TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

22 GOD.
Among substantive epithets
are several which God has in com
mon with earthly rulers (see Suppl.) : Gothic frduja OS. frd/w,
frd, AS. frcd ; which name I shall treat of more fully by and by.
OIIG. truktin, MHG. trehtin, OS. drohtin, AS. dryhten, ON".
drdttinn. OHG. heriro, MHG. herre, which however, when used
of God, is never contracted into her, any more than Dominus into
the Romance domnus, don. Conspicuous above all is the name
Father (see Suppl.). In the Edda, alfo&r. (Seem. 46 b 88 a 154 b . Sn.
3. 11. 17), herfacfir, herja fa&ir, valfaffir are applied to OSinn as
the father of all gods, men and created things. Such compounds
are not found in the other dialects, they may have sounded heathen
ish ; though the AS. could use feeder alwealda, Beow. 630, and the
idea of God as Father became more familiar to the Christians than
to heathens. The OHG. altfatar = grandfather, 0. i. 3, 6. AS.
ealdfaider, Beow. 743. 1883, I have nowhere seen applied to God.
As the Greeks coupled together Zevs jrarrjp, esp. in the voc. ZeO
Trdrep, and the Eomans Jupiter, Diespiter, Dispiter, Mars pater, 1
as well as Ajj^r^p, Aa/mdrrjp, Terra mater, so the Lettons bestow
on almost every goddess the epithet mahte, mahmina= mater,
matercula (Biittner 244. Bergmann 142), on which we shall have
more to say hereafter. To all appearance, father Goth, fadr is
connected with fa];s lord, as pater Tran ^p is with ITOTL^, TroVt?, Lith.
pats. The AS. meotod, metod, Credm. 223, 14. eald metod, Beow.
1883. s65 metod, Beow. 3222. OS. metod, Hel. 4, 13. 15, 17. 66, 19,
an expression which likewise appears in the Edda, miotu&r Sa3m.
226 b 241, b seems to signify Creator, as verbally it bears the sense of
mensor, moderator, finitor. The full meaning of metod will not be
disclosed, till we have a more exact knowledge of the relation
between the Goth, mitan (to mete) and maitan (to cut), the OHG.
mezan and meizan; in the Lat. metiri and metere, besides there
being no shifting of consonant (d for t), the quantity is inverted.
The ON", miotuffr appears to be also sector, messor ; in Snorri 104.
105, the wolfs head with which Heimdall was killed is called
1
miotuSr HeimSallar, and the sword is mans miotuSr so in
;
Eornald. sog. p. 441, manna miotuSr (see Suppl.). In MHG.
too, the poets use mezzan of exquisite symmetry in creating : do
sin (Wunsch s) gewalt ir bilde maz ; Troj. 19626. got
selb in
1 Jane pater ! Cato 134 : but what can Dissunapiter mean in the remark
able conjuring-spell, Cato 1GO ?