to which the Teutonic languages would answer with a name beginning with Seg-, as in those of Arminius' family, such as Segimundus, Segestis and the like, his own name being possibly an early form of that which is now written in German Siegfried. In such a case the Segi- nomenclature of the ruling Cherusci may, perhaps, have had reference not so much to sieg or victory in the abstract, as to a god bearing a name derived from his attributes as a victor.[1]
It is needless to say that Heracles, Odysseus and Prometheus, by no means exhaust the list of Greek equivalents, so to say, to Gwydion-Woden; we have another in Orpheus, with his marvellous music—his visit to Hades and his all but successful attempt to recover his Eurydice are well known. Still more striking is the likeness between Jason and Woden, as any one may perceive who will take the trouble to study together the story of Jason with Medea, and that of Woden with Gundfled; also the way he disposed of the iron warriors that sprang from the ground in a formidable crop, as compared with the expedient adopted by Woden to get rid of the nine hay-mowing slaves of the giant Suptung,
- ↑ Solinus mentions Caledonia or the north of this island as a distant coast visited by the wandering figure of Ulysses. Prima facie there is nothing improbable in the notion implied, that Romans who had visited the north of Britain had found worshipped there a hero or god who reminded them of Ulysses; hut the words of Solinus lose most of their weight from the fact that he regarded Ulysses' visit as demonstrated by the occurrence there of an altar dedicated to him in Greek writing. The passage Looks like an inaccurate and confused reproduction of the words in the Germania; but, be that as it may, there is hardly room to doubt that strangers from the Mediterranean found in vogue in Celtic and Teutonic lands the cult of a god, in whom they sometimes recognized Hercules or Heracles, and sometimes Ulysses or Odysseus.
