{251} [‘Island’, though cognate with Anglo-Saxon _eá-land_ “water-land” (German _ei-land_), is really identical with Anglo-Saxon _íg-land_, i.e. “isle-land”, from _íg_, an island, the diminutive of which survives in _eyot_ or _ait_.] {252} [The editor essayed to make a complete collection of this class of words in his _Folk-etymology, a Dictionary of Words corrupted by False Derivation or Mistaken Analogy_, 1882, and more recently in a condensed form in _The Folk and their Word-Lore_, 1904.] {253} Diez looks with much favour on this process, and calls it, ein sinnreiches mittel fremdlinge ganz heimisch zu machen. {254} Ammianus Marcellinus, xxii, 15, 28. {255} [The Greek _pyramis_ probably represents the Egyptian _piri-m-ûisi_ (Maspero, _Dawn of Civilization_, 358), or _pir-am-us_ (Brugsch, _Egypt under the Pharaohs_, i, 73), rather than _pi-ram_, ‘the height’ (Birch, _Bunsen’s Egypt_, v, 763).] {256} Tacitus, _Hist._ v. 2. {257} Let me illustrate this by further instances in a note. Thus βούτυρον, from which, through the Latin, our ‘butter’ has descended to us, is borrowed (Pliny, _H.N._ xxviii. 9) from a Scythian word, now to us unknown: yet it is sufficiently plain that the Greeks so shaped and spelt it as to contain apparent allusion to _cow_ and _cheese_; there is in βούτυρον an evident feeling after βοῦς and τυρόν. Bozra, meaning citadel in Hebrew and Phœnician, and the name, no doubt, which the citadel of Carthage bore, becomes Βύρσα on Greek lips; and then the well known legend of the ox-hide was invented upon the name; not having suggested it, but being itself suggested by it. Herodian (v. 6) reproduces the name of the Syrian goddess Astarte in a shape that is significant also for Greek ears--Ἀστροάρχη, The Star-ruler, or Star-queen. When the apostate and hellenizing Jews assumed Greek names, ‘Eliakim’ or “Whom God has set”, became ‘Alcimus’ (ἄλκιμος) or The Strong (1 Macc. vii. 5). Latin examples in like kind are ‘com_i_ssatio’, spelt continually ‘com_e_ssatio’, and ‘com_e_ssation’ by those who sought to naturalize it in England, as though it were connected with ‘cŏmedo’, to eat, being indeed the substantive from the verb ‘cōmissari’ (--κωμάζειν), to revel, as Plutarch, whose Latin is in general not very accurate, long ago correctly observed; and ‘orichalcum’, spelt often ‘_au_richalcum’, as though it were a composite metal of mingled _gold_ and brass; being indeed the _mountain_ brass (ὀρείχαλκος). The miracle play, which is ‘mystère’, in French, whence our English ‘mystery’ was originally written ‘mistère’, being properly derived from ‘ministère’, and having its name because the clergy, the _ministri_ Ecclesiæ, conducted it. This was forgotten, and it then