Re: log - how it developed?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "A." <xthanex@...> wrote:

> Greetings all,
>
> I'm still wrestling with the issue of the Norse term "log".
>
> I am trying to understand how *legh- 'that which is (physically)

laid

> down' came to mean "law".
> At first it looks like a rather simple progression, but when I
> examine the other terms derived from *legh- I see such entries as:
> OE lecgan = to lay
> OE belecgan = to cover or surround
> OHG legar = bed, lair
> ON lagr = low
> Germanic *lega = lying flat
> OHG laga = the act of laying
>
> I see that AHDIER states law derives from ON *lagu, lag- = that

which

> is set down.
>
>
> What I wonder is how a term describing such a physical act of

placing

> something down - came to mean the conceptual act of establish laws.
>
> Can anyone help clarify this for me please?
>
> Could it also possibly be that our current theory is incorrect; and
> that "log" stems not from 'legh' but rather from 'leg 1' meaning

'to

> speak'??
> I don't see leg-1 producing o-grade forms in the Germanic tongues,
> but the association with 'lex' and the thought of law as being a
> decree, combine to make me wonder about such a possibility.
>
> As always, any help would be greatly appreciated!
>
> Regards,
> -Aydan

***********
I really don't see your problem. I must have heard hundreds of
times the colloquial English for someone who uttered firm strictures
regarding the behavior of others, "He laid down the law", and never
before questioned its appropriateness. Of course, the alliteration
that spices the phrase wouldn't have been there when the ancestral
word for "law" took on its meaning.
For what it's worth, the ON 'log' was a plural, with a singular
that meant other things, but not law.
Dan Milton