70 Rafael Karsten. [N:o 1 



Moreover, just as in the development of religious concepts the 

 adjeotival form af words has probably arisen before the substan- 

 tival ^), the daiiiiöviog seems to express a still earlier and vaguer 

 conception of the Supernatural thaa its stem-word. /Jaiiiöviog, 

 then, would originally to the Greeks have had much the same 

 significance as, for instance, the mana among the New Zealanders 

 or the iraJcan among some ot the North American Indians, 

 words which are by these natives applied to everything thab 

 exceeds their capability of understanding, which seems to them 

 mysterious, supernatural. With regard to the deified objects 

 of nature this meaning of the word åai/növtog does not appear 

 so clearly as with regard to the Supernatural in man. In 

 Homer especially the word frequently signifies that the per- 

 son addressed is in some stränge or astonishing condition, being 

 used to express sometimes reproch sometimes pity. When 

 iu the second book of the Iliad Odysseus wanders about in 

 the camp, exciting his men to fight, he addresses every down- 

 hearted man he sees by the apellation åaifiövie, „strange, 

 unintelligible man" 2). daiiiövis, „fool, infatuated", it the title 

 Diomedes likewise bestows upon Agamemnon when he advises 

 the Achaians to give up the battle and return home ^). dai- 

 jLiov/oi,, „you madmen, fools", Antinous in the Odyssey calls 

 out to the suitors who speak so loudly about the plot they 

 prepare against the lite of Telemachus, that it is likely to be 

 known by his house*). Elsewhere the suitors are called daif-ioviob 

 and mad men who clearly reveal that they have eateu and 

 drunk too much, and who are in their action prompted by 

 some god ^). 



In Herodotus as we shall see låter on the same word 

 is used in reference to remarkable incidents, especially 

 calamities and misfortunes, for which a supernatural cause is 

 assumed. 



') Coinpare, for instance, the development div, Dyåtis, Zeiis, Jnpiter, 

 Tyr, Ziu, {deivo-s, deus), 'beaming, or 'spleudent', 'heavenly', 'heaven', 'heaven- 

 god". See Usener, Götternamen, p. 276—7. 



-) Horn. 11. II, 190, 200. 



»j Ibid. IX, 40. 



*) Hom. Od. IV, 774. 



ä) Ibid. XVIII, 406. — (]f. also 11. III, 399. IV, 30. VI, 486. XXIV, 

 194. Od. XIV, 443. XXIII, 166, 174. 



