TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

CHAPTEE XIII.
GODDESSES.
In treating of gods, the course of our inquiry could aim at
separating the several personalities ; the goddesses l
it seems
advisable to take by themselves and all at one view, because there
is a common idea underlying them, which will come out more
clearly by that method. They are thought of chiefly as divine
mothers who travel round and visit houses, from whom the human
race learns the occupations and arts of housekeeping and husbandry:
spinning, weaving, tending the hearth, solving and reaping. These
labours bring with them peace and quiet in the land, and . the
memory of them abides in charming traditions even more lastingly
than that of wars and battles, from which most goddesses as well
as women hold themselves aloof.
But as some goddesses also take kindly to war, so do gods on the
other hand favour peace and agriculture ;
change of names or offices between the sexes.
and there arises an inter
1. ERDA, NIRDU, GATJE, FIRGUNIA, HLUODANA.
In almost all languages the Earth is regarded as female, and
(in contrast to the father sky encirling her) as the breeding, teem
ing fruit-bearing mother: Goth, airpa, OHG. erada, erda, AS. eorffe,
ON. iorff, Gr. epa (inferred from epa^e) ; Lat. terra, tellus, humus
= Slav, zeme , ziemia, zemlia, Lith. zieme, Gr. x aM (? whence
%a/iafe), ala, yala, yfj : the mother subjoined in A^^rrjp, Zema
mate, indicates the goddess. The form air)?a, erda (also herda) is
itself a derivative ; the simpler OHG. ero (in the Wessobr. prayer :
ero noh ufhimil, earth nor heaven) and hero (in a gloss, for solurn,
1 OHG. in Notker has only the strong form gutin gen. gutinno, MHG.
gotinne, Trist. 4807. 15812. Barl. 246-7. seldomer gutinne, MS. 2, 65 b ; AS.
gyden pi. gydena, but also weak gydene pi. gydenan, Mones gl. 4185 Proserpiiiam
= to giclenan (1. togydenan, additional goddess) ; ON. gytya (which might
be dea or sacerdos fern.), better dsynja (see Suppl.).