Re: HERG / HEARG : BEOWULF'S SACRED GROVE & C. ARABIC "HRG" - ( RES

At 7:47:01 PM on Sunday, March 2, 2008, The Egyptian
Chronicles wrote:

> Brian Scott:wrote

>> What these seem to have in common is the notion of a
>> heathen place of worship, especially an altar
>> (specifically of stone?), not the notion of a grove as
>> such. This is a long way from the Arabic word and its
>> etymology...

>> More completely, 'temple, altar, sanctuary, idol; grove'
>> (Clark Hall & Meritt). A.H. Smith, English Place-Name
>> Elements, gives more detail, noting that in OE glosses it
>> denotes 'a sacred grove' (rendering Latin <lucus>), 'a
>> temple' (Lat. <fanum> and <templum>), 'the part of a
>> temple which housed an altar and idol' (Lat. <delubrum>),
>> and 'an idol' (Lat. <idolum> and <simulacrum>). It is
>> also equated with OE <halierne> 'holy building'. ON
>> <hörgr> is 'a heap of stones, a cairn; a sacrificial
>> altar; a stone altar'. OHG <harug, haruh> is glossed
>> 'heiliger Stein, Opferstätte' in the sources readily
>> available to me, which also note OHG <harahus>
>> 'Steinkreis um Grab'. However, it also glosses Lat.
>> <lucus>, <nemus>, <fanus>, and <ara>. OSwed. has
>> <hargher> ~ <horgher> 'stenkummel, offeraltere,
>> offerställe (i ortnamn)', answering nicely to <hörgr>.

> Thank you Brian for your links, as my Dictionary is too
> precious and fragile to be submitted to any scanning.

> When you stated, in your example, "more completely", I
> would think that it would mean, including the entire
> definition and not stopping short, and omitting the last
> sentence which clearly states verbatim the following:

> "The word perhaps occurs in the sense of grove in Exon.
> 54b: Th. 192, 25 Az 110. Grein so translates the word in
> this passage]"

I can't imagine why you would think so. First, none of the
sources that I was using contains any such sentence, so I
obviously did not omit it. Secondly, the actual meaning
should be obvious from what I wrote: the definition of OE
<hearg> that you gave was incomplete, omitting the senses
that didn't favor your conjecture, so I gave a more complete
definition that included those senses. My discussion was
also more complete in that I dealt with the various
cognates. Finally, I can't imagine what you're complaining
about, since the definition that I gave from Clark Hall &
Meritt includes the sense 'grove'.

Brian