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SUN. MOON. 701
or settle (see Chap. XXIII) ; but similar chairs (KM. 25), and
a seat-going (sedelgang) are attributed to all the stars. N. Bth.
210. 223 says, Bootes (
trago ze sedele gange/ and tiu zeichen
ne giant nicht in sedel. As chair and table are things closely
connected, the stars may have had tables of their own, or, what
comes to the same thing, may have been regarded as tables of
the sky ; in saying which, I am not thinking of the Egyptian
sun-table, but more immediately of the bio&um yppa/ sidera
extollere, of the Voluspa (Saem. l b ),
the three creative Bors
as it were the tables of the firmament :
synir having set up
bioSr is the Goth, biuds, OHG. piot (pp. 38. 68). As the
stationary stars had chairs and tables, the planetary ones, like
other gods, had steeds and cars ascribed to them (see Suppl.). 1
The two principal stars are the sun and moon, whose gender
and appellations I have discussed in Gramm. 3, 349. 350 : a MHG.
poet calls the sun daz merere 3
lieht,
the greater light, Fundgr.
that some of the Eddie names
2, 12. I-, is worth mentioning
for the moon are still preserved in patois dialects of Up. Germany.
As the dsvarfs named the moon skin (jubar), the East Franks
2
call her tchein (Reinwald s Henneb. id. .
2, 159) In the under
world the moon bore the name of hverfandi hvel, whirling wheel,
and in Styria (esp. the Bruck distr.) she is gmoa-rat (Sartori s
Styria, p. 82), if I may translate that by rota communis, though
it may perhaps mean gemeiner rath (vorrath), a common pro
vision at the service of all men. That the sun was likened to a
wheel of fire, and the element blazing out of him was represented
in the stape of a wheel, has been fully shewn, p. 620. Tit. 2983
speaks of the sun s wheel. The Edda expressly calls the sun
fagrahvd, fair wheel, Saem. 50 a
Sn. 177. 223. The Norse
rune for S is named sol sun, the AS. and OHG. sigil, sugil, for
which I have proposed (Andr. p. 96) the readings segil, sagil,
sahil, and may now bring in support the Goth, sduil and
Gr. r/Ato?. But the Gothic letter Q (== HV) is the very symbol
of the sun, and plainly shews the shape of a wheel ; we must
1
Wagen waggon belongs to weg way, as carpentum does to carpere (viam) ;
car of heaven is also that of the highest god. Otfr. i. 5, 5. says of the herald angel :
floug er sunnum pad, sterrdno strdza, wega wolkono. The Indians also call the
sky path of clouds, Somadeva 1, 17. 2, 157.
J So in Mod. Gr. <j>eyydpt brilliance, a name whose surprising identity with the
ON.fengari (Sn. 177) I have already noticed elsewhere.
the