[66]. Diodorus, v. 34.
[67]. Strabo, bk. vii. p. 315.
[68]. Harudes, Marcomanni, Tribocci, Vangiones, Nemetes and Sedusii. Bell. Gall. i. 51.
[69]. Bell. Gall. i. 31.
[70]. Tac. Germ. 26.
[71]. Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstämme, von Kaspar Zeuss. München. 1837.
[72]. He cites the passage from Caesar which I have quoted, and also Bell. Gall. iv. 1, which still applies only to the Suevi. His next evidence is the assertion of Tacitus just noticed. His third is from Plutarch’s Aemil. Paul. c. 12, of the Bastarnae: ἄνδρες οὐ γεωργεῖν εἰδότες, οὐ πλεῖν, οὐκ ἀπὸ ποιμνίων ζῆν νέμοντες, ἀλλ’ ἓν ἕργον καὶ μίαν τέχνην μελετῶντες, ἁεὶ μάχεσθαι καὶ κρατεῖν τῶν ἀντιταττομένων. A people without agriculture or commerce, and who live only on fighting, may be left undisturbed in the realm of dreams with which philosophers are conversant. Zeuss proceeds to reason upon the analogy of examples derived from notices of Britons, Kelts and Wends, in Strabo, Polybius and Dio Cassius. See p. 52, etc.
[73]. Thus, according to his view, Suevi (Suáp, Swǽf) denotes the wanderers; Wandal also the wanderers. Assuredly if nations at large partook of such habits, single tribes could not have derived a name from the custom. How much more easy would it be, upon similar etymological grounds, to prove that the leading Teutonic nations were named from their weapons! Saxons from seax, the long knife; Angles from angol, a hook; Franks from franca, a javelin; Langobards and Heaðobards from barda, the axe or halberd; nay even the general name itself, Germans, from gárman (Old Germ. kérman) the javelin- or goad-man. Yet who would assert these to be satisfactory derivations? Zahn, whose services to Old German literature cannot be overrated, speaks wisely when he calls the similarity of proper names, a rock “on which uncritical heads are much in the habit of splitting.” Vorrede zu Ulphilas, p. 3.
[74]. If a man be emancipated, his lord shall still retain the right to his mund and wergyld, sý ofer mearce ðǽr he wille, be he over the mark wherever he may be, be he out of the district where he may. Ll. Wihtr. § 8. Thorpe, i. 38.
[75]. Grimm is of opinion that the word Marc itself originally denoted forest, and that the modern sense is a secondary one, derived from the fact of forests being the signs or marks of communities. Deut. Gränzalterthümer; Berl. 1844. There can be no doubt that forests were so: in Old Norse the two ideas, and the words by which they are expressed, flow into one another: Mörk (f) is silva, Mark (n) is limes. In the Edda and Sögur, Myrkviðr is the common name for a wood: thus, sem þessi her kom saman, riða þeir á skóg þan er Myrkviðr heitir, hann skilr Húnaland ok Reiðgota land; they ride to the forest which is called Myrkviðr (mearcwidu in Anglosaxon) which separates Huna land from Reidgota land. Fornm. Sög. i. 496. Though given here as a proper name, it is unquestionably a general one. Conf. Edda, Völund. cv. 1.