What wood'n you know about wood?
By Chelsie Vandaveer
April 11, 2003
killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~
Suggested Reading: Click here.
Dyer's wood or woad (Isatis tinctoria Linnaeus) was the source of a blue dye since the Celts. Woad was known in Latin as isatis and guaisdium. Linnaeus retained the first for its botanical designation; the second is believed the source of its common name.
After the Celtic peoples were driven out of Europe by Roman legions, the Germanic peoples expanded. According to the 1889 Century Unabridged Dictionary, in the early eastern European language, Gothic, the plant was called waida, thought derived from the Latin guaisdium.
From the Gothic came many cognates (words derived from a common ancestral language); in Old French--waisde, waide, and gaide, Old Frisian--wed, Anglo-Saxon--wad and waad, Old High German--wet, weit, and wede, and Danish--weede or weed, to name just a few. The Old Frisian, weden (from wed) meant blue; several of the Germanic cognates carried the same association of the plant with blue or blue pigment. From the Anglo-Saxon came the Middle English words that referred to the dye plant--wod, wode, woad, and wood.
There was another wood in the earlier English language. In Gothic, wods meant mad. By Anglo-Saxon times, the word was wod meaning mad, raging, furious, and voice or song as from a prophet or bard, one "in a fine frenzy". In Middle English, wood referred to anger, rage, and madness.
The name of the Teutonic god, Odin in Norse and Woden in Anglo-Saxon, meant "the furious, the mighty warrior." Coincidentally, the old god for whom we named the middle day of the week (Woden's day) was often depicted in disguise, either wearing a blue hat or a blue robe.
Both of the first two woods have passed out of our language. Surprisingly, our modern English wood has nothing to do with the original words. It came from the Celtic/Irish names for trees, fid and fiodh.
The Teutonic lore is explained in Bulfinch's Mythology, Age of the Fable. To read the ancient tales, click on the link:
Click here to read the ancient tales
killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~
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