148 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE 



group habits. The Germans meet, Tacitus tells us, to 

 feast, talk over tribal matters, and arrange marriages. 

 Now all these diverse meanings become clear in the 

 light of the hag community, the mdlberg is the Mberg, 

 the mdlstat, 1 the histat. O.H.G. mahal, M.H.G. mdl, 

 .0.8. maal, O.N. mdl, A.S. mael, covering the notions 

 of gathering, talk, marriage become intelligible. The 

 hegemdl, gehegtes gericht, the judgment-place fenced 

 in, the mediseval custom of fencing or " hedging " a 

 gericht before holding it become clearer. It is a 

 symbolic reproduction of the old kin-dwelling, where 

 the maeg-gemot was held to settle the maeglag. We 

 see in the mahal only another form of the hirdt. It is 

 noteworthy that mat is a boundary as well as an 

 assembly in much the same manner as mark is a 

 boundary and a group. We may indeed ask what is 

 the primitive meaning to be attached to the root in 

 mahal, or mael. The related Aryan tongues, according 

 to Deecke, who does not go beyond the * talk ' con- 

 ception, offer no parallels to the Teutonic dialects, and 

 Grimm has no suggestion to make as to mahal, and 

 repudiates any relation to meal. Notwithstanding this, 

 I venture to think that German mahlen, to grind, and 

 mahlen,to promise, are at bottom the same. Thus we 

 may notice the way in which mahlmann is used of the 

 officer of the gericht, but also mahlmann and mahlleute 



confarreatio. In Esthonia the bridegroom breaks the spoons of his bride and of 

 himself, upon which the house-father unites the pair. In Norway the bride- 

 spoon, often beautifully carved, is a family treasure. To love and to be wanton 

 is termed loffeln in Germany, and a weak form of the same idea remains in the 

 phrase to spoon, denoting to flirt in English. In England also the bride-knives, 

 bride-cup, and bride-cake have probably all relation to the idea in confarreatio. 



1 Significantly in M.H.G. this word stands for site of a dwelling, e.g. wunn- 

 samy mdlstat. 



