TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

344 HEROES.
were Poseidon s children by Aethra and Tyro. Achilles was the
son of Peleus and Thetis, Aeneas of Anchises and Venus. 1
These
examples serve as a standard for the conditions of our own heroic
legend (see Suppl.).
Tacitus, following ancient lays, places at the head of our race as
its prime progenitor Tuisco, who is not a hero, but himself a god, as
the author expressly names him deum terra eclitum . Now,
as
Gaia of herself gave birth to Uranos and Pontos, that is to say, sky
and sea sprang from the lap of earth, so Tuisco seems derivable
from the word tiv, in which we found (pp. 193-4) the primary
meaning to be sky; and Tuisco, i.e., Tvisco, could easily spring
out of the fuller form Tivisco [as Tuesday from Tiwesdseg]. Tvisco
may either mean coelestis, or the actual
offspring of another divine
being Tiv, whom we afterwards find appearing among the gods :
Tiv and Tivisco to a certain degree are and signify one thing.
Tvisco then is in sense and station Uranos, but in name Zeus,
whom the Greek myth makes proceed from Uranos not directly,
but through Kronos, pretty much as our Tiv or Zio is made a son
of Wuotan, while another son Donar takes upon him the best part
of the office that the Greeks assigned to Zeus. Donar too was son
of Earth as well as of Wuotan, even as Gaia brought forth the great
mountain-ranges (ovpea pa/cpa, Hes. theog. 129 = Goth, fairgunja
mikila), and Donar himself was called mountain and fairguneis (pp.
169. 172), so that ovpavo? sky stands connected with ovpos 0/305
mountain, the idea of deus with that of ans (pp. 25. 188). Gaia,
Tellus, Terra come round again in our goddesses Fiorgyn, lorS and
Eindr (p. 251) ; so the names of gods and goddesses here cross one
another, but in a similar direction.
This earth-born Tvisco s son was Mannus, and no name could
sound more Teutonic, though Norse mythology has as little to say
of him as of Tvisco (ON. Tyski ?). No doubt a deeper meaning
once resided in the word ; by the addition of the suffix -isk, as in
Tiv Tivisco, there arose out of maim a mannisko = homo, the
] In the Koman legend, Romulus and Remus were connected through
Silvia with Mars, and through Amulius with Venus and ; Romulus was taken
up to heaven. The later apotheosis of the emperors differs from the genuine
heroic, almost as canonization does from primitive sainthood ; yet even
Augustus, being deified, passed in legend for a son of
Apollo, whom the god in
the shape of a dragon had by Atia ; Sueton. Octav. 94.