160 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE 



exactly parallel to A.S. cynraeden leading to modern 

 kindred, and A.S. hiwraeden with its modern German 

 equivalent the heirath. Fdra is Langobard for family, 

 relationship ; and we thus see the complete round 

 of the hiwunga and gamahhida ideas again well illus- 

 trated. See also Appendix IV. on genossenschaft. 



(9) The next word for kinship to be considered is 

 sib. Gothic sibja, O.H.G. sippia, A.S. sib, O.N. 

 si/jar, kinship. In O.N. sift is friend and sift is kin. 

 A friend can only be one of the kin ; and if a person is 

 to be made a friend, he must be made one of the blood 

 or kin by commingling or drinking blood with all or 

 the chief members of the kin. 1 All that are related by 

 birth, cognatio, are sib. Thus cognatos is glossed by sibbo 

 and gisibbe. Sif is the name of Thor's wife, who is a 

 goddess of fertility, of agriculture, and of childbirth a 

 Scandinavian Ceres. She appears in Anglo-Saxon as Siba 

 or Sieve, and was probably primitively rather a mother- 

 goddess than a wife-goddess. In the Edda a ' kenning ' 

 for the Earth itself is svaeru Sifjar, which appears to 

 identify Sif with Jord, Thor's mother, and not his 

 wife. She has at any rate the characteristics of .a 

 goddess of fertility. The Gothic sifan is to rejoice, 

 and appears to be related to sip asfreuen tofri. Just 

 as notions of comfort and friendly action are associated 

 with the mdg, the kin, and the hag, so we find sip 

 glossed pax, a,ffinitas,foedus. 2 Thus pax vobiscum is 



1 The pobratimstvo or bratstvo, the brotherhood of the Southern Slavs, is one 

 of the most interesting cases. There appears even some evidence that the 

 bratstvo was created by a commingling of blood. 



2 In the tenth to eleventh century O.H.G-. translation of Martinus Capella 

 die sippa Jo vis stands for consortia Jovis, the company of Jupiter. 



