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884 . PERSONIFICATIONS.
are regarded as female; we saw (pp. 651-2-3) how the popu
lar mind even in recent times treated frau Hasel, frau Elhorn,
frau Wacholder, frau Fichte as living creatures. HLin and Gnd,
handmaids of Frigg, are named in Sn. 38 among asynjor, and
Block in Sn. 39 among valkyrjor : all three, according to Biorn,
are likewise names of trees, Hlin apparently of our leinbaum,
leinahorn, lenne (acer, maple), in the teeth of our derivation
(p. 874) ; conf. AS. him. Again Sn. 128 tells us more generally,
why all fern, names of trees are applicable to women, e.g. selja
is both salix and procuratrix.
Zio, like Zeus, appears to mean, in the first instance, sky and
day (pp. 193. 736); yet our mythology takes no notice of his
relation to the earth (p. 700). But still it personifies Day m.
(p. 735), and makes him the son of Night f. At the same
time evening and morning, Apantrod and Tagarod (p. 748) are
masculine. 1
It is therefore the more surprising that the sun,
the great light of day (p. 701), should be pictured as female and
the moon as male, especially as the sun shines fiercely and the
moon softly. Though this view is of high antiquity (p. 704), yet
the identity of the Goth, sduil, AS. segil, with sol and ^Xto?,
makes it appear likely that with us too the relation between sun
and moon was once the same as in the classical languages (p. 701),
and was only departed from by slow degrees. Even in MHG.
the gender of sunne continued to vacillate, as the Latin con
versely shews a Lunus by the side of Luna. In the same way
the Goth, stall-no, ON. stiarna, is fern, like stella, but the OHG.
sterno, OS. sterro, AS. steorra, masc. like aarijp ; and each has
its justification in the particular stars personified.
Our Summer and Winter are masculine (p. 758), the Lat.
aestas and hiems feminine, to which add the Gr. %e^o>v m., and
the Slav, zima f. Excepting Hrede and Edstre, all our names
of months were masc., and Mai in particular often stands for
summer. On the contrary, the vagueness of the neuter year
shews the absence of mythical prosopopoeia, (see Suppl.).
On mere tools and utensils its operation seems more stinted :
an exception must at once be made in favour of the sword.
As this weapon received proper names and a living accusative
1 Lith. Berlea dea vespertina, Breksta dea tenebrarum, Lasicz 47. In our
Tristan, Isot is beautifully compared to the Sun, and her mother to the Dawn, f.