Brihtric was the English earl who so gallantly died in defending England from the Danes in the unhappy days of Ethelred the Unready, and another Brihtric was the unsuccessful suitor of Matilda of Flanders, on whom she wreaked an unworthy vengeance after the Conquest. All the Brihts in Domesday seem to be of Saxon birth, since they use the English instead of the Norman French commencement, which was already Ber, as in the instance of Bertrade de Montfort, Bright speech, the countess of Anjou, who deserted her husband for Philippe I. of France. The remaining forms are—
| Ger. Bertar; Fr. Berthier—Bright warrior | ||
| Eng. |  | Brichteva—Bright gift Bricfrid—Bright peace Brichtmar—Bright fame Brichsteg—Bright warrior Britfleda—Bright increase Brichstan—Bright stone Bricsteg—Bright maid |
| Ger. Bertrud—Bright maid | ||
Bert is one of the most indispensable conclusions among all the German range of names, and is far more common there than as a commencement.
Another word meaning bright, or glittering, is the Northern jar, jor, jer, the German ir. Iring, or Irinc, is a semi-mythological person. Old German tradition declared him to have been the counsellor of Irnvrit of Thuringia, and that when both had been taken by the Franks, he was deceived into slaying his sovereign, after which, in his rage, he killed the victorious Frank, laid him under his master’s body, and then cut his way through the enemy, and returned home.
He appears again in the Nibelungen-noth as the Markgraf Irinch of Tenemarche, or Denmark, in company with Irnvrit of Düringen, i.e. Thuringia: he wounds Hagen, but is slain by him, and lamented over by Kriemhild. His name was sometimes subsequently used, and is, perhaps, what French histories call Harenc.
Jørund is a northern name with a similar prefix, and means a brilliant or glittering man; but it gets called Jøren, and mixed up with Jorgen, or George.[[147]]
[147]. Grimm, Deutcher Mythologie, Deutche Heldensage; Munch; Alban Butler; Sismondi; Ayale-y-z-urita.
Section IV.—War.
In Ulfilas' Bible, ‘the multitude of the heavenly host’ is translated ‘Haryis hunniakundis managei.’ In Anglo-Saxon, an army is here, in old German heri, in the North her, all perhaps coming from the ear, and to hear, as having been summoned, like the legion from being chosen. Thence the leader was the English Heretoga, and German Herzog, finally translated into the Latin dux, and becoming political and territorial. The doings of the herr were expressed by various old words, of which the Scottish to harry is the direct descendant. Heerfurst, or army leader, may be the Ariovistus of Cæsar.