Wandering Glosses for Gothic runa.

• Adam J. Oberlin

This note will neither give a new etymology for the word “rune” nor summarize comprehensively the substantial body of scholarship pertaining to it. Rather, my aim is to show how scholars have vacillated between a received (and probably incorrect) gloss and the meaning apparent in the Gothic bible. Although the Germanic cognates of ‘rune’ have long plagued scholars with questions of origin and meaning, the insistence on a gloss of Gk. ìõóôç· ñéïí as “mystery” or “secret” ignores the other possible meanings of the Germanic words, namely “counsel/council” and “[secret?] ruling”. The manner of revelation of a mystery need not be magical and perhaps not even secretive, particularly in consideration of the other Greek glosses of Go. runa (“âïõëç· ” and “óõìâïõ· ëéïí”), and related garuni “óõìâïõ· ëéïí”. The related *birunan, postulated from the feminine i-stem birunains, will not be discussed because it does not reflect a gloss itself, even if it is glossed in modern languages by scholars. It occurs once only on leaf 3 of the Skeireins.

Seiten 348 - 352