Ger. Dietbert; Frank. Theudebert—People’s brightness
Ger. Dietbrand—People’s sword
Ger. Dietburg—People’s protection
Nor. German.Frank.
Thjodgjer
Toger
Kiogjeir
Kygeir
Kyer		DietgarTheodokar—People’s spear
Ger. Diether—People’s warrior
Nor. Thjodhjalm; Ger. Diethelm—People’s helmet
Ger. Dietlind; Lomb. Theudelinda—People’s snake
Ger. Dietman—People’s man
Ger. Diutrat; Frank. Theodorada—People’s council
Ger. Dietram—People’s raven
Nor. Thjodvald, Kjodvald, Kjoval—People’s power.[[137]]

[137]. Weber and Jamieson; Munch; Grimm; Butler; Nibelung.

Section XI.—Uta, Ortwin.

Frau Uote was the mother of Kriemhild, who interpreted her dream and predicted the early death of her bridegroom. Ortwin, of Metz, was truchsess, or carver, and was the nephew of Hagan and Dankwart, sharing, of course, their fate.

They are not very interesting personages, but it is curious that they bear the only names, among all the Nibelungen, which have any genuine Anglo-Saxon likenesses; that is, if Uote is, indeed, from the word in Anglo-Saxon, ead, in the North aud, in Mæso-Gothic audr, in High German od, everywhere meaning wealth. Some ascribe it to the same root as good and as Woden, including them with adel, noble; but its derivatives are more easy to follow than its forefathers.

In the North, odel is the term for property to which an entire family retains an equal right, all-od, or allodial property. But when the warriors made incursions on their neighbours, they obtained, in addition, their share of spoil, originally cattle, feh, or feo, i. e., their fee. So feh-od came to be the word for possessions gained by the individual by personal service to his lord, and thus passed from cattle to land itself, when held of the chief on condition of following him in war; and thus we have the feudal system, with its feoffs and, too often, its feuds.

The feminine of this word probably named Uta. It was popular everywhere. Audur-diupaudga, or Audur the deeply rich, was a female viking, one of the first Icelandic settlers, who called a promontory Kambness, because she dropped her comb upon it; nor has her name passed from her own country, while, in Norman-England, it appears first as Auda and then as Alda, answering to Alda the wife of Orlando the Paladin, and Alda queen of Italy in 926, also to another Alda, a lady of the house of Este, in 1393. These are from the Gothic and Scandinavian aud; but the High German form was also represented by Oda and the Low German by the old Saxon Ead, which was soon translated into Ide, the most common of all the early feminines in the Cambrai register, together with its diminutive Idette. Ida was the name of King Stephen’s granddaughter, the Countess of Boulogne, was always used in Germany, and has of late been revived in England, from its sounding like the title of a poetical mountain of the Troad.

It is not quite clear whether Othilie, the Alsatian virgin of the seventh century, who was said to have been born blind, but to have obtained sight at her baptism, is a form of Odel, noble, or a diminutive of Oda, or whether she is Otthild, answering to our Eadhild, one of the many sisters of Æthelstane: and there is the same doubt with Odilo and Odilon, the masculines.

The masculine form of aud was extremely common. We had it in the person of Ida, king of Bernicia; the North owned many an Audr; the Germans used Odde, Orto, and Otto, and when the gallant Saxon counts won the imperial crown, they took the old Latin Otho for the rendering of their name. France, meantime, had called her Burgundian prince Eudon, but when a relay of Norman Audrs appeared, they were Odons; and in the needlework with which Queen Matilda adorned Bayeux cathedral, her husband’s doughty episcopal half-brother is always labelled ‘Odo Eps.’ But though we had previously had a grim Danish archbishop Odo, and though Domesday shows plenty of Eudos and Odos, neither form took root, and both are entirely continental.

French.Provençal.Italian.German.Nor.
Odon OrzilOttoOdoAudr
EudonLettish.OttoneOttoOdo
EudesAtteOttorinoOrtoOddr
OthesAttinsch Otho