Re[2]: [tied] Phol and Balder

At 6:05:30 PM on Friday, December 5, 2003, Piotr Gasiorowski
wrote:

> 05-12-03 22:38, Joao wrote:

>> Who was Sinthgunt? What's the etymology of her name?

> It's hard to be certain, since the Second Merseburg Charm
> is the only reference to her. The second element is of
> course the Germanic 'battle, war' word *gunþjo:. The first
> one looks as if it were *sinþa- 'journey, way; occasion,
> time', but if so, the compound makes little sense to me.
> Perhaps the intended word was *<suinthgunt(h)>, i.e.
> *swinþa-gunþjo: 'mighty battle'.

I wondered a little about the semantics, but I'm so used to
the later purely combinatorial compounds that it didn't
really register. Isn't *swinþa- fairly rare as a prototheme
anyway? If so, replacement by the more common *sinþa-
wouldn't be too surprising.

Brian