TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

GAKT. SIPPIA. SUNIA. WAR A. SAGA. NAN DA. 309
gunnr ?)
is unknown to the Edda. In ch. XXII. on the constella
tions I shall come back to these divinities (see Suppl.).
11. GART. SIPPIA. SUNIA. WARA. SAGA. NANDA.
From surviving proper names or even impersonal terms, more
rarely from extant myths, we may gather
that several more
goddesses of the North were in earlier times common to the rest of
Teutondom.
Frey s beloved, afterwards his wife, was named Gerffr, she
came of the giant breed, yet in Sn. 79 she is reckoned among the
Asynjor. The Edda paints her beauty by a charming trait : when
Freyr looked from heaven, he saw her go into a house and close the
door, and then air and water shone with the brightness of her arms
(Saem. 81. Sn. 39). His wooing was much thwarted, and was
only brought to a happy issue by the dexterity of his faithful
servant Skirnir. The form of her name Ger&r, gen. GerSar, ace.
GerSi (Saem. 117 b
), points to a Goth. Gardi or Gardja, gen. Gardjos,
ace. Gardja, and an OHG. Gart or Garta, which often occurs in the
compounds Hildigart, Irmingart, Liutkart, &c., but no longer alone.
The Latin forms Hildegardis, Liudgardis have better preserved the
terminal i, which must have worked the vowel-change in GerSr,
ThorgerSr, ValgerSr, HrimgerSr. The meaning seems to be cingens,
inuniens [Gurth ?], Lat. Cinxia as a name of Juno (see Suppl.).
The Goth, sibfa, OHG. sippia, sippa, AS. sib gen. sibbe, denote
peace, friendship, kindred; from these I infer a divinity Sibfa, Sippia,
Sib, corresponding to the OK Sif gen. Sifjar, the wife of Thorr, for
the ON, too has a pi. sifjar meaning cognatio, sifi amicus (OHG.
sippio, sippo), sift genus, cognatio. By this sense of the word, Sif
would appear to be, like Frigg and Freyja, a goddess of loveliness
and love ; as attributes of 05inn and Thor agree, their wives Frigg
and Sif have also a common signification. Sif in the Edda is called
the fair-haired, it harfagra gooY and gold is Sifjar haddr (Sifae
peplum), because, when Loki cut off her hair, a new and finer crop
was afterwards forged of gold (Sn. 119. 130). Also a herb, polytrichum
aureum, bears the name haddr Sifjar. Expositors see in
this the golden fruits of the Earth burnt up by fire and growing up
again, they liken Sif to Ceres, the ^avOrj A^rfrnp (II. 5, 500) ; and
with it agrees the fact that the Slav. Siva is a gloss on Ceres dea