Germanic goblins and the Indo-European fireplace
-
Peter Alexander Kerkhof
Abstract
In this article the etymology of the Modern German word Kobold ‘house spirit’ and its cognates is revised. It is argued that the Germanic root *kub- meaning ‘hut, small chamber’ which consitutes the first element of Modern German Kobold, is a loan from the Latin/Romance group of words deriving from Lat. cubīle, cubīculum. This Romance element may have replaced an earlier PGm. *gub- meaning ‘fire’, attested in Old Norse gufa ‘vapour, steam’, which goes back to the PIE root *ghu̯obh-. This theory is supported by French gobelin where the initial *g- is easily explained from Germanic *g-. The second element of the compound should be identified with the source of Finnish haltija ‘house spirit’ which derives from Gm. *haldija-. The compound was therefore Gm. *gub-haldija- and referred to the house spirit as the keeper of the fire, a concept well-known from Northern European folklore.
© 2015 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Vorwort der Herausgeber
- Inhalt
- Lycian nasalized preterites revisited
- The outcome of PIE *#Hi- and *#Hu- in Germanic
- Germanic goblins and the Indo-European fireplace
- Greek λοιμός, Middle Persian rēm, and the Avestan root rai̯-
- The Frøyhov inscription and early Germanic *ing-
- On the history and prehistory of the Old Irish passive ending -ar
- Zum Ursprung des Dativs Singular auf -u der altwestnordischen ō-Stämme
- Repetition analysis function (ReAF) I
- Enclitic -(m)a ‘but’, clause architecture and the prosody of focus in Hittite
- Beiträge zur Leidener Arbeitstagung 2013
- Der Flexionsyp idg. *sḗh2-ṷr̥ ‚saure Flüssigkeit‘, *nḗbh-s n. ‚Gewölk‘
- The Proto-Indo-European *-VTs# clusters and the formulation of Szemerényi’s Law
- On the lengthened grade in the nominative singular
- Word-final vowel shortenings in the Rigveda and the nominative singular of PIE *eh2- and *ih2-stems
- Beiträge zur Tagung The Sound of Indo-European 3, Opava 2014
- The development of *ōu in Baltic
- On the chronology and the phonetics of the change o > u in final closed syllables in Latin
- Wortindex
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Vorwort der Herausgeber
- Inhalt
- Lycian nasalized preterites revisited
- The outcome of PIE *#Hi- and *#Hu- in Germanic
- Germanic goblins and the Indo-European fireplace
- Greek λοιμός, Middle Persian rēm, and the Avestan root rai̯-
- The Frøyhov inscription and early Germanic *ing-
- On the history and prehistory of the Old Irish passive ending -ar
- Zum Ursprung des Dativs Singular auf -u der altwestnordischen ō-Stämme
- Repetition analysis function (ReAF) I
- Enclitic -(m)a ‘but’, clause architecture and the prosody of focus in Hittite
- Beiträge zur Leidener Arbeitstagung 2013
- Der Flexionsyp idg. *sḗh2-ṷr̥ ‚saure Flüssigkeit‘, *nḗbh-s n. ‚Gewölk‘
- The Proto-Indo-European *-VTs# clusters and the formulation of Szemerényi’s Law
- On the lengthened grade in the nominative singular
- Word-final vowel shortenings in the Rigveda and the nominative singular of PIE *eh2- and *ih2-stems
- Beiträge zur Tagung The Sound of Indo-European 3, Opava 2014
- The development of *ōu in Baltic
- On the chronology and the phonetics of the change o > u in final closed syllables in Latin
- Wortindex
