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Many years ago my father received one of those plaques that tells you about the etymology of your last name. You can buy them in gift shops and whatnot. Supposedly, our family's name is derived from a mythological heroic figure known as Wittich. This is all fine and dandy, but the problem is that I'm having trouble much information about this Wittich character, both in mythology and what the historical basis for this guy might be. The weird wall plaque thing doesn't mention much, and one of the more substantial things I've been able to easily find online offers this description of Wittich's exploits:Mythology Dictionary posted:Son of Wieland. Husband of Bolfriana. It is said that his father made him a suit of armour and gave him the magic sword, Miming, before he set off to challenge Dietrich. En route to the encounter, he met Hildebrand who stole Miming to save his friend Dietrich from its blows and, when Wittich fought Dietrich with the sword that Hildebrand had substituted, it broke in his hand. Hildebrand then returned Miming to its rightful owner and with it Wittich defeated Dietrich but became one of his devoted followers. In the battle with Osantrix, when Dietrich and his warriors helped Etzel, Wittich was imprisoned by Hertnit, brother of Osantrix. He was rescued by Wildeber who dressed in the skin of a bear and killed Hertnit. After helping Dietrich in the defeat of the rebellious Rimstein, he was given the hand of Bolfriana. He later turned traitor and killed Diether, brother of Dietrich who would have killed Wittich had he not plunged into the sea where his grandmother, the sea-witch Watchilt, took him to safety. On occassion, known as Wittich, Heime, Heime, Heimir, Witege, Witege, Wittig, Wittig, Vigda, Vigda, Anglo-Saxon Widia or Anglo-Saxon Widia. Wow what a crazy sounding story. It even has a magic sword! The thing is, this page has no sources, and I am unsure of its reliability as this kind of topic is pretty far from my areas of relative expertise. I don't even know if there was like any epic poetry or anything about this character. I don't even know what was so magical about the drat sword! I realize this might be an oddly specific request, but are there any goons here knowledgeable about German mythology that can tell me more about this Wittich guy, both the mythology and any historical basis for him? What about some books on the topic?
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Jan 28, 2016 10:59
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 17:10 |
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This is the English wiki page about him. Basically, he is a character in the Germanic Legend of Dietrich von Bern, who in turn is based on the historical person Theoderic the Great, ruler of the Ostrogoths and later king of Italy. Theoderic was called by the Byzantine Emperor Zeno to aid against Odoacer, a Germanic warlord who had basically ended the Western Roman Empire two decades earlier by force and tried to expand into the emperor's western lands. Theoderic defeated him (legend says he slew Odoacer with his own hands). After that, news and stories about the Germanic king Theoderic who conquered Italy and created a large realm that brought a long period of peace into an otherwise troubled time quickly spiralled out of control. You have to remember that only a tiny minority at the time was able to read or write, so stories existed almost entirely in oral form, with all the variability and mutability that comes with that. When people started to write down the old stories during the High Middle Ages (basically 11th-14th century, sometimes a bit later, only rarely earlier), there was already a great variety of different versions of the saga of Theoderic the Great (whose name had been changed to "Dietrich von Bern" or variations thereof. "Bern" in this context doesn't mean today's capital of Switzerland, but is the old German name for the Italian city of Verona). You've got various stories about Dietrich in Northern Germany, southern Germany, England, Scandinavia, Iceland... all of them not only penned in different languages five to eight centuries after the historical Theoderic's life, but because of that the not only are the names of the various characters different (the English "Wudga" lemma comes from the Old English variation of the name), sometimes there are remarkable differences in the very story as well. Wittich/Wudga was the son of the legendary smith Wayland (German Wieland) who also created the sword Mimung for him. The sword has a cool backstory, by the way: translated from the German Wikipedia posted:The sword that Wayland created in the Thidrekssaga [a saga about Thidrek (=Dietrich) written down in 13th century Norway after tales brought there by Low German merchants] was named after his teacher Mimir. Three times he forged the blade anew, and after each time he plunged it into a stream's water and let a bundle of wool be driven against it, to demonstrate the sword's sharpness to the king. After the first and second forging he rasped down the sword, mixed the splinters with wheat flour and gave it to his geese after letting them go hungry for three days. He then took the feces of the geese, extracted the iron from it and forged a smaller, but sharper sword from that: the iron had absorbed the nitrogen from the feces and got hardened by that (this is called nitriding). After the third time the sword had gotten so sharp that it cut a bundle of wool three feet thick in the stream. King Nidung wanted to have the weapon, of course, but Wayland pretended that he wanted to create a better sheath for it, took the sword into his smithy and hid it below his forge. He forged another sword for the king which looked exactly like Mimung, but was less sharp. He gave Mimung later to his son Wittich, when he wanted to go to the court of king Dietrich. After that, it's basically like the plaque tells it: Wittich (or however you want to call him) wants to be an awesome knight (in some stories he's only twelve years old when he rides out and