hammers, Germanic mythology, Gri mm, mündig, etc.

Well, and don't forget Jakob Grimm and his _Deutsche Mythologie_, wherein he
tries to gather all Teutonic mythology under the rubric  _deutsch_.   Tom
Shippey has just published his book Grimm's Mythology of the Monstrous, a
volume of essays including one by yours truly on the werewolf, and we
critique this tendency of his.  Stallybrass's translation politely renders
it "Teutonic Mythology."  We'd all agree that Scandinavian is germanIC, but
not German.

Wes hal,
Sally

More below:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Benct Philip Jonsson" <bpj@...>

>> Danke.
>
> But please don't say "Danke"!  There is nothing especially
> German about Old Norse/Germanic mythology.  It is essentially
> recorded in Old Norse and even better recorded in Old English
> than in (Old/Middle High) German.  I'm not anti-German, but
> Wagner gives me the creepers; that he and the Nazis
> hijacked Old Norse/Germanic mythology to their murky purposes is
> only infinitly sad, as Tolkien eloquently said in a letter
> to his son. Ðanc.
Snipping unbelievably thorough and much appreciated etymological list to
jump to my "malleus":

>     lat. molō, -ere `mahlen' (= air. melid), molīna `Mühle', mola
> `Mühlstein'; umbr. kumaltu, kumultu, comultu `commolitō', kumates, comatir
> `commolitīs', maletu `molito' (idg. *melṓ); lat. mulier `Weib' (aus
> *muli̯ési, idg. *ml̥-i̯ésī `die zartere', Kompar. zu mollis [S. 718]);
> marcus `Hammer', Rückbildung zu marculus, martellus (*mal-tl-os), das a
> wie in lat. palma : gr. παλάμη; lat. malleus `Hammer, Schlägel' aus
> *mal-ni- `Zermalmung';
mulier, huh???  :\  Can you unwrap that one?

NEW QUESTION:

The German word mündig, meaning "mature, grown up, come of age, no longer a
minority."  I had a colleague who suggested to me that it had to do with the
mouth, and that it suggested that a child passes into adulthood when he/she
acquires an ability to speak in public.  Distrustful as ever, I immediately
leaped to my German etymology and found that it most probably comes from the
old word for "hand," mund, present in Old English as well.  I.e., that one
who is mündig is one who is capable of taking things into one's hands as an
adult, or better, providing protection by means of the sword (or the
hammer!), that which is weilded by the adult hand.

Comments?  Perhaps, in the changing perceptions by which a word develops,
etymologies are no longer pertinent.  Do Germans think of this word at all
in terms of the "mouth"?  Or not?  Is it even used that often?  I found a
lovely poem with this title on-line.  Can't immediately put my finger on it,
as it's buried somewhere in my hundreds of bookmarks.

Sally

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