Re: A "Germanic" query

--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:

> But <erilaz> occurs commonly in Old Runic, long before the loss of

medial /x/. As I have just shown, the addition of an orthographic <h-

> in Latinised Germanic proper names is both explicable and well

documented. Neither in Scandinavian nor in West Germanic, where the
syncopated variant *erla- is amply attested, does it have religious
connotations. The "erils" were people -- Germanic VIPs of some kind,
to be sure, but not gods, demigods or legendary heroes.

>
> Piotr
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: tgpedersen
> To: cybalist@...
> Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 11:11 AM
> Subject: [tied] Re: A "Germanic" query
>
>
> How about the etymology I proposed in
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/11838 *)
> (please ignore the headline)?
> Tacitus(?) says the Germani worshiped Hercules. If his name went
> unchanged (sort of) between Greek, Romans and Etruscans, the

Germani

> might have known him under the same name.
>
> *)
> And if Greek Herakles, Etruscan Hercle, Latin Hercules was borrowed
> into pre-Proto-Germanic it would (assuming they dropped the
> unfamiliar <h>) become *er(V)x(V)l- (zero or one V) in Proto-

Germanic

> and *er(V)l- in Proto-North-Germanic (<x> is dropped in inlaut and
> auslaut causing long vowel which would shorten and then disappear

in

> unstressed syllable). So if Hercules is *wagn- is Mars, then the
> bloodthirsty rites of the Heruli are rites for Mars, also described
> similarly. (Perhaps even the "borrowed <h>" might explain "h-
> droppping" in herul-/eril- that linguists (or historians?) have
> permitted themselves, without sufficient explanation).

Actually I wasn't suggesting that they were a Herculean people, only
that they might be worshippers of H. The contemporary descriptions of
their behaviour after they were exiled by the Dani certainly suggests
that they were some kind of old-believers.

Torsten