From: alexandru_mg3
Message: 52244
Date: 2008-02-03
>were
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > --- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> > > DEO says something like
> > > Da stræbe, Sw sträva "strive" (but regular),
> > > supposedly loans from MLG
> > > streven "be stiff, stretch intr.; toil"
> > > corresponding to Dutch
> > > streven, Germ streben "reach up, stretch or direct
> > > oneself; turn in a
> > > certain direction [cf. Da. stræbepille "buttress"]",
> > > from Gmc.
> > > *striBa- etc. Now why is it so certain that the
> > > English word is from OFr.?
> >
> > ****GK: Here's where I jump in with a question I've
> > wanted to settle for along time. First let me quote
> > the relevant passage (Mierow's translation) from
> > Jordanes (258): "When they had mourned him [Attila-
> > GK]with such lamentations, a strava, as they call it,
> > was celebrated over his tomb with great revelling.
> > They gave way in turn to the extremes of feeling and
> > displayed funereal grief alternating with joy." The
> > favourite interpretation of "strava" is that it refers
> > to some sort of foodfest (indeed some linguists
> > thought the word was Slavic). I wonder. The activities
> > described by Jordanes need not indicate a meal, but
> > something else entirely. Any chance that this ordanes
> > "strava" is related to stra:va above?****
> >
>
> <<strawa>> is not at all, a meal
>
> => I think that it was a ceremony where a huge ornamented fabric
> used to cover the tombI think now: a ceremony where a huge ornamented fabric were