Drus Griutinge (Augeis)

[llama_nom]

> > > Augeis kunjis "of Augis's kin"
>
> > Jordanes names 'Augis' among the early kings/ancestors of the
Goths.
> > Hence Augeis kuni = the Gothic people.

> Yes, I saw that name in Getica, but I thought it was a distortion of
a name on –gais, something like Audagais or the like (cf. Andagis
for *Andagais and a lot of other examples). And if really *Augeis,
what could it mean?

Given the corruptions these names are liable to in transmission via
Latin, you could be right about *Audagais.  I took it the Gothic
equivalent to ON -eygr "-eyed", i.e. having a certain kind of eyes, as
in 'veðreygr skyti' "weather-eyed marksman" (that is, with his eye on
the weather, concentrating on what might be coming).  Adjectives which
appear as ja/jo-stems in Gothic would seem to have gone over to the
i-stem declension at an early time in North Germanic, before the
different declensions fell together, cf. among the early runic
inscriptions: glïaugiz uïu rnz "I, gleaming-eyed, hallow [these]
runes" (Nebenstedt I bracteate); owlþuþewaz ni wajemariz (Torsbjerg
chape).  Unless, of course, Gothic was one that shifted them from the
i- to the ja/jo declension...  Maybe Augeis was nicknamed for his
sharp-eyes or farsightedness (literal or figurative), or eyes that
were distinctive in some other impressive way.  Compare Isarnis, "the
Iron Man"?  Like Stalin's steely nickname.  Cleasby/Vigfússon has Old
Norse: eygir, m. one who frighten?, a terror [
http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/html/oi_cleasbyvigfusson/b0135.html ] --
good name for a king -- but apparently this is just an alternative
spelling for Ægir [ http://www.septentrionalia.org/lex/index.php ], so
probably neither "a terror" nor any relation to the Gothic name Augis.
 On the other hand, there are a lot of Old Norse personal names
(originally nicknames?) with the suffix -ir = Go. eis < PG -ijaz, as
well as some epithets for rules, such as 'hilmir'.

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