GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 153 



into Switzerland, Elsass, and even faintly to Koln. 

 It is a single inclosed space built of wood, and its 

 nature is well-indicated by a twelfth -century Kegens- 

 burg MS. which used gademer in the sense of zimmer- 

 mann or carpenter. Singularly enough, while no direct 

 evidence is forthcoming of the use of gat in the sense 

 of the " bairns' burgh," or for the female organs of sex, 

 gadem and fleischgadem are in the peasant's Fastnacht- 

 spiele very frequently used for the latter. Whether 

 we have here traces of an earlier sense of the word, or 

 only ' kennings,' it might be hard to determine. 



Whether we give to gat or gadem the significance 

 of magen or gemach, we find connected with these 

 words a great variety of terms for kin and kinship. 

 The first word to be noted is O.H.G. gatalinga, more 

 frequently written katilinga. This word, denoting off- 

 spring, appears to be related to gadem exactly as 

 gamahhida to gemach. Whether the katilinga are to 

 be considered as the belongings of the same gat in the 

 sense of lair, or of the same katil in the sense of womb, 

 it would perhaps be impossible to settle. The sexual 

 weight, however, of the root gat is very considerable, 

 and may be at once evidenced by such a word as 

 begatten and a curious Celtic gadal libidinosus. 1 In 

 M.L.G-. the word gaden takes a purely sexual meaning 

 and is glossed conjungi, eongregari ad generandum; 



1 Deecke connects with a Sanskrit root gad, denoting to hang upon, cling to, 

 a nasal form of which gives gand'as, a neighbour, and also relationship. . How 

 far this root has a sexual meaning I am unable to say. Skeat gives an Aryan 

 root ghad, from which he deduces %a, but then bigitan and beget, not begatten 

 and vergatten and gather. The Teutonic root gad is very close, however, to 

 ghad, and I am inclined to think that bigitan and bigatten, to beget and to pair, 

 are ultimately the same. 



