Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

BEETLE. CHAFER. 693
force it lias in torsdag (p. 126) and tordon (p. 166); bagge/
says Ihre p. 122, denotes juvenis, puer, hence servant of the god,
which was afterwards exchanged for dyfvel = diefvul, devil.
Afzelius (Sagohafder 1, 12. 13) assures us, that the torbagge was
sacred to Thor, that in Norrland his larva is called mulloxe (earthox,
our Swiss donnerpuppe ? conf. iotunoxi), and that he who
finds a dung-beetle lying on Ms back (ofvaltes) unable to help
himself, and sets him on his legs again, is believed by the Norr-
landers to have atoned for seven sins thereby.
This sounds antique enough,, and I do not hastily reject the
proposed interpretation of tordyfvel,
AS. tordwifel is
plainly made up of tord/ stercus (Eogl. turd)
and the wifel above, and answers to the Dan. skarnbasse,
torbasse crave
false as it looks. For the
skarntorre (dungbeetle) ; consequently tordyfvel,
the same solution, even though a simple tord and vivel 3
now wanting in all the Scandinavian dialects. The Icelandic
has turned tordivel about into torfdifill, as if turf-devil, from
torf, gleba. There is also the N. Neth. tor, torre beetle, and
dreJctorre dungbeetle [or devil s coach-horse ; also Engl. dumble-
dorr cockchafer], to be taken into account (see Suppl.).
But who ever saw even a beetle lie struggling on his back,
without compassionately turning him over ? The German people,
which places the stagbeetle in close connexion with thunder and
honours once.
fire, may very likely have paid him peculiar
Like other sacred harbingers of spring (swallows, storks), the
first cockchafer (Maikafer) 1 used to be escorted in from the woods
with much ceremony; we have it on good authority, that this
1
Maikafer (like maiblume) sounds too general, and not a people s word. And
there is no Lat. name preserved either. The Greek /j.r)\o\6i>dTj designates our mai
kafer or our goldkafer ; boys tied a string to it and played with it (Aristoph. Nub.
763), as our boys do. The It. scarafaggio is formed from scarafone (scarabaeus) ;
the Fr. hanneton a dim. of the obsolete hanne horse, which may have been the term
for the stagbeetle (still petzgaul, Bruin s horse, in the Wetterau), Fr. cerf volant,
Dan. eeghiort, Swed. ekhjort, i.e. oak-hart. The Mecklenb. eksaiver, oak-chafer, as
well as the simple saver, sever, sebber (Schiitze s Hoist, idiot. 4, 91) is applied to the
maikafer ; in other parts of L. Saxony they say maisavel, maisabel. This saver,
zdver (Brem. wtb. 4, 592. 5, 310) is surely no other than kafer with change of k
into z, s; Chytrajus s Nomencl. saxon. has zever, and goldzever goldkafer. Or
does the HG. ziefer belong here, contrary to the etymol. proposed on p. 40 ? In
the Westerwald powitz, kmvitz is maikafer, and inKavensberg povommel dungbeetle
(Kuhn s Westfal. sagen 2, 188), almost agreeing with Esthon. poua chafer, beetle.
Like the various names for the stagbeetle, maybeetle, dungbeetle, goldbeetle, the
traces of ancient beetle-worship seem also to meet, first in one, then in another of
them. A scarafone who brings succour occurs in Pentamer. 3, 5 (see Suppl.).
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