2

meaning of giant.1 Possibly there was beside iötunn, also an ON. iötull, OHG. ezal (edax); that would explain the present Norwegian term for giant: jötul, jutul, Hallager 52. Faye 7 (see Suppl.).3

Our second term is likewise one that suggests the name of a nation. The ON. burs seems not essentially different from iötunn; in Sn. 6 Ymir is called ancestor of all the hrîmpurses, in Sæm. 118 all the iötnar are traced up to him. In particular songs or connexions the preference is given to one or the other appellative thus in the enumeration of dialects in the Alvîsmâl the giants are always iötnar, never þursar, and there is no Thursaheimr in use for Iötunheimr, Iötnaheimr; but Thrymr, though dwelling in Iötnaheimr, is nevertheless called pursa drôttinn (Sæm. 70. 71) and not iötna drôttinn, but he summons the iötnar (73a), and is a iötunn himself (74a). In Sæm. 85b both iötnar and hrîmpursar are summoned one after the other, so there must be some nice distinction between the two, which here I would look for in the prefix hrîm: only hrîmpursar, no hrîmiötnar, are ever met with; of this hrîmpurs an explanation will be attempted further on. Instead of purs there often occurs, especially at a later stage of the language, the assimilated form buss, particularly in the pl. pussar, hrîmþussar; a dæmonic being in the later sagas is called Thusselin (Müller's Sagab. 1, 367-8), nay, the Danish tongue has retained the assimilation in its tosse, clumsy giant, dolt (a folk-song has tossegrefve),* and a Norwegian dæmon bears the name tussel. The ON. purs, like several names of gods, is likewise the title of a rune-letter, the same that the Anglo-Saxons called porn (conf. 'purs rîsta,' Sæm. 863) : a notable deviation, as the AS. tongue by no means lacks the word; in Beow. 846 we find þyrs, and also in the menology in

1 Can the witch Jettha of the Palatinate (p. 96 note) be a corruption of Eta, Eza? Anyhow the Jettenbühel (Jetthæ collis) reminds us of the Bavarian Jettenberg (Mon. boica 2, 219, ann. 1317), and Mount Jetten in Reinbote's Georg 1717, where it is misprinted Setten. Near Willingshausen in Hesse is another Jettenberg, see W. Grimm On the runes, p. 271.

The ruined Weissenstein, by Werda near Marburg, was acc. to popular legend the abode of a giant named Essel (ezzal?), and the meadow where at the fall of his castle he sank its golden door in the R. Lahn, is still called Esselswerd.

3 Isidore's glosses render the Gallic name of a people ambro by devorator, which agrees with the OHG. transl. manezo, man-eater (Graff 1, 528), the well-known MHG. manezze.

4 So the Dan. fos, fossen, for the ON. fors.

Hickes (Gramm. AS. p. 207): 'byrs sceal on fenne gewunian,' and elsewhere þyrs, pl. þyrsas, renders the Lat. cyclops, orcus. The passage already given from the Cod. exon. 425, 28 has byrre with the s assimilated, as in irre for irse. And we find an Engl. thurst surviving in hobthurst (woodsprite), conf. hobgoblin p. 502 [hob o't' hurst?] The OHG. form ought to be durs, pl. dursâ, or duris, gen. durises, which last does occur in a gloss for the Lat. Dis, Ditis (Schm. 1, 458), and another gloss more Low Germ. gives thuris for orcus (Fr. ogre); yet Notker ps. 17, 32 spells it turs (daemonium), pl. tursa, and MHG. has turse, gen. tursen (Aw. 3, 179), perhaps türse, türsen (as in Massm. denkm. 109 türsen rhymes kürsen), and even türste, gen. türsten (MS. 2, 205); on the other hand, Albr. Tit. 24, 47 has 'spil von einem dürsen' (Hahn 3254 tursen) = play of a d., from which passage we gather that türse-shows as well as wihtel-shows (p. 441n.) were exhibited for pastime: Ls. 3, 564 says, alluding to a well-known fable, 'des kunt der dürsch, und sprichet schuo!' the d. knows that, etc., where the notion of satyr and wild man (p. 482) predominates. The Latin poem of Wilten monastery in Tyrol, which relates the story of the giant Haimo, names another giant Thyrsis, making a proper name of the word:

Forte habitabat in his alius truculentior oris

Cyclops, qui dictus nomine Thyrsis erat,
Thyrsis erat dictus, Seveldia rura colebat.1

