Re: Schöffe I

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sceafa
>is supposedly just a name.

Langobardic. ("Schaffe, schaffe, Heisle baue". :))

>Re: the form Seskef, cf.
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saphrax
>
>which has been proposed to be *sā fra(ŋ)k "the bold one"

Ebenda: <<Saphrax is generally regarded as having an Alan name:
see Bernard Bachrach, /A history of the Alans in the West/...>>

>might thus be *sā skev "the boss" ('der Schöffe')
>
>Strephius might indicate old palatalization *ščep-

<<Tolkien treated Sceaf in a poem "King Sheave">>

A... chef avant la lettre. :o) (But anyway: strange coincidences
over millennia - shofet/suffet, shupan/choban/zhoopan, scef,
chef, Schöffe - each of them being some kind of "chief".)

George