TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

16 GOD.
gote suit ir willekomen sin, iurem lande uncle mir (ye sliall be
welcome to God, your country, and me) ; Trist. 5186. got alrest,
dar ntich mir, west willekomen ; Parz. 305, 27. wis willekomen
mir und got ; Frauend. 128, 13. sit mir gote wilkomen 1
; Eilh.
Trist. 248. rente got wilkomen mir ; Dietr. 5200. Nu sit ouch
mir got wilkomen ; Dietr. 5803. sit willekomen got und oueli mir ;
Dietr. 4619. nu wis mir got wilkomen; Oswalt 208. 406. 1163.
1268. 1393. 2189. du solt groz willekomen sin dem riclien got
unde mir ; Lanz. 1082. wis mir unde ouch got wilkomen; Ls. 1,
514. Occasionally gote stands alone : diu naht si gote willekomen ;
Iw. 7400, explained in the note, p. 413, as devoted to God, though
it only means to-night be (thou) welcome . Upper Germany has
to this day retained the greeting gottwilche, gottwillkein, gotti-
kum, skolkuom (Staid. 1, 467. Schm. 2, 84).
I do not find it in
Romance poems ; but the Saxon-Latin song of the 10th century
on Otto I. and his brother Heinrich has : sid wilicomo bethiu goda
ende mi. The Supreme Being is conceived as omnipresent, and is
expected, as much as the host himself, to take the new-comer under
his protection ; so the Sloveny say to the arriving guest bSgh te
vsprimi, God receive ! you
2 and we to the parting guest God
guide, keep, bless you ! We call it commending or committing
one to God, M.H.G. gote ergeben, Er. 3598. I compare with these
the Hail ! called out to one who arrives or departs (heill ver J?u !
Seem. 67 a
86 b
), with which are also associated the names of helpful
gods : heill J?u farir, heill J?u dsyniom ser ! fare thou well, be thou
well by (the aid of) the Asynior; Ssem. 31 a
. heill scaltu Agnarr,
allz J?ic heilan biftr vera t$r vera ! Ssem. 40.
In the same way the name of the omniscient God emphasizes
an assurance of knowledge or ignorance : daz weiz got unde ick ;
Trist. 4151. den schatz weiz nu nieman wan (except) got unde
min; Nib. 2308, 3. 3 This comfortable combination of /with God
has for its counterpart the opprobrious one of a thou with devil, ch.
XXXIII. Here too the got alone is enough : ingen vet min sorg
utan gud; Svenska visor 2, 7. That we are fully justified in
a The omission of and between the two datives is archaic, conf. Zeitschr.
f. d. a. 2, 190.
2
Buge waz primi, gralva Venus! Frauend. 192, 20 conf. ; 177, 14.
3 hie hcert uns anders nieman dan got unde diu waltvogellin ; Ecke 96.
niemen bevinde daz wan er und ich und ein kleinez vogellin, das mac wol
getriuwe sin ; Walth. 40, 15. Birds play the spy on men s privacy.