The name of a place Tursinriut, Tursenriut (Doc. of 1218-9 in Lang's Reg. 2, 88. 94) 2 contains our word unmistakably, and so to my thinking does the earlier Tuzzinwanc near Neugart, standing for Tussinwanc, Tursinwanc (campus gigantis), the present Dussnang. Nor does it seem much more hazardous to explain Strabo's Oovovéλoa (7, 1. Tzsch. 2, 328) by Thurshilda, Thusshilda, Thursinhilda, though I cannot produce an ON. Thurshildr. In Switzerland to this day dürst is the Wild Hunter (St. 1, 329), on the Salzburg Alp dusel is a night-spirit (Muchar's Gastein, p. 145), and in Lower Germany dros or drost is devil, dolt, giant.1

3

1 Mone's Untersuchung, pp. 288-9.

2 Now Tirschenreit, Tirschengereith, Schmeller's birthplace in the Up. Palatinate, Schm. 1, 458. So Türschenwald, Thyrsentritt, Türstwinkel, et .-SUPPL. 3 Conf. Pharaïldis, Verelde, p. 284-5; Grimild for Grimhild.

4 Brem. wb. 1, 257. Richey sub v. druus, Schütze sub v. drost, Strodtmann sub

Whether Thorsholt, Thosholt, the name of a place in Oldenburg, is connected with purs, I cannot tell.-In Gothic the word would have to be þaúrs, pl. þaúrsôs (or þaúrsis, pl. þaúrsjôs? þaúrsus, þaúrsjus? þaúrsja, þaúrsjans?); and of these forms the derivation is not far to seek. The Goth. paúrsus means dry, þaúrsjan to thirst, þaúrstei thirst; þaúrsus, þaúrsis becomes in OHG. durri for dursi (as airzis becomes irri for irsi), while the noun durst (thirst) retains the s, and so does our durs (giant) and the ON. purs by the side of the adjective purr (dry). So that þaúrs, burs, durs signify either fond of wine, thirsty, or drunken, a meaning which makes a perfect pair with that we fished out of ïtans, iötunn. The two words for giant express an inordinate desire for eating and drinking, precisely what exhibits itself in the Homeric cyclop. Herakles too is described as edax and bibax, e.g. in Euripides's Alcestis; and the ON. giant Suttûngr (Sæm. 23. Sn. 84) apparently stands for Suptúngr (Finn Magn. p. 738), where we must presuppose a noun supt- sopi, a sup or draught.

Now, as the Jutes, a Teutonic race, retained the name of the former inhabitants whom they had expelled,1 these latter being the real Iötnar or Itanôs; so may the pursar, dursâ, in their mythic aspect [as giants] be connected with a distant race which at a very early date had migrated into Italy. I have already hinted (p. 25) at a possible connexion of the þaúrsôs with the Tuponvoí, Tuppnvoi, Tusci, Etrusci: the consonant-changes are the very thing to be expected, and even the assimilations and the transposition of the r are all found reproduced. Niebuhr makes Tyrrhenians distinct from Etruscans, but in my opinion wrongly; as for the Oúpoos carried in the Bacchic procession, it has no claim to be brought in at all (see Suppl.).

There even a third mode of designating giants in which we likewise detect a national name. Lower Germany, Westphalia above all, uses hüne in the sense of giant; the word prevails in all the popular traditions of the Weser region, and extends as far as the Gröningen country and R. Drenthe; giants' hills, giants'

v. droost dat di de droost sla!' may the d. smite thee; in the Altmark: 'det di de druse hal (fetch)!' and elsewhere 'de drôs in de helle.' At the same time the HG. druos, truos (plague, blain) is worth considering.

A case that often occurs; thus the Bavarians, a Teutonic people, take their name from the Celtic Boii. [And the present Bulgarians, a Slav race, etc.]