initially gets mistaken for a dwarf because of that), challenged Dietrich for a fight but loses because Hildebrand, who was friends with both, had replaced his sword. Wittich becomes a devoted follower of Dietrich and even plays an important role in Odoacer's death, because he gave Mimung to Dietrich who manages to kill him with it. In some other variations of the story (mostly southern German ones), Wittich later turns against Dietrich - not out of his own will, but because Dietrich's brother Dieter attacked him that fiercely that Wittich had no choice but to kill him in self-defence. When Dietrich moved against him, Wittich was so terrified that he threw himself into the sea (him being rescued by mermaids only happens in some accounts of the story). The earliest known person to carry that name was Vitiges (German: Witichis), a later successor to the Ostrogoth throne who had fought under Theoderic in various wars and battles. It's not unlikely that he turned into the Wittich of legend later on. Okay, on to the name itself. It probably derives from the Old Germanic first name *Widugauja which meant "person living in an area covered by forests" (Gothic *widu-, Old Saxon widu, Old High German witu, English wood and [Gothic *gauja, Old Saxon *gōwo, Old High German go(u)wo "Person living in a Gau" (although the etymology for that given there is not necessarily the "correct" one, as new possible etymologies have been proposed recently). By the 4th century the original meaning of that was forgotten and it turned into "just" a name. During the following centuries, the *-gauja part was eventually shortened to -go, so *Widugauja(which we find attested as Vidigoia, Witagawo and so on) became Witigo. The popularity of the Dietrich sagas led to the name Witigo becoming very popular as well, but initially as a first name only. When during the 12th century the need arose to assign more specific names to people because of a steadily growing population, many took the names of their fathers as a second name (so-called "patronym"). These eventually became fixed surnames, and this is how you ended up with Wittich - the change from Witigo to that is because of final -g turning into -ch in middle and northern German dialects (there may also have been some confluence with Low German wittich, "witty" (witzig in Modern High German). Wittig or Wittich as a surname is found most often in Middle Germany, with a strong cluster in southern Hesse and throughout Saxony as well as the Ruhr region. There used to be many in Silesia and Eastern Prussia as well who had to flee after the war which might account for the strong distribution throughout Germany and especially its northern half. There are only very few to be found in Switzerland and Austria. The medieval popularity of Witigo as a name can also be seen in the many towns which were founded by one, e.g. Wittgendorf (2x), Wittgensdorf (2x) and Wittichenau in Saxony, Wittigau in Austria, Vitkov (German Wittingreith) in the Czech Republic, Wittigerode in Thuringia, Wittigen and Ober-/Unterwittighausen in Baden-Württemberg. If you can read German or know someone who can, this guy has collected an absolute shitload of information about the name, even though he seems kinda crazy. e: He's also written this huge pdf about the history and genealogy of his particular branch of the Wittichs. System Metternich fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Jan 29, 2016 |
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Jan 29, 2016 13:51
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Holy crap, somebody here actually knew! Thank you so much! This is really an excellent, informative write up.quote:This is the English wiki page about him. quote:The sword has a cool backstory, by the way: quote:Wittig You've done me a great favor. quote:If you can read German or know someone who can 
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Jan 29, 2016 23:40
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Small addendum: As far as the origin of the name is concerned, it probably was still a first name in the 12th century, when family names were established and then later turned into a patronym (a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather, or an even-earlier male ancestor). The name consists of "Wid" = old Germanic for forest (Wald) and "ich" (me), and could be construed as "I am coming from / living in the woods".
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Feb 2, 2016 12:07
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The "ich" in Wittich has nothing to do with modern German "ich", thoughSystem Metternich posted:It probably derives from the Old Germanic first name *Widugauja which meant "person living in an area covered by forests" (Gothic *widu-, Old Saxon widu, Old High German witu, English wood and [Gothic *gauja, Old Saxon *gōwo, Old High German go(u)wo "Person living in a Gau" (although the etymology for that given there is not necessarily the "correct" one, as new possible etymologies have been proposed recently). By the 4th century the original meaning of that was forgotten and it turned into "just" a name. During the following centuries, the *-gauja part was eventually shortened to -go, so *Widugauja(which we find attested as Vidigoia, Witagawo and so on) became Witigo.
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Feb 2, 2016 13:06
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This thread would have been really interesting if your last name was Eulenspiegel
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Feb 3, 2016 23:44
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 17:10 |
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Can someone tell me more about the goose poo poo nitriding? I looked up nitriding on Wikipedia and its history doesn't start till 1920. I also googled goose poop nitriding but that took me to some weird non helpful pages. Was this a real process known to medieval smiths? How prevalent was it?
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Feb 10, 2016 01:51
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