† Gerolf Gledgesa The name is the sort of mix that we can now identify as fairly common: Gerolf is clearly Germanic (implying a combination of the often-used roots “wolf” and “spear”), while names or terms close to Gledgesa are found only in Anglo-Saxon, suggesting the possibility of this character’s having come from Saxon Britain. The surname connotes “fiery terror,” and the justification for it becomes clear, as his personal history is recounted; but its ultimate irony will only grow apparent later. —C.C.
‡ Ernakh Significantly, Gibbon makes only a few references to the Huns — doubtless among the principal peoples identified by the rulers and soldiers of Broken as “eastern marauders”—in his six-volume Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; and, in this particular case, he evidently did not know (or did not think it worth noting) that Ernakh was originally the name of the third son of that greatest of all Huns, Attila. Whether the nurse/housemaid Nuen had this fact in mind when she named her own offspring, or whether Ernakh was merely a traditional and perhaps common Hunnish name, we do not know. —C.C.
† Donner Niksar Gibbon writes, “We will discover soon enough just what this noble yet unfortunate young son of Broken’s achievements were; what should concern us, for the moment, is the form that the spelling of his Christian name takes. One finds, in the few bits of Germanic documentation that survive in their various dialects as well as in the many Norse sagas, nearly every spelling possible of every aspect of the name and life of Thor, son of Odin, god of thunder, and paragon of youthful Germanic-Norse virtues, who spent nearly all his time aiding other gods, demi-gods, and humans with his great strength, command of thunder, and magic hammer, Mjolnir. The important element, however, for our purposes, is that his name in Old High German appears to have been spelt Donar, which would have been pronounced ‘Donner’—the same form we find here in Donner Niksar. The variations of the names are all of little importance, of course, as they are mere variations on the dialectal terms for ‘thunder,’ although it is interesting to note that the modern German word for that phenomenon, donner, has hewed so closely to at least one ancient version: Broken’s. Thus, there is the strong suggestion not only that the myths of the supposedly ‘Norse’ gods were likely those of the entire Northern European region, but that they may well have originated with those Germanic tribes who inhabited the area we today consider Germany, calling at least some of the aspects of the Norse domination of civilization in that region into question.” Without realizing it, of course, Gibbon is anticipating the notion advanced most forcefully in our own time by Michael Kulikowski, and discussed at length earlier in these notes: that the myths of the Gothic migrations and the Norse invasion and cultural domination of northern Germany may have been largely just that: myths. —C.C.
† “the Krebkellen” Gibbon writes, “The practice itself is explained in the text; we pause only to reassert the fact that Oxmontrot, its creator, considered not even the most fundamental Roman tactics to be above improvement. The practice of the Krebkellen, which we may confidently translate as ‘crab colony,’ certainly takes its inspiration from the Roman testudo, or ‘tortoise,’ the tactic which had long proved successful by enabling Roman soldiers to form a sort of shell out of the interlocked protection of their great convex shields, or scuta, to their fore, back, sides, as well as over their heads; but again, this tactic, while ingenious, could also be clumsy, designed as it was to mirror the essentially steady, deliberate movement permitted by the formation of the quincunx—that is, a primarily frontward-and-rearward motion — to say nothing of the continued relegation of the role of cavalry as essentially support troops for those infantry formations. The contrast with Broken’s Krebkellen, on the other hand, can indeed be likened to the difference between a tortoise and a crab — or, to complete the terminological explanation, a ‘colony of crabs,’ in which such creatures are known to live and defend themselves. While both species use their external shells for protection, as both infantries used their shields for interlocking protection, the Broken troops sacrificed some strength of defense for speed, maneuverability, and, hence, offensive potential, the last especially embodied in the cavalry units, which acted as the faster-moving ‘legs and claws.’”
‡ “‘a … worthy of our claws’” Gibbon lets this part of the discussion go without remark, perhaps because it’s unclear whether Akillus is talking about the “claws” of the Krebkellen, or is referring to the pride that every man in the Talons took in the raptor’s claws that adorned his cloak. It makes very little difference to the ensuing action. —C.C.
†† the “aptly named fellow,” Taankret An obvious source for what would become the famous chivalric name of Tancred, the word itself is combined of elements implying “thinking” or “thought” and “counsel”—and is, indeed, suited to its man, as so many names in the Manuscript seem to be. —C.C.
† Fleckmester Gibbon writes, “Here is a name that, given all the guidelines we have established for the Broken dialect, is not difficult at all to understand: ‘fleck’ is an ancestor of the modern German pfeilmacher, counterpart of our own ‘fletcher,’ or arrow-maker, while mester is plainly the some Old German variation of meister, or ‘master.’”
‡ “longbow” As is perhaps apparent, this use of the word “longbow” simply implies a greater length than the bows used by the Bane — it is not, apparently, an anticipation of the later English invention that would famously carry the day at battles such as Agincourt. —C.C.
† Nerthus Gibbon ignores the name, perhaps because scholarship in Germanic and Norse mythology had not yet reached the point that the Germanic goddess of fertility could be identified precisely; this would be a very strange omission, however, for it is one of the goddesses that Tacitus actually names, using this same spelling, in his Germania (pub. ca. A.D. 98), placing her firmly in the original pantheon of ancient Germanic, rather than Norse, deities, and supporting the theory that a very great deal of what we still think of as “Norse” culture and mythology was actually taken from Germanic traditions. Indeed, one senses that Gibbon is reluctant to give so much credit to the Germanic tribes (perhaps because of their repeated thrashings of the indomitable Roman legions), but, being even more hesitant to go up against a scholar of Tacitus’s standing, simply passes the name over, as he does so many uncomfortable subjects.