More than this we shall hardly succeed in rescuing: but there yet remains a name to consider, which may possibly have tended to banish the more heathen one of Tíw. Among all the expressions which the Anglosaxons used to denote a violent death, none is more frequent than wíg fornam, or wíg gesceód, in which there is an obvious personality, Wíg (_War_) ravished away the doomed: here no doubt _war_ was represented as personally intervening, and slaying, as in other similar cases we find the feminines Hild, Gúð, which are of the same import, and the masculines Swylt, Deáð, _mors_. The abstract sense which also lay in the word _wíg_, and enabled it to be used without offence to Christian ears, may have been a reason for its general adoption in cases where at an earlier period Tíw would have been preferred. Old glossaries give us the rendering Wíg _Mars_, and Hild, _Bellona_: it is therefore not at all improbable that these words were purposely selected to express what otherwise must have been referred to a god of perilous influence: Wíg was a more general, and therefore less dangerous name than Tíw, to recall to the memory of a people prone to apostasy. That the latter survived in the name of a weekday serves only to show that it was too deeply grounded to be got rid of; perhaps its very familiarity in that particular relation rendered it safe to retain the name of any deity, as was done by five out of the seven days. But Christianity was tolerant of heathen names in other than heathen functions, and in the genealogy of the kings of Wessex, Wíg is the father of Gewis, the eponymus of the race. I have already expressed my belief that this name represented either Wóden or Tíw, and think it very likely that it was the latter, inasmuch as the paganism of the Gewissas seems to have been remarkable, beyond that of other Anglosaxon tribes: “Sed Britanniam perveniens, ac primum Gewissorum gentem ingrediens, cum omnes ibidem paganissimos inveniret,” etc.[665] “Intrante autem episcopo in portum occidentalium Saxonum, gentem qui antiquitus Gewisse vocabantur, cum omnes ibidem paganissimos inveniret,” etc.[666] The events described are of the year 634. We find that Tíw enters into the composition of the names of a few plants[667]; on the other hand it is never found in the composition of proper names, any more than Tír; although _now_ Tírberht or Tírwulf would seem quite as legitimate compounds as Eádberht, Sigeberht, Eádwulf, Sigewulf. ----- Footnote 665: Beda, Hist. Ecc. iii. 7. Footnote 666: Johann. Tynem. Legend. Nova, fol. 38. Footnote 667: Thus Old-norse Týsfiola, Týrhjalm, Týsviðr. -----