Chapter CLXXVIII: Section XVII: Amal

Amal is a very remarkable word. We have had it in Greek, as Αἰμύλος; in Latin, as Æmilius; in the Keltic as Amalgaidh; and in all it would seem as if one notion could be detected—that of work. Even in Hebrew Amal means to work; _aml_ is work in old Norse; and we have still our verb to _moil_, taken therefrom. _Mahl_, be it remembered, is in German a time; _mahl_, a stroke; _mahlen_, to paint or make strokes; and so in the North, _maal_ is a measure, or an end, a goal. Probably there is a notion of repetition of marks, stroke upon stroke, in all cases, and the Sanscrit meaning of Amal, or spotless, without mark, is in favour of the meaning.

It is safest, however, to translate the Teutonic Amal by work, the thought most familiar to the sturdy northern nations who used it, and loved work for its own sake.

In the Vilkina Saga, the mighty smith Velint’s first great trial of skill was with Amilias, an armourer at the court of King Nielung. Velint struck him with his sword Mimung; he said he felt as if a drop of water had flowed down him. “Shake yourself,” said Velint, and the unfortunate smith fell down cloven painlessly from head to heel, an example of labour _versus_ skill.

Aumlung, the strong, is mentioned in the _Book of Heroes_, as feasting at the Nibelung court; and it was at Duke Amelung’s court that, according to the Danish ballad, old Sir Hildibrand had been staying for twenty-two years, before, going back to Bern, he met his unknown son Alebrand.

Amala was a favourite Lombardic commencement, and was likewise much in favour with German ladies; it became first Amalie, and then, when Italy and France had taken up the Latin Æmilia, this old Teutonic form was mixed up with it; and Amelia in England, Amélie in France, are scarcely considered to differ from it; and though historically Emily is the descendant of the Æmilii, Amelia of the Amaler, yet both alike come from the original Amal.

Amalaswinth, which would bear the translation, dignity of labour, though probably it was only given in the sense of dignity of the Amaler, was the unfortunate Lombardic queen, whom the Romans could not protect from the treachery of her favourites. Amalasontha is what historians call her; but on Burgundian lips it came to be Melisenda, Melicerte, Melusine.

Melisenda is in Spanish ballad lore the wife of Don Gayferos, and, being taken captive by the Moors, was the occasion of the feats that were represented by the puppet show in which Don Quixote took an unfortunately lively interest. Melisende again was the princess who carried the uneasy crown of Jerusalem to the House of Anjou; and, perhaps, from the Provençal connections of the English court, Lady Melisent Stafford bore the name in the time of Henry II., whence Melicent has become known in England, and never quite disused, though often confounded with Melissa, a bee, and sometimes spelt Millicent.

Melusine was a nymph who became the wife of the Lord de Leezignan, or Lusignan, on condition that he should never intrude upon her on a Saturday; of course, after a long time, his curiosity was excited, and stealing a glance at his lady in her solitude, he beheld her a serpent from the waist downward! With a terrible shriek, she was lost to him for ever; but she left three sons, all bearing some deformity, of whom _Geoffroi au grand dent_ was the most remarkable.

Melusina continued in use in the south of France, Holland, and Germany, and is occasionally used in England. We find Melicerte in old French chronicles.

The very ancient queens of Navarre and the Asturias have a wonderful set of aliases, and one, the oddest, is “Amelina, or Simena, or Ximena,” the sister of Sancho I., of Navarre, who married Alfonso the Great. Could the Spaniards, by any possibility, have contracted the soft _Amal_ into the harsh guttural _Xi_, which sounds as if it came from a Moorish throat. Yet, Goths as they were, they show no Amal, though their Ximen and Ximena reach up to 700, and Ximena survived long as a name among their ladies, and was the wife of the Cid, whence the French turned her into Chimène. Emmeline, as it is now generally spelt, came from France as Emeline, and is frequent in old ballad poetry, and in northern registers, as Emyln. It is probably another form of this same Amaline, or _lind_, Amal’s serpent.

The northern races have the one much reduced name of Malfrid, from Amalafrida, of peace.

The ladies have certainly been the chief owners of Amal, as a commencement; but it has had a brilliant part to play in the form of Amalrich, Almerich, or Emmerich, on the German side; Almerigo in Spain; Amalric, or Amaury, in France; Almerick in England. Amaury was an Angevin king of Jerusalem; and our own Sir Almerick St. Lawrence was brother-in-arms to Sir John de Courcy, and founded the House of Howth in Ireland. The House of Lusignan, Melusina’s descendants, called it Aymar; and in this form it came to England with Henry III.’s half-brother, whom he promoted to the see of Winchester, but who episcopally called himself Ethelmarus; though his nephew, Aymar de Valence, kept his proper name. Emmery is a surviving English surname, and Merica occurs in old Yorkshire genealogies.

But it is the Italian form, Amerigo, which was destined to the most noted use,—when the adventurer, Amerigo Vespucci, gave his name to the tract of land that Columbus saw for the first time in his company; little knowing that it was no island, but a mighty continent, which should hold fast that almost fortuitous title, whence thousands of miles, and millions of men, bear the appellation of the forgotten forefather of a tribe of the Goths—Amalrich, the work ruler; a curiously appropriate title for the new world of labour and of progress, on the other side the Atlantic.

Amalberge is an old Cambrai name; Malburg a Danish one; Amalgund, Amalbert, Amalbertine, and Amalhild, have also been known. The French Amelot must be the contraction of one of the masculine forms.[120]

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Footnote 120:

Grimm; Kemble; _Int. to Beowulf_; Weber; Dugdale.