Chapter CCXV: Section III: Brightness

The root _brâj_ furnished the Greek φλέγεεν, Latin _flagrare_, and Gothic _bairht_, the Anglo-Saxon _beohrt_, or _byrht_, the Old German _percht_, and Northern _bjart_.

It is a component of Frank, German, and Anglo-Saxon nomenclature, but is rarely found in genuine Norsk; the only instance in the _Landnama-bok_ is Biartmar, who is noted as of Irish birth, so may have brought an Anglo-Saxon name.

Bertha, the most obvious of all the progeny of _biart_, has been treated of in her character as a personification of the bright Epiphany night, mixed up with an old epithet of Frigga and with the spinning Holda. So, in Swabia, these legends have formed a masculine, Berchthold, who has become the wild huntsman in that quarter. Berchtvold was really an English prince of the Heptarchy, and Brichtold is in Domesday. Perahtholt is a veritable Old German name, making the modern Bartold—Niebuhr’s name,—the Italian Bertaldo, and French Bertould. Bertalda is not so likely to be the feminine of this word as to come from Berchthilda, like the name of Bertille, a sainted abbess of Chelles.

It is not easy to discover whether the most popular of all thus commencing should be regarded as a single corrupted name, or the produce of two, of which one has the second syllable _hramn_, a raven, the other _rand_, a house. The patron saint of all alike is Bertichramnus, bishop of Mans till 623, and his Latinism leaves no doubt that he was Bright-raven. It was chiefly popular in France, whence we must have obtained it, although there is no instance of it in Domesday, and it was especially glorious in the fourteenth century, for the sake of gallant Constable du Guesclin, ‘the eagle of Brittany,’ whom Spanish chroniclers, by a droll perversion of his appellation, called ‘Mosen Beltran Claquin,’ when he came to fight their battles.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐
│ English. │ Scotch. │ French. │ Provençal. │ Italian. │
│Bertram │Barthram │Bertrand │Bertran │Bertrando │
├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│ Spanish. │Portuguese. │ German. │ Lusatian. │ Hungarian. │
│Beltran │Bertrao │Bertram │Batram │Bertok │
│ │ │Berdrand │Batramusch │ │
└────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

The wolf was sure to accompany the raven; so Perahtolf, or Bertulf, was canonized as an abbot in Artois, and left the German Bertulf, and our own Bardolph, the flaming comrade of Falstaff.

Bertwine, or Bright friend, was the St. Bertin of France, and the Bertuccio of Italy, often found in the old Lombardic towns.

Brihtric was the English earl who so gallantly died in defending England from the Danes in the unhappy days of Ethelred the Unready, and another Brihtric was the unsuccessful suitor of Matilda of Flanders, on whom she wreaked an unworthy vengeance after the Conquest. All the Brihts in Domesday seem to be of Saxon birth, since they use the English instead of the Norman French commencement, which was already _Ber_, as in the instance of Bertrade de Montfort, Bright speech, the countess of Anjou, who deserted her husband for Philippe I. of France. The remaining forms are—

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Ger. Bertar; Fr. Berthier—Bright warrior │
│ { Brichteva—Bright gift │
│ { Bricfrid—Bright peace │
│ { Brichtmar—Bright fame │
│ Eng. { Brichsteg—Bright warrior │
│ { Britfleda—Bright increase │
│ { Brichstan—Bright stone │
│ { Bricsteg—Bright maid │
│ Ger. Bertrud—Bright maid │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

_Bert_ is one of the most indispensable conclusions among all the German range of names, and is far more common there than as a commencement.

Another word meaning bright, or glittering, is the Northern _jar_, _jor_, _jer_, the German _ir_. Iring, or Irinc, is a semi-mythological person. Old German tradition declared him to have been the counsellor of Irnvrit of Thuringia, and that when both had been taken by the Franks, he was deceived into slaying his sovereign, after which, in his rage, he killed the victorious Frank, laid him under his master’s body, and then cut his way through the enemy, and returned home.

He appears again in the _Nibelungen-noth_ as the Markgraf Irinch of Tenemarche, or Denmark, in company with Irnvrit of Düringen, i.e. Thuringia: he wounds Hagen, but is slain by him, and lamented over by Kriemhild. His name was sometimes subsequently used, and is, perhaps, what French histories call Harenc.

Jørund is a northern name with a similar prefix, and means a brilliant or glittering man; but it gets called Jøren, and mixed up with Jorgen, or George.[147]

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Footnote 147:

Grimm, _Deutcher Mythologie_, _Deutche Heldensage_; Munch; Alban
Butler; Sismondi; _Ayale-y-z-urita_.