From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 547
Date: 1999-12-12
----- Original Message -----From: Mark OdegardSent: Saturday, December 11, 1999 9:44 PMSubject: [cybalist] Erinys.Mark writes:The Furies, the Eumenides, the Erinys are well known from Greek mythology and tragedy (they chased the matricide, Orestes, driving him mad). It occurs in Mycenaean as e-ri-nu. EIEC relates this to PIE *seren(w)uhxs, 'name of a goddess'. This is also related to the Old Indic goddess, Saranyu. ... Polome has no problems with the etymology, but objects to identifing Saranyu with the Erinys. They are separate developments.
I'd object to the etymology as well. First, *seren(w)uHs doesn't look like a plausible PIE stem; secondly, it would have developed into Gk. *here(i)nu:s in accordance with the regular sound changes. Of course irregular development is always a possibility, but if one posits it without good reason, merely in order to equate the Erinyes with Saranyu, the etymology acquires a Procrustean flavour (I mean, the limbs of a hapless word are stretched or lopped off so that it matches its putative cognate).
Piotr