I absolutely love this, especially all of the background on Basque history and mythology.
I've been playing around with the etymology of "Slytherin." Like you, I've always assumed that the name probably has something to do with "slither," which, as you say, comes from the O.E. "slidrian."
But today I started wondering whether "Slytherin" might possibly come from Old Norse rather than Old English. After some digging, I've found two O.N. words which, combined, could possibly be the origin of the name.
1. According to Wiktionary, the modern English word "sleight," as in "sleight of hand," is a noun meaning "cunning, craft, artful practice." It comes from the O.N. "slœgð." Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce that, but the modern Icelandic version of the word, "slægð," sounds something like "slythe." The "g" is almost silent. Supoosedly, the "œ" in O.N. sounds a bit like the "eu" in "peu" in French
2. The O.N. word "hreinn" means "clean" or "pure." The "ei" sounds like the "ei" in the Spanish "seis."
Combine the two words, and you get "slœgð + hreinn," pronounced "sleuthe-hreinn." It's not too hard to get from there to "slytherin."
So maybe "Slytherin" means something like "pure cunning" or "pure craft." I especially like this idea because of how it ties in with some previous thoughts (http://danajsparks.livejournal.com/5139.html) about what the sorting hat meant by pure and cunning.
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I've been playing around with the etymology of "Slytherin." Like you, I've always assumed that the name probably has something to do with "slither," which, as you say, comes from the O.E. "slidrian."
But today I started wondering whether "Slytherin" might possibly come from Old Norse rather than Old English. After some digging, I've found two O.N. words which, combined, could possibly be the origin of the name.
1. According to Wiktionary, the modern English word "sleight," as in "sleight of hand," is a noun meaning "cunning, craft, artful practice." It comes from the O.N. "slœgð." Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce that, but the modern Icelandic version of the word, "slægð," sounds something like "slythe." The "g" is almost silent. Supoosedly, the "œ" in O.N. sounds a bit like the "eu" in "peu" in French
2. The O.N. word "hreinn" means "clean" or "pure." The "ei" sounds like the "ei" in the Spanish "seis."
Combine the two words, and you get "slœgð + hreinn," pronounced "sleuthe-hreinn." It's not too hard to get from there to "slytherin."
So maybe "Slytherin" means something like "pure cunning" or "pure craft." I especially like this idea because of how it ties in with some previous thoughts (http://danajsparks.livejournal.com/5139.html) about what the sorting hat meant by pure and cunning.