the primitive "seax," a sword, be- cause the Saxons were good swords- men. In like manner the Angles are associated with the word "angel" or " angl," a hook or barbed weapon

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