[92] Professor Alf Torp calls my attention to R. Much’s [1895, p. 37] explanation of “Kobandoi” as a Germanic “*Kōwandōz,” a derivation from the word cow. This should therefore be divided “Kōw-and-,” where “and” is a suffix, and the meaning would be a cow-people.
[93] I have proposed this explanation to Professor Alf Torp; he finds that it “might indeed be possible, but not altogether probable.”
[94] It has been sought to derive “Daner” from an original Germanic word, equivalent to Anglo-Saxon “denu” (Gothic “*danei”) and “dene” for dale, and its meaning has been thought to be “dwellers in dales or lowlands” [cf. Much, 1895, p. 40; S. Bugge, 1890, p. 236].
[95] That they lived in the sea or bay must, of course, mean that they lived on islands; and the northern part of Jutland, north of the Limfiord, was probably looked upon as an island; but the Cimbrian Promontory is not mentioned; it occurs first in Pliny. The Germanic form of the name, “himbrōz,” perhaps still survives in the Danish district of Himmerland, the old Himbersyssel, with the town of Aalborg [cf. Much, 1905, p. 100].
[96] There is a resemblance of name which may be more than accidental between Mela’s “Œneæ,” or Pliny’s “Œonæ,” and Tacitus’s “Aviones” [“Germania,” c. 40], who lived on the islands of North Frisia and the neighbouring coast. “Aviones” evidently comes from a Germanic “*awjonez,” Gothic “*aujans,” Old High German “ouwon” (cf. Old Norse “ey,” Old High German “ouwa” for island), which means islanders. In the Anglo-Saxon poem “Widsid” they are called “eowe” or “eowan” [cf. Grimm, 1880, p. 330 (472), Much, 1893, p. 195; 1905, p. 101]. It is possible that the Greeks, on hearing the Germanic name, connected it with the Greek word “Œonæ” (== egg-eaters), and thereby the whole idea of egg-eating may have arisen, without anything having been related about it.
[97] To this it might be objected that he ought in that case to have obtained much information also about the interior of Scythia and Sarmatia; but in the first place this is not certain, as the special goal of the merchants was the amber countries, and they would therefore keep to the known routes and travel rapidly through—and in the second, Pliny actually mentions a good many tribes in the interior. He says, it is true [iv. 26, 91], of Agrippa’s estimate of the size of Sarmatia and Scythia, that he considers such estimates too uncertain in these parts of the earth; but to conclude from this, as Detlefsen [1904, p. 34] has done, that Pliny’s Greek authorities cannot have received their information by the land route, seems to me unreasonable, since Pliny perhaps did not even know how his authorities had obtained their knowledge.
[98] This river is not mentioned elsewhere and must be invented, Hecatæus of Abdera (circa 300 B.C.) having imagined that it rose in mountains of this name in the interior of Asia and fell into the northern ocean.
[99] This is certainly wrong. The name “Amalcium” cannot come from any northern language, but must come from the Greek “malkios” (μάλκιος), which means “stiffening,” “freezing”; “a” must here be an emphatic particle.
[100] This Greek is given as an authority in several passages of Pliny; he is also mentioned by Ptolemy, but is not otherwise known. He may have lived about 100 B.C. [cf. Detlefsen, 1904, pp. 23-25].
[101] On account of the syllable “rus,” which is found in Phœnician names (e.g., Rusazus, Ruscino, Ruspino) and which means headland, cape, it has been sought to derive it from the Semitic; but Detlefsen [1904, p. 24] thinks it more reasonable to suppose it Germanic. Not the smallest trace of Phœnician names has been found in the north. R. Keyser [1868, p. 165] thinks the name, which he reads “Rubeas,” “is without doubt the Welsh ‘rhybyz’” (rhybudd == sign, warning); but the word cannot have had this form in Pliny’s time.