Cultivated plants and domestic animals in their migration from Asia to Europe / by Victor Hehn ; edited by James Steven Stallybrass.
- Victor Hehn
- Date:
- 1891
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Cultivated plants and domestic animals in their migration from Asia to Europe / by Victor Hehn ; edited by James Steven Stallybrass. Source: Wellcome Collection.
467/530 page 467
![kardelis, a strong rope for binding wooden rafts and wittinnen (a kind of river-boats), generally twisted of bast or twigs ; the cable in larger ships ; the third-pole of a waggon, a young birch-tree provided with a twisted loop, or also a rope, to which the third horse is fastened.” What is still the custom in undeveloped Lithuania was practised by the Germans in ancient times. Grimm, RA., 683 : “Simple antiquity instead of hempen ropes, twisted branches of fresh, tough wood,” O. H. Germ., wit, Mid. H. Germ., wide, lancwit, widen, to bind, our wiede, langwiede, also in the other Teutonic tongues [Samson’s “seven green withs”] as well as in the Celtic and Slavic (the various forms in Diefenbach, G. W. 1, 146). The with served to bind together roofs or rafts, waggons and yokes, for the leashing of animals, for scourging and for hanging criminals, etc. In every respect the Latin vitis corresponds with this description. That word does not mean a plant climbing up a tree or trunk, but, like vitex, vimen, and the Greek irea, a flexible plant that served men for winding and plaiting. Virgil says lejitae vites, like lenta salix. As the slave and malefactor are beaten with the plaited with, and the Mid. H. Germ, verb widen actually means to flog; so among the Romans the vitis in the hand of the centurion was the tool for punishing disobedient soldiers, for example, Livy, Epit., 57 : “ Quem militem extra ordinem depreliendit, si Ro7>ia?ius esset, viiibus, si extraneus, fustibus ceciditd A climbing plant resembling the vine, namely, the Bryony, Latin vitis alba, the name of which probably passed over to the vine, is expressly named together with the willow by Ovid (Met., 13, 800 : “ Lentior et salicis virgis et vitibus albis ”), and served like the broom and rush for plaiting baskets (Serv. ad Virg. G. 1, 165 : “ Quoniam de genistis vel junco vel alba vite solent fieri”). Compare the Old Norse sjieis, branch, and Mid. H. Germ. sneise, string. Probably in the same way the O. H. Germ, repa, vine, is related to the Gothic skauda-raip, shoe-string, and O. H. Germ. reifi rope ; signifying therefore a plant used for plaiting and ropes, a shrub with flexible twigs, in which the partridge nestles (reb-hnhn, vine-hen); and afterwards, when the grape-vine became known, was applied to that. In French the with was and is called hard, hart, the osier that serves for binding harcelle, which, as compared with the Lith. kardelus, show the German consonant-change, and are therefore derived from German. It was a stride forwards when the bast of trees, and a still longer stride when the fibres of the nettle were worked into ropes, bridles, girdles, stuffs, clothes, shields, etc. The Massagetas clothe themselves](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24874309_0467.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
