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Germanic Lexicon Project
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Author: Curt
Date: 2005-02-06 19:30:59
Subject: Re: Weiha
Thank you for the information. I'm trying, without success, to track down the origin of the definition "wise" given nearly a century ago to "wica," commonly confused by modern writers with "wicca." I cannot tell if this is phonetic spelling (someone's rendering of something overheard) or an actual transliteration. I do know that it is not "wicca." It is always used as a plural (in the manner of adjectives converted into nouns), though I'm wondering if something is being left off our out. One person who wrote about it was Scottish, and there is an old Scottish spelling of "wise" as "wice" (rhymes with nice) that might explain his spelling, if the word was actually weisa (or whatever the Old English spelling of wise is; I'm winging it here because I don't have my references). The Scottish spelling of "wise" is sometimes attributed to Middle English "wice" and Old English "wice."
This "wica" word does seem to correspond to wice, wake, etc. in Old English and wice and wike in Middle English. Early writers attributed it to Old English or Old Saxon.
I've spent a lot of time looking at quotations from the Dictionary of Old English Corpus, trying to come up with something. Variant forms of wica include waca, wacie, wake, waecae, weca, wecie, wice, wiice, wocie, wuca, and wucu, but I do onot know how these translate, and going through the usual Old English dictionaries hasn't helped. One problem is that there are so many homonyns for each of these words.
I am assuming that the questionable translation "wise" is a synonym for "awakened" or "enlightened." "Weiha" looked very promising because "wica" supposedly refers to initiates or priests. Wig for "idol" also seems somehow related.
Gratefully,
Curt
| Messages in this thread | Name | College/University | Date |
| Weiha |
Curt |
|
2005-02-06 18:26:22 |
| Re: Weiha |
Sean Crist |
Swarthmore College |
2005-02-06 18:39:24 |
| Re: Weiha |
Curt |
|
2005-02-06 19:30:59 |
| Re: Weiha |
Curt |
|
2005-02-06 22:20:02 |