Chapter CLXXXV: Section VI: The Eagle

‘There is an eagle sitting on the ash Yggdrasil who knows many things.’

He is, in the North, _aar_, in Germany _ar_, in Scotland _erne_: though we and the modern Germans use, in _eagle_ and _adler_, mere contractions of the Latin _aquila_. Places named from the king of birds are found wherever there are mountains.

His influence on nomenclature was exercised from the Dovrefeld and from the Alps, for the eagle-names are chiefly either Scandinavian or High German; we do not seem to have any native English ones.

The most noted of these southern ones are Arnwald, eagle power, and Arnulf, or eagle-wolf, and it is very difficult to distinguish their derivatives from one another. The saint of the Roman calendar was certainly Arnulf, a prince of the long-haired line, who in 614 retired into a convent at Metz, and became its bishop, when alive, and its patron, when dead. Another previous Arnulf, after whom he was probably christened, for their day is the same, was martyred by the heathen Franks, about the time of the conversion of Clovis; and a subsequent one was bishop of Soissons, under Pope Hildebrand. Arnoul was common as a name among the Burgundian kings, and was known in Italy as Arnolfo; but it has been swallowed up by Arnwald, or Arnvalldr, as he is in the North, perhaps because this latter was made famous in Provence by Arnaldo di Maraviglia, the troubadour; in Italy by the unfortunate Arnoldo of Brescia, and later in Switzerland by the patriot Arnold von Melchthal, and thus it has become popular enough to have the feminines Arnolde and Arnoldine.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ Spanish. │
│Arnold │Arnaud │Arnoldo │Arnoldo │
│ │Arnaut │ │ │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ German. │ Dutch. │ North. │ │
│Arnold │Arnoldus │Arnvalld │ │
│Arno │Arnoud │Arnalldr │ │
│Ahrent │Arend │ │ │
│Ahrens │ │ │ │
│Arold │ │ │ │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The Arnolds and Arnoldines keep their feast upon St. Arnulf’s day, thus confessing that they have no patron of their own. Ernulf is an old form found in Domesday Book, and not yet quite extinct.

The northern eagles are much confused by _arin_, a hearth, the same which is found at the end of Thorarin. It contracts into _arn_ at the beginning of a word, so that, except when we meet with it in full, as in the case of the brave old sea-king, Arinbiorn, the hearth-bear, it is difficult to tell to which to send the owner, to the _eyrie_ or the _fire-side_. And further, _arn_ and _arin_ both contract indiscriminately into _ar_ and _an_, so that the list of Northern names is given rather in the dark. They are both masculine and feminine, for Arna was both used standing alone and as a termination.

Arnridur or Arneidur, eagle haste, one of these eagle ladies, had a curious history told in the _Landnama-bok_. She was the daughter of Asbiorn, a jarl in the Hebrides, and was taken captive by Holmfast Vedormson, who sold her to an Icelander named Ketell Thrymr. He was so much smitten with her as to pay for her twice the sum demanded by old Vedorm; but before the departure for Iceland, she found a quantity of silver beneath the roots of a tree, sufficient for her ransom. Instead of claiming it, her new master generously gave her the choice of purchasing her freedom or remaining his wife; she chose the latter alternative, and stands as honourable women do in the _Landnama-bok_, as the mother of a house in Iceland.

Arnthor, and his feminine Arnthora, contract into Arnor and Arnora, and this latter explains Annora, to be found in Norman pedigrees. Annora was wife of Bernard de St. Valery; and was carried into the family of Braose by king John’s victim, Maude de St. Valery, who called one of her daughters Annora. It is also said that Anora is only the contraction of Eleanora.

Ari was an adventurer who sailed to Greenland in fourteen days, fifteen years before the preaching of Christianity in Iceland.

The other old Icelandic and Norsk forms are:—

Arnbiorg, eagle defence;
Arndis, eagle sprite;
Arnfinn, white eagle;
Arnfridur, eagle fair one;
Arngeir, eagle war;
Arngrimm, } or Angrim,
Arngrimur, } eagle mask;
Arnkatla, } eagle cauldron;
Arnkjell, }
Arnlaug, eagle liquor;
Arnleif, eagle relic;
Arnliotr, eagle wanderer;
Arnmodur } eagle wrath;
or Armodr,}}
Arnstein, eagle stone;
Arnthrudr, eagle maiden.

This Ari, be he eagle or hearth, seems to conduct us to the source of the first syllable of Arabella. The first lady so called, whom I can detect, was Arabella, the granddaughter of William the Lion, of Scotland, who married Robert de Quinci. Another Arabella, with her husband John de Montpynçon, held the manor of Magdalen Laver in the thirty-ninth of Henry III., and thus it was evidently a Norman name. The Normans made wild work with all that did not sound like French, and their Latin secretaries made the matter worse, so that I am much tempted to believe that both Arabella and that other perplexing name, Annabella, may once have been Arnhilda, cut down into Arbell, or Anable, and then amplified. “My Lady Arbell” was certainly what the lady was called, in her own time, whose misfortunes are so well known to us, under the name of Arabella Stuart, and from whom Arabella has been adopted in various families, and is usually contracted by Belle. Some have made it Arabella, or fair altar, others the diminutive of Arab, both equally improbable.

The most common form of Arn at present used in Scandinavia is Arnvid, the eagle of the wood, often contracted into Arve.

With much doubt I question whether the name of Ernest should not be added to this catalogue. It is obvious to take its native German form, Ernst, from _ernst_, earnest, grave, or serious, but this is quite unlike the usual analogy of such names. Arnust was the older German form of the name, and some even think that this was the proper name of Ariovistus, the German chief who fought with Cæsar, though others consider this to be Cæsar’s version of Heerfurst, or general, and others think they detect the universal root _ar_, husbandry.

The more certain form of the name begins in Lombardy, where Ernesto, lord of Este, was killed in battle by kinFg Astolfo, in 752. Is not Ernesto just what Italy would make of Arnstein, after fancying that Arnstino was a diminutive? Then, over the mountains, comes Arnust I., duke of Swabia, in right of his wife, in 1012, and Arnust the Strenuous, Markgraff of Austria, from whom Ernst spread all over Germany, especially after the Reformation, when Ernst, Duke of Brunswick, had striven so hard to spread Lutheranism among his subjects that Protestants called him the Confessor.

This is now one of the most national of German names, and it is working its way into England, though not yet with a naturalized sound. Its German feminine, Ernestine, is one of the many contracted by Stine and Tine, or by Erna. Bohemian has Arnostinka.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ German. │
│Ernest │Erneste │Ernesto │Ernst │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ Dutch. │ Bohemian. │ Lettish. │ Hungarian. │
│Ernestus │Arnost │Ernests │Erneszt │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

One or two instances of Hauk occur. Hauk Habrok was a noted pirate; and there are two Haukrs in the _Landnama-bok_. The bird is now called _hog_ in Denmark, and most of our families named Hogg are supposed to rejoice in Hawk as an ancestor.

As to Folco and his kin, though it is often attributed to the falcon, it has, as we shall see, quite another source.[125]

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Footnote 125:

Grimm; Munch; Pott; Michaelis; Butler; _Landnama-bok_; Chalmers;
_Essex Pedigrees_; Dugdale; Anderson, _Genealogies_.