tombs are called hünebedde, hunebedden, bed being commonly used for grave, the resting-place of the dead. Grot as en hüne' expresses gigantic stature. Schüren's Teutonista couples 'rese' with huyne. Even H. Germ. writers of the 16th-17th centuries, though seldomer, use heune; Mathesius: 'Goliath der grosse heune;' the Vocab. of 1482 spells hewne. Hans Sachs 1, 453a uses heunisch (like entisch) for fierce, malignant. But the word goes back to MHG. too; Herbort 1381: 'grôz alsam ein hûne,' rhym. mit starkem gelûne;' Trist. 4034: an geliden und an geliune gewahsen als ein hiune."1 In OHG. writings I do not find the word in this sense at all. But MHG. has also a Hiune (gen. Hiunen) signifying, without any reference to bodily size, a Hungarian, in the Nibelunge a subject of Etzel or Attila (1110, 4. 1123, 4. 1271, 3. 1824, 3. 1829, 1. 1831, 1. 1832, 1), which in Lat. writings of the Mid. Ages is called Hunnus, more exactly Hunus, Chunus. To this Hiune would correspond an OHG. Hûnio; I have only met with the strong form Hûn, pl. Hûnî, gen. Hûnio, Hûneo, with which many names of places are compounded, e.g. Hûniofeld, a little town in Fulda bishopric, now Hünfeld; also names of men, Hûnolt, Hûnperht (Humprecht), Hûnrât, Althûn, Folchûn, etc. The AS. Hûna cyning (Beda 1, 13) requires a sing. Hûn; but to the ON. nom. pl. Hûnar there is said to belong a weak sing. Hûni (Gl. Edd. havn. 2, 881). It is plain those Hûnî have a sense that shifts about pretty much with time and place, now standing for Pannonians, then for Avars, then again for Vandals and Slavs, always for a nation brought into frequent contact with Germany by proximity and wars. The Hiunenlant of the 13th century (Nib. 1106, 3. 1122, 3) cannot possibly be the Hûnaland which the Eddic lays regard as Sigurð's home (Deutsche heldens. 6. 9). At the time when proper names like Hûnrât, Hûnperht first arose, there could hardly as yet be any thought of an actual neighbouring nation like Pannonians or Wends; but even in the earliest times there might circulate talk and tale of a primitive mythic race supposed to inhabit some uncertain region, much the same as Iötnar and Thursar. I incline

1 Wolfdietr. 661 has, for giant, hane rhym. schoene, but only in the place of the ancient cæsura, so that the older reading was most likely hiune.

2 In Hildeb. lied Hûneo truhtin (lord of Huns), and 'altêr Hûn;' Diut. 2, 182 Hûnî (Pannonii); 2, 353o Hûni for Hûn (Hunus); 2, 370 Hûnî (Vandali).

therefore to guess, that the sense of giant,' which we cannot detect in Hûn till the 13th century, must nevertheless have lain in it long before: it is by such double meaning that Hadubrant's exclamation 'alter Hûn!' first acquires significance. When Gotfried used hiune for giant, he must have known that Hiune at that time also meant a Hungarian; and as little does the distinctness of the nationality rendered Hûnî in OHG. glosses exclude the simultaneous existence of a mythic meaning of the word. It may have been vivider or fainter in this place or that: thus, the ON. hûnar is never convertible with iötnar and pursar. I will not touch upon the root here (conf. p. 529 note), but only remark that one Eddic name for the bear is hunn, Sn. 179. 222a, and acc. to Biörn hûn and hûnbiörn = catulus ursinus (see Suppl.).

One AS. term for giant is ent, pl. entas: Ælfred in his Orosius p. 48 renders Hercules gigas by 'Ercol se ent.' The poets like to use the word, where ancient buildings and works are spoken of: 'enta geweorc, enta ærgeweorc (early work of giants), eald enta geweorc,' Beow. 3356. 5431. 5554. Cod. exon. 291, 24. 476, 2. So the adj. : 'entisc helm,' Beow. 5955; Lipsius's glosses also give eintisc avitus, what dates from the giants' days of yore. Our OHG. entisc antiquus does not agree with this in consonantgradation [t should be z]; it may have been suggested by the Latin word, perhaps also by the notion of enti (end); another form is antrisc antiquus (Graff 1, 387), and I would rather associate it with the Eddic‘inn aldni iötunn' (grandævus gigas), Sæm. 23a 46 84b 189. The Bavarian patois has an intensive prefix enz, enzio (Schmeller, 188), but this may have grown out of the gen. of end, ent (Schm. 1, 77); or may we take this ent- itself in the sense of monstrous, gigantic, and as an exception to the law of consonant-change? They say both enterisch (Schm. 1, 77) and enzerisch for monstrous, extraordinary. And was the Enzenberc, MS. 2, 10 a giant's hill?1 and is the same root contained in the proper names Anzo, Enzo, Enzinchint (Pez, thes. iii. 3, 689°), Enzawip (Meichelb. 1233. 1305), Enzeman (Ben. 325) ? If Hûnî alluded to Wends and Slavs, we may be allowed to identify entas with the ancient Antes; as for the Indians, whom Mone

1 The present Inselberg near Schmalkalden; old docs., however, spell it Emiseberc, named apparently from the brook Emise, Emse, which rises on it. Later forms are Enzelberg, Einzelberg, Einselberg.