[49] The second part of this compound repeats the idea of the first, namely, choice: it is from the verb to choose, for in certain tenses this verb changed s to r, just as from the verb to freeze we have frore (Milton), and from lose we have a participle lorn. The Anglo-Saxon form is wælcyrige. Grimm’s “Teutonic Mythol.” tr. Stallybrass, p. 418. Kemble, “Saxons,” i., 402.
[50] The same keen discoverer scents an old heathen reminiscence also when the poet of the Heliand makes that holy thing which is not to be cast before dogs (Matthew vii. 6) a hêlag halsmeni = holy necklace.
[51] For the distinct attributes of this goddess, who was the wife of Woden, the reader may consult Grimm’s “Teutonic Mythology,” who quotes Paulus Diaconus (eighth century), saying that the Langobards called Woden’s wife Frea, and Saxo, p. 13, saying, “Frigga Othini conjux.”
[52] “Über die Werke des altenglischen Erzbischofs Wulfstan,” von Arthur Napier. Weimar, 1882, p. 33.
[53] Printed in Kemble’s “Solomon and Saturn,” p. 120.
[54] Printed in Thorpe’s “Analecta” (1846), p. 116.
[55] This recalls the charm that within living memory was used on Dartmoor as an evening prayer:—
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on;
Two to head and two to feet,
And four to keep me while I sleep.
[56] Some Runic alphabets may be seen in my “Philology of the English Tongue,” § 96 (ed. 3, 1879). The best collection of Runic monuments is in the two folio volumes of Professor George Stephens.