Fehu Reference Page

FEHU

Etymology

Proto Indo-European *peku-: from PIE *pek̑-, pluck or fleece (Pokorny, 797) compare PIE *plek̑-, weave (Pokorny, 834). Looking at later interpretations, the convenient correlation of *peku- to cattle alone is a bit hasty. It is clear milk/meat cows and fleece/meat sheep took separate paths from essentially the same root. Lehmann indicates the PIE meaning is closer to sheep, or fleece-bearing animal. 

Proto Germanic *fehu: from PIE *peku- (Kroonen, 134), compare PGmc *fahaz, sheep (Kroonen, 122) from PIE *pek̑-. It appears to be in PGmc where the differentiation between sheep and cattle is introduced into Germanic languages. The same occurs in Sanskrit and Avestan, where pasu means cattle (Monier-Williams, 571 pasava).

Old English Rune Poem feoh: cattle. From PGmc *fehu through Gothic faihu, movable wealth, money (Feist and Lehmann, F7). Oddly enough, OE feohtan means to fight, but is related to plucking wool rather than the concept of cattle. Still, it contains the root word feoh which relates well with the rog(e) in the Old Icelandic and Old Norse Rune Poems, meaning strife. The Old English Rune Poem does not contain the same warning of wealth being strife in the family, but maybe it was implied by the name in the first place?

Old Norse Rune Poem fe: OIsl fé, cattle - esp. sheep (Cleasby and Guðbrandur 132).

Old Icelandic Rune Poem fé: cattle. The two hints at the end of the poem are aurum and Fylkir. Latin aurum: gold. Would much have preferred Latin pecunia here, as it would relate directly back to the Latinate branch of the same PIE root word, *peku-. OIsl fylkir: Count, which I translate rather loosely given the modern Norwegian use of the word fylke for county or administrative region.

References

1. Pokorny, Julius. Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Bern: Francke, 1959, 1989.
2. Kroonen, Guus. Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
3. Feist, Sigmund and Lehmann, Winfred P. A Gothic Etymological Dictionary. Leiden: Brill 1986.
4. Monier-Williams, M. A. A Sanskrit-English dictionary, etymologically and philologically arranged, with special reference to Greek, Latin, Gothic, German, Anglo-Saxon, and other cognate Indo-European languages. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1872.
5. Cleasby, Richard and Guðbrandur, V. A concise dictionary of old Icelandic. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910.