Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

SCUOHISAL. 487
Morolt 3924 says : ich smacke diutsclie iserngewant/ coats
of mail (see Sup pi.) . The Ital. however has also an uom foresto,
Pulcr s Morgante 5, 38.
The Gothic neut. skohsl, by which Ulphilas renders Sai^oviov,
Matth. 8, 31. Lu. 8, 27 (only in margin; text reads unhutyo).
1 Cor. 10, 20. 21, I am disposed to explain by supposing a sltohs,
gen. skohis, or rather s kogs (the h being merely the g softened
before si). It would answer to the ON. sMgr (silva) ; in all our
Gothic fragments the word for forest never occurs, so that in
addition to a vidus (p. 376) we may very well conjecture a skogs.
In Sweden the provincialisms slcogsnerte, skogsnufva l are still
used ; snerte appears to contain snert gracilis, and snufva to
mean anhelans. 2 Now if sfcohsl is wood-sprite, 3 there may have
been associated with it, as with Saijuoviov, the idea of a higher
being, semi-divine or even divine. When we call to mind the
sacred, inviolable trees inhabited by spirits (chap. XXI, and
Superst. Swed. no. 110, Dan. no. 162), and the forest-worship of
the Germani in general (pp. 54-58. 97-8) ; we can understand
why wood-sprites in particular should be invested with a human
or divine rather than elvish nature.
Water-sprites exhibit the same double aspect. Wise-women,
valkyrs, appear on the wave as swans, they merge into prophetic
merwomen and merminnes (p. 434). Even Nerthus and dame
Holla bathe in lake or pool, and the way
to Holla s abode is
through the well, Kinderm. 24. 79.
Hence to the general term holde or guoter holde (genius, bonus
genius) is added a wazzerholde (p. 266), a Irunnenholde (p. 268) ;
to the more general minni a meriminni and marmennill (p. 433).
Other names, which explain themselves, are : MHG.
wildiu
1 Linnasus s Gothlandske resa, p. 312. Faye, p. 42.
2 In 1298 Torkel Knutson founded on the Neva a stronghold against the Kussians,
called Landskrona. An old folk-tale says, there was heard in the forest near the
river a continual knocking, as of a stone-cutter. At last a peasant took courage and
there he found a wood-sprite hewing at a stone, who, on
penetrated into the forest ;
being asked what that should mean, answered : this stone shall be the boundary
between the lands of the Swedes and Moskovites. Forsell s Statistik von Schwe-
den, p. 1.
3 To make up an OHG-. skuoh and skuohisal is doubtless yet more of a venture.
Our scheusal (monstrum), if it comes from scheuen (sciuhan), to shy at, has quite
another fundamental vowel ; it may however be a corruption. The only very old
form I know is the schusel given in the foot-note on p. 269. But the Vocab. of 1482
has scheuhe (larva).
VOL. II. E