2. The Early English Deater The Lece as Physician ‘The name ‘leech’ is not connected to that of the bloodsucking worm which is its homonym! and healers were not called ‘leeches’ because of either using the parasitic leech? in bloodletting, or bleeding their clients’ purses. The word /ece} was the common Old English term for a healer of any kind, often translating Latin medics ‘doctor, physician’, It is found in a handful of English place- names such as Lesbury (Northumberland) bury ‘fort’ and Lexham (Norfolk) bam ‘settlement’. Where the /ece-name has an aquatic association, it is harder to be certain that the first element means ‘healer’ rather than ‘leech’, as for example Latchmere (Surrey) mere Take’, Lashbrook (Oxfordshire) drve ‘brook’, Latchford (Cheshire) ford ford’. Compounds of dee include fecedom ‘leechdom, remedy’, Jeceiren ‘lancet’ and lecefinger ‘This ‘healing finger’ is the one we now call the ring-finger. The name may derive from some unspecified classical tradition since the middle finger and ring finger are respectively medius and medicus in certain Latin sources. However, the practice of wearing the wedding ring on this particular finger is said to derive from the strong pulse to be felt there, which suggested to early folk a direct artery from this finger to the heast, whence the association between this digit and figurative ‘matters of the heart’, This link is probably quite old, since another Old English name for the third finger is goldfinger ‘gold finger’ which is explained by a reverse gloss ‘ecefinger medicus vel annularis’ ‘/eechfinger healing or singed’. However, a 15 century source suggests a different interpretation: " pave Brown, no date 2 The word &B:e does however gloss Latin suxguisnga ‘blood-sucker, referring to the worm, 3 Yhe OF word dace has cognates in Old Frisian 4iga, Old Saxon “abi, Old High German Jabhi, Old Swedish lakir and Gothie déei, all from a presumed proto-form in Germanic *lekjaz, This word is in turn derived from PIB “gies which also gives rise to the Old Irish term for a doctor, lzigh. In the Anuerican Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Watkins relates the presumed Germanic proto-form “lakjaz,‘enchantes, one who speaks magic words’ to the root *hg- ‘gather’ which also occurs in a number of familiar Latin- and Greek-based words, Figuratively, ‘gather’ in Latin could mean ‘read? as in Agend, hetorn, lle ts Greek reflex meant ‘say, speak’ so dial, lexicon. Other related words ate Latin dgmey ‘what is gathered, firewood whence ligueous, Greek iagos ‘word? whence Hf, analgue and possibly Latin dex ‘law’ with its derivatives égah gilt, yal ALThe Early English Healer EEA EEE EEE EEE REE RE AE The nexct finger hat leche man, for quen a leche dos obt With chat finger be tastes all thyng, howe that hit is wrobt . ‘The next finger is called ‘leech’ for when a leech makes anything With that finger he tastes all things, how it is created ...4 which seems to imply that the leech used that particular finger for testing the recipes he was working on. Yet if tradition said that the pulse could be felt strongly in this finger, then it would have been an obvious way for a healer to test fora heartbeat. In Old English, there must have been a close thematic link berween the words /ece and fac, although from an etymologically strict point of view this is doubtful. Briefly, words with stem vowel -@- are related to similar words with stem vowel - in a regular pattern: so, Jeran ‘teach’ reflects Jar ‘lore, learning, tradition’; dedau ‘lead reflects /ad ‘way, path’; dafan ‘leave’ reflects Jf ‘remnant, what is left behind, remainder’, /edan ‘hate, shun’ reflects Jai ‘loathsome, hostile, unwelcome’. Furthermore, there are two verbs for ‘treat, heal’ in OE, one /eenian based on lace and the other, /eenian, based on /ac. Therefore, the conclusion seems inescapable that to a speaker of the language Jace ‘healer’ would be strongly associated with the word Jac. So what does lac mean? The word is a very nebulous one. There are a number of distinct senses in which the noun is used, and then there are derivative verbs, which further complicate the picture, The principal meanings of Jac group into a few categories: (j) vigorous motion (i) competition (ii) sactifice (iv) booty (v) medicine. Sense () is found with the verb lacan which can mean ‘jump’, ‘move up and down’, ‘swing round” and expresses notions of dancing, leaping, the bucking of a ship, the flickering of a flame.7 From the meanings conveying ‘violent or sudden motion’ derives the further sense (i) ‘play, sport, competition’ and so figuratively ‘warfare’, so that St. Gudlac is described as wiga wnlat laces * a wastior not slow in warfare’. Perhaps from this meaning derived the two further senses of (ii) ‘something offered, a sacrifice, a gift and (iv) ‘something taken, plunder, booty’ — both meanings possibly being based on the notion of competition for a prize of trophy — as in /acdad ‘act of giving’ larsang ‘song of sacrifice’. In Beowndf(\. 