Rosomil, Rosmunda, Rosamunda (and Rosomoni)

[ualarauans]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "llama_nom" <600cell at ...> wrote:
>
> Note especially the name 'rosmu-fjöll' in Atlakviða st. 17.
> 
> "Seinat er nú, systir,
> at samna Niflungum;
> langt er at leita
> lýða sinnis til,
> of rosmufjöll Rínar
> rekka óneissa."
> 
> Lex. Poet. has "rödlige fjælde" (red hills) for 'rosmufjöll' and
> refers to Bugge's paper. This interpretation of Rosomoni is 
dismissed
> by Chambers as a "not very probable suggestion" (Widsith: A Study 
in
> Old English Heroic Legend, p. 18, f. 2), although he doesn't give 
any
> actual reasons why not! Other ideas he mentions are Russians (an
> "unsuccessful" conjecture "though suppported by the great names of
> Gibbon and Grimm"), "the doughty" (Koegel, Ltg. I, 1, 148) and
> Hrusamans"the men of ice" (Grienberger, Z.f.d.A. XXXIX, p. 159).

Did someone try to argue for *hrussa-mans "horsemen"? One more 
candidate for Gothic "knight", by the way... Poor Sunilda died 
trampled by horses – a pun on her clan's name by Ermanaric?

Hm. 3

Systir var ykkur 
Svanhildr of heitin, 
sú er Jörmunrekkr 
*jóm* of traddi, 
hvítum ok svörtum 
á hervegi, 
grám, gangtömum 
Gotna *hrossum*.

Get. 129

...*equis* ferocibus inligatam incitatisque cursibus per diuersa 
diuelli praecipisset...

> The "reed" connection is interesting in light of this name 
Rausimodus
> and the mythical ancestors of the Hazdings, Raos and Raptos, 
mentioned
> by Cassius Dio (Epitome 12). The Rosamunda who killed King Alboin 
was
> a Gepid. Now, how does that affect things? Do we have any evidence 
for
> Germanic diphthongs in 6th century Gepidic? But her names is 
recorded
> in sources that presumably derive from Lombard legend. So if this 
is a
> Langobardic form, we'd expect an original diphthong to survive.

And it can well be that the first elements in Rosomoni, Rausimodus 
and Rosamunda are each of different origin.

> > ON hrósa is probably from *hróðsa (like heilsa). We don't have 
cases
> > of þs > ss > s in Gothic, do we? *Hrôza- looks likelier, IMHO.
> 
> Aha, I think we're making some progress here! Proto-Germanic "t, 
d, þ,
> d > ss", e.g. Go. ga-qiss : Go. qiþan; Go. wissa : Go. witan. 
And "ss
> > s after long syllables", e.g. Go. un-weis : Go. witan; Go.
> guþ-blostreis : Go. blotan (Wright § 138). So maybe Hrôsa- is
> likeliest after all?

In these examples it's rather –TT- > -ss-: ga-qiss < *ga-qiþ- + -Ts 
(noun suffix); wissa < *wit- + -Ta (preterite ending); *blostr < 
*blôt- + -Tr (cf. gilstr < gild- + -Tr). I don't know about un-weis 
(unweis im). Any connection with Lat. uîsus? 

While we are close, how do you think the -þs so frequent in auslaut 
in nom. sg. was pronounced? In Latvian, for instance, which has the 
very same sigmatic ending –s in the 1st declension, it forms 
affricate [ts] after a dental: gald-s "table" [galts], jumt-s "roof" 
[jumts]. Was it like this in Gothic? Or maybe -þs became rather [s] 
or [ss]: wairþ-s [wers], staþ-s [stass], un-ga-tewiþs 
['ungate:`wiss]?

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