The name Sigimar, of the brother of Arminius, I have already shown that
we have, not only in its own form as _Seymore_, but also in its High
German form as _Sycamore_, the Anglo-Saxon names from which they may be
taken to be more immediately derived being also found in the chapter on
place-names. And I have also shown that we have the name Cariovalda (or
Harwald) of a prince of the Batavi, of the first century, in our
_Harold_.
There was another old hero of the German race, not so fortunate as
Arminius in finding an historian in a generous foe, whose name only
comes before us in a line of Horace:--
Occidit Daci Cotisonis agmen.
Cotiso must have been a leader of some High German tribe, perhaps
somewhere on the Upper Danube, and he must have made a gallant stand
against the Roman arms, inasmuch as his final overthrow is deemed by the
Roman poet a worthy subject on which to congratulate his imperial
patron. Cotiso is a High German form of another name, Godiso or Godizo,
elsewhere referred to, and hence may be represented, I venture to think,
in our names _Godsoe_ and _Goddiss_, while Cotiso itself may be
represented in our _Cottiss_, the ancient vowel-ending being in our
names, as I shall show in the next chapter, sometimes dropped and
sometimes retained.
Another name which goes back to the first century of our era is Arpus,
that of a prince of the Catti in Tacitus. The Eorpingas, descendants or
followers of Eorpa, were among the original settlers, and seem to have
confined themselves to Norfolk, where alone we have any traces of them.
The name may perhaps be referred to Anglo-Saxon _eorp_, wolf, though
other derivations have also been proposed. We have the name at present
as _Earp_ (the name of a member of the House of Commons), and also as
_Harp_. Upon this stem is formed the name Arbogastes (_gast_, guest) of
a Frankish general under the Emperor Gratian in the fourth century; and
_Arbogast_ is still a family name among the French.
Lastly, let us take the name of the German king, Ariovistus, brought
before us by Cæsar. The proper form of this name, there seems little
doubt, is Arefastus, as found in some other O.G. names. There was also
an Arfast, bishop of East Anglia, in the time of William the Conqueror.
And Arfast is a present name among the Frisians, according to Outzen,
who compares it--rightly, as it seems to me--with the old name
Ariovistus. The corresponding name Arinfast (_aro_, _arin_, eagle) was
also in ancient use among the Danes. It seems to me that our name
_Harvest_ may easily be a corruption of Arfast; it has generally no
doubt been derived from a man's having been born at such a season, but I
distrust, as a general rule, as elsewhere stated, derivations of this
kind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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