A word concerning the proper names of ancient Teutonic women may be in order here. Wilhelm Scherer, the eminent historian of German literature, divides them into two distinct groups: those which combine nature and beauty and tell of love, gentle grace, purity, and constancy; and those which apply to battle, arms, victory counselling, inspiring, tending men. Perhaps two different epochs in the spiritual growth of the nation are thus indicated. Most ancient names seem to be: _Skonea_ (_schon_, beautiful); _Berchta_ (shining); _Heidr_ (_heiter_, serene); _Liba_ (living); _Swinda_ (swift); compounds like _Swanhvit_ (swanwhite); _Adalhert; Brunhild; Kriemhilde_ (maiden in armor, with helmet). As we proceed through the centuries with the aid of existing documents, we find again and again that in Germanic women chastity is the fundamental trait, as loyalty and good faith is in man. And this despite the evidences of the violation of the rule which are found in the law that provided that adultery by women should be punished with unmitigated cruelty, and that the punishment according to the ancient Germanic law should be left entirely to the outraged husband. In the presence of her relatives, her hair, the pride of a free woman, is cut; then she is expelled naked from the house and scourged through the village, and sometimes buried to her neck and left to die. There is many a Teutonic Lucretia, though we meet also now and then with some German Judiths. The Langobard king Sighart falls in love with the beautiful wife of Nannigo, one of his men. She rejects his wooing with contempt. The prince, employing the old means of tyrants since King David's time, sends the husband as an ambassador to Africa, and forces the wife to submit to him. Her heart is broken; she lays aside the vestments of a noblewoman, and clothes herself in sackcloth and ashes. When her husband returns, she bids him kill her, since a stranger has stained his and her honor. Though her husband tried to console her, no smile ever sweetened her lips again. Paulus Diaconus relates, in the _Gesta Langobardorum_, a trait of touching humility and modesty in a Teutonic woman, Radberg, wife of Duke Bemmo, in the Forum Julii. Conscious of her lack of physical beauty and deeming herself unworthy of her noble husband, she requests him to divorce her for some better wife. But Bemmo esteemed her chastity and loyalty higher than the beauty of others, and led an ideal life with her.