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572 CREATION.
an EsTcja, the woman, the balance would be held more evenly ;
they would be related as Meshia and Meshiane in the Persian
myth, man and woman, who likewise grew out of plants. But
the Edda calls them Askr and Embla : embla, emla, signifies a
busy woman, OHG. emila, as in fiur-emila (focaria), a Cinderella
(Graff 1, 252), from amr, ambr, ami, ambl (labor assiduus),
whence also the hero s name Amala (p. 370). As regards Askr
however, it seems worthy of notice, that legend makes the first
king of the Saxons, Aschanes (Askanius), grow up out of the
Harz rocks, by a fountain-head in the midst of the forest. See
ing that the Saxons themselves take their name from sahs (saxum,
stone), that a divine hero bears the name of Sahsnot (p. 203),
that other traditions derive the word Germani from germinare,
beca/use the Germans l are said to have grown on trees ; we have
here the
possibility of a complex chain of
relationships. The
Geogr. of Eavenna says, the Saxons removed from their ancient
seats to Britain ( cum principe suo, nomine Anchis. This may
be Hengist, or still better his son Oesc, whom I have identified
with Askr. 2
Plainly there existed primitive legends, which made the first
men, or the founders of certain branches of the Teutonic nation,
grow out of trees and rocks, that is to say, which endeavoured
to trace the
lineage of
living beings to the half-alive kingdom of
plants and stones. Even our leut (populus), OHG. liut, has for
its root liotan (crescere, pullulare), OS. 3
liud, liodan and ; the
sacredness of woods and mountains in our olden time is height
ened by this connexion. And similar notions of the Greeks fit
in with this. One who can reckon up his ancestors is appealed
to with the argument (Od. 19, 163) :
ov jap aTrb Spvos eVo-t irdXaifydrov ov$ airo irerp^ -
for not of fabled oak art thou, nor rock;* and there must have
1 D n 408. Aventin -
; o o-. 18b ; conf. the popular joke, prob. ancient, on the
origin of Swabians, Franks and Bavarians, Schm 3 524
2 In the Jewish language, both learned and vulgar, Ashkenaz denotes Ger
many or a German. The name occurs in Gen. 10, 3 and Jer. 51, 27 ; how early
its mistaken use began, is unknown even to J. D. Michaelis (Spicil. geogr. Hebr.
1, 59) ; it must have been by the 15th century, if not sooner, and the rabbis may
very likely have been led to it by hearing talk of a derivation of the Germans from
an ancestor Askamus, or else the Trojan one.
3 Populus however is unconn. with populus a poplar.
buch an e quercu aut saxo natus, who cannot name his own father, is vul-