TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

TEMPLES. 67
Four or five centuries after Ulphilas, to the tribes of Upper
their word alali must have had an old-fashioned heathen
Germany
ish sound, but we know it was still there, preserved in composition
with proper names of places and persons (see Suppl.) : Alaholf,
Alahtac, Alahhilt, Alahgund, Alahtrut ;
Alahstat in pago Hassorum
(A.D. 834), Schannat trad. fuld. no. 404. Alahdorp in Mulahgowe
(A.D. 856), ibid. no. 476. The names Alahstat, Alahdorf may have
been borne by many places where a heathen temple, a hallowed place
of justice, or a house of the king stood. For, not only the fanum, but
the folk-mote, and the royal residence were regarded as consecrated,
or, in the language of the Mid. Ages, as frdno (set apart to the
fro, lord). Alstidi, a king s pfalz (palatium) in Thuringia often
mentioned in Dietmar of Merseburg, was in OHG. alahsteti, nom.
alahstat. Among the Saxons, who were converted later, the word
kept itself alive longer. The poet of the Heliand uses alah masc.
exactly as Ulphilas does alhs (3, 20. 22. 6,2. 14,9. 32,14. 115,9.
15. 129, 22. 130, 19. 157, 16), seldomer godes Ms 155, 8. 130,
18, or, that helaga Jills 3, 19. Ceedm. 202, 22 alhn (1. alii haligne
holy temple) ; 258, 11 ealhstede (palatium, aedes regia). In
Andr. 1642 I would read ealde ealhstedas (delubra) for eolhstedas ,
conf. the proper names Eallistdn in Kemble 1, 288. 296 and Ealli-
heard 1, 292 quasi stone-hard, rock-hard, which possibly leads us to
the primary meaning of the word. 1 The word is wanting in ON.
documents, else it must have had the form air, gen. als.
Of another primitive word the Gothic fragments furnish no
example, the OHG. wih (nemus), Dint. 1, 492 a
;
0. Sax. wih masc.
(templum), Hel. 3, 15. 17. 19. 14, 8. 115, 4. 119, 17. 127, 10.
129, 23. 130, 17. 154, 22. 169, 1 ; friduwih, Hel. 15, 19 ; AS.
wih wiges, or weoh weos, also masc. : wiges (idoli), Csedm. 228, 12.
J?isne wig wurSigean (hoc idolum colere), Casdm. 228, 24. conf.
wigweorSing (cultus idolorum), Beow. 350. weohweorSing Cod.
exon. 253, 14. wihgild (cultus idol), Csedm. 227,5. weobedd (ara),
for weohbedd, wihbedd, Cgedm. 127, 8. weos (idola), for weohas,
Cod. exon. 341, 28. The alternation of i and eo in the AS. indicates
a short vowel ;
and in spite of the reasons I have urged in Gramin. 1,
462, the same seems to be true of the ON. ve, which in the sing., as
1 There is however a noun Hard, the name of many landing-places
south of England, as Cracknor Hard, &c. TRANS.
in the