His fame travelled to Italy, where Buovo d'Antona is accepted as one of the heroes of romance, though he stands alone, not fitting into any of the cycles. The etymologists of Elizabeth’s time were led by the form Beavois, in which they spelt the word, to imagine that it was Bellovisus, beautiful to behold. But if ‘Bevis of Hampton’ was anybody, he was an Anglo-Danish ‘Bow,’ or Boge, a word which, like bay, bough, and boughsome or buxom, comes from bygan, to bend.
The spear and the breastplate, Geir and Brune, will be mentioned in the next chapter. The shield is now and then found in the North, as Skialde, Skioldbjorn, Skiolulf, and Skioldvar, shield bear, wolf, and, more appropriately, shield caution. The shield wolf is capable of being contracted into Schelluf.
Saro, saru, searu, is the entire equipment or suit of armour; Sørle is a Norwegian name for it, contracted into Solle; and among the Normans was called Serlo, and considered to be the same with Saher.
If there were plenty of weapons, there was also balsam to heal their wounds; that is, if the northern names beginning with Sölv are rightly referred to salve, the same word in the North as with us. The v has for the most part been left out by pronunciation, but the dotted o remains to testify that Sölmund, or Saamund, has no connection with Sol, the sun, as little as with Solomon, by which the Danish bishops rendered it. Solveig, healing drink, is now Solva, and Sölvar is Sölvi.[[128]]
[127]. Grimm; Munch; Dasent; Int. to Nial Saga; Weber and Jamieson; Spanish Heraldry (Quarterly Review).
[128]. Munch; Michaelis; Ellis; Campbell; Montalembert.
Section XII.—Thought.
Mind or thought amounts to a mythical character in northern fancy. The word is hugr, the same with hu, still the Scandinavian word for thought, as heuge is in Holland, all coming from old verbs represented by the Mæso-Gothic gahugan, and Anglo-Saxon gehygan.
The two ravens who sat on Odin’s shoulders, and revealed to him all that passed in the world, were Huginn and Munninn, thought and memory; and when Thor made his famous visit to Utgard, it was Hugi, or thought, alone that was swift enough to outstrip him in the race. At Tours, the Northern Lights are le carrosse du roi Hugues, perhaps originally from some connection with speed of thought, though latterly mixed up with Hugues Capet.