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ArchivesRe: History of Lorelei?
in reply to a message by serendipity2004
Actually, a friend and I did a long search for the meaning of this name and here's what we got:
Lorelei comes from Loreley, a rock in the Rhine where the German myth was to have taken place. Translating a German site on the rock and the naming of the rock told us that "lur(e)" means "lurk, ambush" and "lei/ley/leia" simply means "rock". So, as this site lists, Lorelei means "ambush rock".
That's the earliest definition I could find. I'm not sure when the myth came about, but I'm assuming it was after the rock had established the name.
Myself... I would still use it. The name Dolores, for example, means "pains" in Spanish (from the latin "dolor" (pain)), but it was a very popular name in the 1930's. It seems that only certain names retain the tarnish of a bad meaning.
And, like you pointed out, most people don't know their mythology anyway. More people will probable know the song Lorelei by Styx, than will know the Germanic myth.
Lorelei comes from Loreley, a rock in the Rhine where the German myth was to have taken place. Translating a German site on the rock and the naming of the rock told us that "lur(e)" means "lurk, ambush" and "lei/ley/leia" simply means "rock". So, as this site lists, Lorelei means "ambush rock".
That's the earliest definition I could find. I'm not sure when the myth came about, but I'm assuming it was after the rock had established the name.
Myself... I would still use it. The name Dolores, for example, means "pains" in Spanish (from the latin "dolor" (pain)), but it was a very popular name in the 1930's. It seems that only certain names retain the tarnish of a bad meaning.
And, like you pointed out, most people don't know their mythology anyway. More people will probable know the song Lorelei by Styx, than will know the Germanic myth.
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Replies
I would tend to disagree on the relationship of the rock's name to the myth - it seems logical to me that the rock was named after the myth, rather than the other way around.
♦ Chrisell ♦
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. - J.R.R. Tolkien.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. - J.R.R. Tolkien.
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The rock was known, before Heinrich Heine, for the "echo" the wind made as it passed the rock - it was where he took his inspiration from. So it makes sense that he used the name of the rock for the woman in his story, especially considering the time he lived in - 1797-1856. Certainly the rock would have been named before then?
On a side note, it is also possible that the name means "wind rock", as lorren/lurren refers to the sound wind makes. This doesn't seem as likely, though.
On a side note, it is also possible that the name means "wind rock", as lorren/lurren refers to the sound wind makes. This doesn't seem as likely, though.
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Here is some info on the Loreley / Lorelei:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loreley
Obviously it wasn't Heine, but rather Clemens Brentano who made a woman out of the rock. The legend of the Loreley is much older though.
For the "lore" part I also found the meaning "elf", but I cannot confirm this. (LORELEY in Der Große Brockhaus, 1935, says: "from Middle High German lur = elf". I don't have a dictionary of MHG and it's not in Grimm's Deutsches Wörterbuch, so I don't really know
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loreley
Obviously it wasn't Heine, but rather Clemens Brentano who made a woman out of the rock. The legend of the Loreley is much older though.
For the "lore" part I also found the meaning "elf", but I cannot confirm this. (LORELEY in Der Große Brockhaus, 1935, says: "from Middle High German lur = elf". I don't have a dictionary of MHG and it's not in Grimm's Deutsches Wörterbuch, so I don't really know
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Ok, that makes more sense - I was under the impression that the Lorelei legend predated Heine, but if it doesn't then certainly the rock might have been named earlier. This isn't my field of expertise, after all :-D
♦ Chrisell ♦
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. - J.R.R. Tolkien.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. - J.R.R. Tolkien.
1
The tale of the Lorelei does predate Heine by at least a bit, since the first sure reference is in the work of the early 19th-century German poet Clemens Brentano. Experts seem to disagree on whether Brentano completely invented his story or whether he based it on a medieval tale.
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Thanks for clearing that up, Cleveland. Heine is the one I'm most familiar with, and the one who showed up most in my research, so I overlooked Clemens Brentano. :)
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