When Theodoric married Odeflede, the daughter of Childebert, and a sister of Chlodwig, I have little doubt that, at the court of Chlodwig or Clovis, his royal brother-in-law was spoken of in conversation as Dioterih, although in official documents, and in the history of Gregory of Tours, he appears under his classical name of Theodoricus, in Jornandes Theodericus. Those who, with Grimm {3}, admit a transition of Low into High-German, and deny that the change of Gothic _Th_ into High- German _D_ took place before the sixth or seventh century, will find it difficult to account, in the first century, for the name of Deudorix, a German captive, the nephew of Melo the Sigambrian, mentioned by Strabo {4}. In the oldest German poem in which the name of Dietrich occurs, the song of Hildebrand and Hadebrand, written down in the beginning of the ninth century {5}, we find both forms, the Low-German _Theotrih_, and the High-German _Deotrih_, used side by side. Very soon, however, when High-German became the more prevalent language in Germany, German historians knew both of the old legendary hero and of the Ost-gothic king, by one and the same name, the High-German _Dietrich_. If therefore Johannes von Muller spoke of Theodoric of Verona as Dietrich von Bern, he simply intended to carry on the historical tradition. He meant to remind his readers of the popular name which they all knew, and to tell them,--This Dietrich with whom you are all acquainted from your childhood, this Dietrich of whom so much is said and sung in your legendary stories and poems, the famous Dietrich of Bern, this is really the Theoderic, the first German who ruled Italy for thirty-three years, more gloriously than any Roman Emperor before or after. I see no harm in this, as long as it is done on purpose, and as long as the purpose which Johannes von Muller had in his mind, was attained.