The feminines Hrossmund, Hroswith, Hroshild, Hrosa, have by general consent been changed from horses to roses, giving up the old idea of the Valkyr on her tall shadowy horse, weaving her web of victory, and have been treated of under the head of Latin flowers.
Hengst seems to have been used for the male, horse for the female; but jor in the North, ehu in Old German, ehvus in Gothic, meant both horse and mare; and this jor, or sometimes only the jo, is not uncommon in Norsk names, as Jogeir, Jofred, Jogrim, Jostein, or flower of chivalry, Johar or Joar, horse warrior, Joketyll, or Jokell. The women were, Jora, Jodis, Jofrid, Joreid, Jorunna, all, be it remembered, being pronounced as with a y.
Afterwards Justin devoured Jostein, and George probably consumed some of the others; indeed, some of the early specimens of Jordan among the Normans, probably accommodated their names to the river in their crusading fervour; but, en revanche, the great Gothic historian, Jornandes, is supposed to have been so called by corruption from his state name of Jordanes.
Jorund, which looks very like one of this race, is referable to another source.
Probably in honour of Thor’s he-goats we find the goat figuring in names, as Geitwald, Geithilt, and the wife of Robert Guiscard, Sichelgaita.[[124]]
[124]. Grimm; Munter; Munch; Dasent; Cambro-Briton; Blackwell, Mallet; Weber and Jamieson, Northern Romance; Sturleson, Heimskringla; Kemble Beowulf; Ellis, Specimens of Early English Poetry; Pott, Personen Namen.
Section VI.—The Eagle.
‘There is an eagle sitting on the ash Yggdrasil who knows many things.’
He is, in the North, aar, in Germany ar, in Scotland erne: though we and the modern Germans use, in eagle and adler, mere contractions of the Latin aquila. Places named from the king of birds are found wherever there are mountains.