43-4) the funeral ship of Scyld is piled with treasures, described as both la and peodgestron ‘tribal wealth’. Puzther, Jac can have the extended senses ‘play an instrument’ and ‘deceive, delude’ while the fifth sense of 4 Quoted in Bosworth & Toller, s.v. lecefinger 5 While Jace is derived from *he- as noted above, lacis derived fom Gcemanic *ikag, PLE *hig- ‘leap, tremble’. 6 Bosworth & Toller, sv. dae T The Gothic cognate /aiks is used to translate both a ‘dance’, and the more spontaneous ‘leap for joy’ The Norse form, fier, denotes many kinds of entertainment: play, ball-games, swimming, acrobatic tricks, board games and so on. It also had some sinister overtones through association with saiér (harmful, forbidden magic) and its rituals. See Gunnell, 1995, p.266. 8 ‘The relationship between the Old English verbs /aca and spilian, both meaning ‘to play’, is ill-defined. In Swedish, the cognate forms dea and spela refer respectively to the ad hoc inventive play of 42The Early English Healer MA AMAA LALA REESE EEE Jac ‘medicine’ is used in glosses, where it stands for Latin medicamenti ‘medicines, treatments’; this is possibly an abbreviation of Jacmunga. As a teduplicating verb (strong class VII) Jaca is evidently very ancient in the language to preserve this redundant feature? Iris possible that the sense ‘medicine, cure’ derives from meaning (ii) ‘gift, sacrifice’ where originally the healer would actually be making an offering to the deities in exchange for good health.!9 The ceremonial of offering sacrifices was probably accompanied by titual dancing or processional movements (Old English bigang). This would fit in neatly with various common Germanic votary practices which encouraged the making of offerings to the gods at particular times to ensure continued favour ot to drive off bad luck. The nature of the Jac, the sacrificial material, is conjectured to include food, slaughtered animals and war-captives, as well as captured boory.!! When an animal was sacrificed, it was dismembered and part offered to the gods, while the celebrants cooked and ate the rest, sharing the enjoyment of their livestock with the unseen powers. Some pagan graves seem to have included a joint or two of meat to accompany the dead man on his last journey. There is some parallel evidence from Scandinavia that rituals involving masked figures were performed as patt of the cycle of seasonal enactments. Some of the masks are of animal characters, with probable correspondence to figures and creatures in the Norse myths. One mysterious Icelandic character, Porolfr Leikgodi, has been the focus of much attention, A Nosse godi was a ‘priest-chieftain’, a man with secular and spiritual power; if is the Norse cognate of English dz. borolfr might than have been a leader in organised games (/uk as ‘play, sport’) or in a form of mock folk court (likgodf as ‘play-chief, pretend leader). Alternatively, if dik is a form of cult sacrificial observance, as Old English fac seems to have been, then Aikgodi might imply a priest who officiates in such events, a ‘leader in a cult dance’.!2 childsen and to participation in formal, structured games such as chess. The German cognate spielen is used, like our word ‘play’, for all these meanings. See Fox, 1995. ° The first preterite is Ao/rin some texts, later fs; while the reduplication is not very obvious in OE, the Gothic equivalent /ailak from daikan shows clearly that the first syllable of the word begins twice in this verbal form (lai — Jak). 10 The Old English name Osler, like Norse Askikr and Old High German Anshicus, means ‘one who sactifices to the god(s)’. See Green, 1998 p21 Classical authors, such as ‘Tacitus, remark on the Germanic custom of destroying a defeated foe, hanging the men, slaughtering the horses, breaking the weapons and armour, and piling the remains into heaps in observance of their religious rituals. Not all captives ended thus, though, since other Germanic tribes were noted slave-traders. The god to whom these offerings were made was ‘Mercury’, which corresponds to Woden in the English pantheon. ‘The earliest mention of the English by name is in a context dealing with their sacrificial rites in connection with their god(dess) Nerthus (Tacitus, Germania). There is ample archaeological evidence of votive deposits of wargeat from Danish peat bogs, as well as some grisly remains of humans — male and female — who had been hanged. Some at least of these ‘bog bodies’ probably represent sacrificial victims of one kind or another (see Glob, 1971) 12 Gunnell, 1995, p.90 u 43