I wasn't thinking of cast iron, actually.
When the *geut- verb was used in early Germanic as a metalworking term, the
reference was of course to easily fusible metals like bronze and lead. By the
way, I quoted OE words from memory, but now I have checked them up in Bosworth
& Toller's dictionary. They give <le:ad-gota> 'lead-founder', which
means that the 'founder' and 'Goth' words were homonymous in Old English: gota
< *gut-o:n-. The question is how plausible it would be for a Germanic
tribal name to be of a occupational kind. Comments welcome.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 04, 2002 10:57 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: More Pliny's "Guthalvs"
I have one problem with that: What would those people
cast iron for? All iron then was wrought iron, it passed through the hands of a
smith. I suspect the meaning "cast" is late, it is used today in that sense in
German and Swedish (both nations with plenty of iron ore); in Danish (we have no
iron ore except low grade stuff found in bogs) /gyde/ means "spawn" (of fish)
and nothing else (except /udgyde/ "pour forth" -> "talk
nonsense").