Section XI Ve
The third deity who, with Odin and Wili, gave life to man, was Ve, who bestowed blood and colour.
Ve is thought to be connected with the Persian word veh, pure, and to lie at the root of veihan, to consecrate, in Mæso-Gothic; weihan, in German; whence Christmas is Weihnacht, holy night.
Ve was the god in ancient German, vear the plural for gods; but, moreover, ve, as a plural, meant sacred regions, and these, among the Teutons, were groves; wih, a grove in old German, a temple in old Saxon. Thence the northern vid, German wald, English wood, all passing from the sense of the consecrated forest to be merely the trees, and, in our language, the actual timber of which they are composed.
Ve appears no more; but Vidar (Vithar), a son of Odin, explained by Luning to signify the inexhaustible force of nature, is, in the final conflict, to set his foot on the Fenris wolf, and rend him asunder, and with Vali, the chosen, to pass unscathed through fire and flood, and behold the renovation of all things.
Ve and Vid do their part in names. Vadi, Wade, or Wato, is a giant ancestor in the Vilkinga Saga; and the father of Volundr is, in the North, Vidja or Vudga; in Germany, Wittege or Wittich, a name mentioned by Jornandes as Vidigoja. The son of Volundr also bears the same name, Vedja or Wilken, and kills the giant Etgeir, called in the Danish ballad, Langbeen Riser, or long-legged giant. The grave and the oven of the giant are still shown in Zeeland.
It is the Vitiges whom the Byzantine writers mention among their Gothic foes in Italy, and the Vitiza of the latter Visigoths in Spain, and may fairly be rendered a dweller in a wood, though, in effect, it conveyed the sense of consecration.
Thence, too, the Widukind, or Witukind, of Saxony, the fierce old chieftain subdued by Charlemagne, whose name Scott gave to old ‘Witikind, the waster,’ but erroneously, for a Dane would have begun his name with Ved. Before comparison had cleared up the history of names, Witikind used, however, to be translated white child.
Germany has many of such grove names, the forest wolf and raven, as Witolf and Witram; the forest prince, as Witrich, and his fame as Witmar; also Witpald, Witperaht, and Witheri, the like of which last is found in Domesday Book before the Conquest, as Wither, in company with Witlac, Witgar, and Wit, and Witgils is high up in the Anglo-Saxon genealogy.
It is tempting to refer such names as these to wit and wise, both from vidjan, to know, and to think of the vedas; but the wood and its spirit of consecration is the real source of all these, as of Vebiorn, Vebrandr, Vedis, Vedornn, Vegeir, Velaug, Vemundr, Vedny, Vedhelm, Vedhild, Vestan, all names of the North. Verena, the gentle mother of Sintram, may, perhaps, be meant for Vedrun, which would mean sacred wisdom, or for Vedrid, sacred eagerness; just as Sigrid has formed Siri and Serena.
The only cases where wise or vit has produced a name, were Vitgeir of Iceland, who received that prefix for his magic powers, and Robert d’Hauteville, surnamed Guiscard, wise heart, or wizard, the Norman conqueror of Apulia, from whose soubriquet Guiscard was afterwards used as a name in France, whence Sir Guiscard d’Angle appears in Froissart.
Ve, or verr, is common at the end of northern names, as in Raadve or Randverr, and stood as vih at the end of the old Frankish names, where it is apt to get confused with wig, war. Vid, the forest or tree, is a favourate Norsk termination, apt to be taken for hvit, white.115
Notes
115. Blackwell; Grimm; Munch; Domesday Book; Landnama-bok; Le Beau; Mariane; Weber and Jamieson, Northern Romance.