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designation, like that of waggon,
WAGGONER. ORION. 727
which arose in the childlike
fancy of a pastoral people. OHG. glosses name Orion pfluoc
(aratrum), and in districts on the Ehine he is called the rake
(rastrum)
Scotch pleucli, Engl. plough, is said of Charles s wain. Some
AS. (perhaps more OS.) glosses translate Orion by eburftring,
: he is a tool of the husbandman or the mower. The
ebur&rung, ebirdring, ebirthiring (Gl. Jun. 369. 371), T which in
pure AS. would have been eoforftryng, eforftring it can mean
nothing but boar- throng, since ]?ryng, as well as )?rang, Mid.
Lat. drungus, is turba. How any one came to see a herd of wild
boars in the group, or which stars of Orion it included, I do not
know : the wild huntsman of the Greek legend may have nothing
to do with it, as neither that legend nor the group as seen by
Greek eyes includes any hunted animal ; the boars of the Teutonic
constellation have seemingly quite a different connexion, and
perhaps are founded on mere comparison. OHG. glosses give
us no epurdrunc, but its relation to luwaring and Iring was
pointed out, p. 359 note. In the latter part of the Mid. Ages
our three mowers or the Scandinavian Mary s distaff is called
Jacobs-stab, Boh. Jahubahul; the heathenish spindle, like the
heathenish Irmin-street (p. 357 note), is handed over to the
holy apostle, who now staff in hand, paces the same old heavenly
path ; in some parts Peter s staff is preferred. The Esthonians
call Orion warda iahlied, spear stars, from wardas spear, and
perhaps staff, like St. James s staff. The Lithuanians szenpjuwis,
f
star? from szen foenum (Nesselmann 515), as August is
hay-
called szenpjutis ; because the constellation rises at hay -harvest ?
also with reference to the three-mowers ? for in the
perhaps
same way several Slav nations have the name kosi scythes, Boh.
kosy (Jungm. 2, 136), Pol. kosij (Linde
1092 a
),
Sloven, koszi
(Murko 142) mowers. Other Slavic names of Orion are shtupka
(Bosn. Bible, 3, 154), for which we ought to read shtapka, in Vuk
shtaka crutch, crosier, from our stabchen, Carniol. pdlize staves,
in Stulli babini sctapi old wives staves ; and kruzilice,* wheelers,
rovers? from f kruziti vagari (see Suppl.).
1 The second passage has eburdnung, an error, but an evidence of the MS. s
age, for in the 8-9th cent, the second stroke of r was made as long as that of n.
2
Dobrowsky s Slavin p. 425 ; the Pol. kruzlic is crocklet, mug. Hanka s
Altbbhm. glossen have 66, 857 kruzlyk circulea, 99, 164 krusslyk lix, which I do
not understand. Can it be crutch ?
VOL. II.
U