the Winils are far away on the war-road, and there is no time to send
to them. So Freia bids her take the Winil women, and dress them as
warriors, and plait their tresses over their lips for beards, and cry
to Woden; and Woden admires their long beards, and thinks them such
valiant 'war-beasts,' that he grants them the victory.

Then Freia tells him how he has been taken in, and the old god laughs
till the clouds rattle again, and the Winils are called Langbardr
ever after.

But then comes in the antiquary, and says that the etymology is
worthless, and that Langbardr means long axes--(bard=an axe)--a word
which we keep in halbert, a hall-axe, or guard's pole-axe; and
perhaps the antiquary is right.

But again comes in a very learned man, Dr. Latham {p162}, and more
than hints that the name is derived from the Lange Borde, the long
meadows by the side of the Elbe: and so a good story crumbles to
pieces, and


'All charms do fly
Beneath the touch of cold philosophy.'


Then follows another story, possibly from another saga. How by
reason of a great famine they had to leave Scoringia, the shore-land,
and go into Mauringia, a word which Mr. Latham connects with the
Merovingi, or Meerwing conquerors of Gaul. Others say that it means
the moorland, others something else. All that they will ever find