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886 PERSONIFICATIONS.
leiba (Graff 3, 855), more exactly hrataleipa, on comparing which
with the AS. sweorda lafe, homera lafe (Beow. 5868. 5654), i.e.
lafe preceded by a genitive, we see that Hredan or Hredean lafe
would originally mean jewellery the legacy (leavings) of the god
dess, which afterwards all women divided among them. And this
explanation is supported by several other things. Not only do
the Norse skalds designate woman in general by the name of any
ornament that she wears; but Freyja herself, whose bosom is
adorned with that costly Brisiuga men (Goth. Breisigge mani ?
p. 306), as mother earth too wears her iarSar men the green
sward (p. 643), gave birth to a divine daughter identical with
herself, whose name also gets to mean ornament and jewelry.
Sn. 37 says, she was called Hnoss, and was so beautiful that
everything elegant and precious was named hnossir ; hnossir
velja/ Sgem. 233b , means to select jewelry for a present. Hnoss
may either be derived from hno$a, glomus, nodus (as hlass from
hlafta, sess from sitja), or be connected with an OHG. form hnust,
nust, nusc (Graff 2, 1006-7) ; either way it so obviously agrees
withbris (coinpages, nodus), or with nusta (ansula), nuskil (fibula),
that it is wonderfully like the Brisinga (or Brisinga) men of the
mother. But elsewhere we find Freyja provided with another
daughter Gersimi (Sn. 212. Yngl. saga c. 13), whose name ex
hibits the same notion over again, nay it has found its way, like
rhedo, into ancient legal phraseology. Gerserni (fern.) means costly
ornament, cimelium (Gloss, to Gragas p. 26), also arrha, and mulcta
pactitia; the Ostgota-lag giptab. 18 has garsimi, the Vestgota-lag
p. 140 gorsimar, the Dan. laws giorsum, giorsum ; even A.S.
records repeatedly use the phrase gsersuman, gersuman nirnan/
gersumam capere in the sense of thesaurum, cimeliuni (Spelm. p.
263 a . Ducange 3, 513), but I have not come across it in the poets.
As the AS. -sum answers to OHG. -sam (Gramm. 2, 574), I con
jecture an OHG. karosemi (from karo, gar, yare, paratus) mean
ing the same as wip-garawi, inundus muliebris (Graff 4, 241);
we should then have learnt three new equivalents for the gerade
of our German law : rhedo, hnoss, gersemi, all of them personified
and deified as Hreda, Hnoss, Gersemi. Again, it occurs to me
that in the story of Oswald, one that teems with mythical allusions
(think of Tragemund, and the raven all but Odinic) , there appears
a maiden Spange (Z. f. d. a. 2, 96-7. 105, ver Spange 103, vor