Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

SUN. MOON. 705
couples together Sol, Vulcanus and Luna, p. 103. conf. p. 602.
As Sol is reckoned among asms in the Edda (Sn. 39), and is
sister to Hani (Sn. 12), this last has claims to an equal rank.
Yet Seem. l b calls Sol sinni Mana/ companion of the moon,
sinni being the Goth. gasinj?ja, OHG. kasindeo, sindo ; and it is
remarkable that the Merseburg Lay gives the divine Sunna not
a companion brother, but a sister Sindgund (supra p. 308), whose
l
name however still expresses attendance, escort ; may she have
been a morning or evening star ? We should have to know first,
what distinction a dim remote antiquity made between sduil and
sunno in respect of gender and mythical use ; if sauil, sagil/ like
sol and fjKios, was masc., then Sunna and Sindgund might be
imagined as female moons like Luna and ^eXrjvrjj yet sol is always
fern, in ON., and our sunne so late as in MHG. strangely wavers
between the two sexes, Gramm. 3, 350 (see Suppl.).
Be that as it may, we have a right to add in support of the
sun s divinity, that she }
is described like other gods (pp. 17. 26.
324), as blithe, sweet and gracious. 0. iv. 33, 6 speaks of her
gisiuni blidaz, thes sih ioh worolt frewita/ whereof the world
had aye rejoiced; and a 13th cent, poem (Zeitschr. f. d. alt. 1,
493-4) thus describes the greetings
addressed to her :
Wol dir frouwe Sunne ! Hail to thee, Lady Sun !
du bist al der werlt wunne ! Art all the world s delight/
so ir die Sunnen mo sehet, When ye see the sun glad,
schoenes tages ir ir jehet,
The fair day to her ye ascribe,
der eren ir der Sunnen jehet, To her ye give the honour,
swenn ir si in liehtem schine sehet. Whenever ye see, etc.
Other passages in point are reserved for next chapter.
The personality of the sun and moon shews itself moreover in
a fiction that has wellnigh gone the round of the world. These
two, in their unceasing unflagging career through the void of
heaven, appear to be in flight, avoiding some pursuer. A pair of
wolves are on their track, SJcoll dogging the steps of the sun,
Hati of the moon ; they come of a giant race, the mightiest of
whom, Managarmr (moon-dog), apparently but another name for
to overtake and swallow the moon. How
Hati, is sure some day
1 Conf. sunnagahts, sungiht (soils iter), p. 617 n., and sunnan sifffat (iter),
Csedm. 182, 25.