Gothic leiþu, “strong drink; fruit wine?” and its Cognates in the Germanic Languages

Abstract

Gothic leiþu, “strong drink” and its cognates are attested broadly throughout the historical stages of the Germanic languages, but it no longer survives in the modern languages.1 In its respective textual sources, leiþu most often appears in reference to alcoholic drinks, as in the following excerpt from Wulfila's Gothic Bible: “wairþiþ auk mikils in andwairþja fraujins jah wein jah leiþu ni drigkid”2 (For he will become great in the sight of the Lord, and he will not drink wine and leiþu). Since a large proportion of fundamental work in Germanic philology has been conducted by German-speaking scholars, especially during the nineteenth century, modern students of Germanic philology and historical Germanic linguistics often learn the older Germanic languages (especially Old High German, Old Saxon, and Gothic) using later editions of grammars and readers originally published by nineteenth-century philologists. A preponderance of primers and reference materials created by German-speaking philologists translate leiþu in its many contexts and across numerous older Germanic languages as Obstwein, “fruit wine”; however, this interpretation usually results in awkward and unidiomatic translations, as in the example above: “for he will become great in the sight of the Lord, and he will not drink wine and fruit wine.” In this study, I shall show that leiþu did not refer primarily to fruit wine, but rather encompasses a broad meaning throughout time and space and within the individual Germanic languages; this broad meaning is perhaps best conveyed with the English phrase “strong drink” or German starkes Getränk, “strong drink.”The study is divided into five sections: In Section I, I discuss the reflexes of leiþu in the older Germanic languages and their apparent suggested meaning. In Section II, I review the etymological literature on leiþu in order to determine whether its etymon and cognates in Indo-European can shed further light on its meaning. In Section III, I examine the meaning of and scholarship surrounding the Greco-Latin word σίκɛρα/sicera, of which leiþu is a gloss in Gothic, Old Saxon, and Old High German. In Section IV, I discuss the reflexes of leiþu and their meanings in later stages of the Germanic languages. Section V concludes my argument.The word leiþu is attested in all of the older Germanic languages for which a substantial text corpus exists.3 It has very frequently been glossed as Obstwein, “fruit wine” in German-language reference materials and consequently understood as such (see Table 1 below). The compendious encyclopedia of ancient Germanic culture Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (as of 2010 Germanische Altertumskunde Online) states the following under the entry for Obstwein: “[a]ls älteste Bezeichnung für . . . Obstweine begegnet in verschiedenen germ. Sprachen got. leiþu, ags. as. anord. líð, ahd. líd, mhd. lít, das allerdings nie näher bestimmt ist” (as the oldest term for fruit wines in different Germanic languages one encounters Gothic leiþu, Old English Old Saxon Old Norse líð, Old High German líd, Middle High German lít, which, however, is never defined more closely).4 Since leiþu is never described in detail in the older Germanic languages, it is the aim of the present study to examine this word and its cognates in their respective contexts of attestation in order to determine whether the description of leiþu as “fruit wine” is compelling. The following table contains forms and attestations for leiþu in the older Germanic languages as well as glosses in primers, grammars, and etymological dictionaries. Note that the attestations given are not exhaustive, except for the lone attestation in Gothic.In Gothic, leiþu occurs only once, in the angel Gabriel's announcement of John the Baptist's conception (Lk 1:15). Since it is firmly established that Wulfila translated his Gothic Bible from a Koine Greek source, we know that leiþu translates the Koine Greek word σίκɛρα, “fermented liquor, strong drink,” whence Latin sicera (same meaning).5 The eighteenth edition of Braune's Gotische Grammatik, revised by Ebbinghaus, glosses leiþu as “Obstwein” (1973, s.v. “leiþu”), “fruit wine.” Likewise, the second edition of Feist's Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Gotischen Sprache glosses leiþu as “σίκɛρα Obstwein” (1923, s.v. “leiþu”), “σίκɛρα, fruit wine.” Lehmann's Gothic Etymological Dictionary, written in English and based on Feist's Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Gotischen Sprache, glosses leiþu as “σίκɛρα, strong drink” (1986, s.v. “leiþu”), representing a significant break from the “fruit wine” of German-language sources.Lîð occurs frequently in the OS Hêliand: first in the angel Gabriel's announcement of John the Baptist's conception, apparently adapted from Luke 1:15, where it appears paratactically with uuîn, “wine”; numerous times paratactically with uuîn in the wedding at Cana, where Jesus turns water to wine; and finally during Christ's crucifixion, where it describes the concoction of vinegar and gall given to Jesus to drink. Since a Latin version of Tatian's Gospel harmony, the Diatessaron, served as the source text from which Hêliand was composed, it seems that lîð glosses Latin sicera, “a kind of spirituous, intoxicating drink.”6 The tenth edition of Behagel's Heliand und Genesis, revised by Taeger, glosses lîð as “Obstwein, Getränk” (1996, s.v. “lîð”), “fruit wine, drink.”In Old High German, līd is attested in a variety of sources: once in Otfrid's Evangelienbuch (see footnote 9), again as a translation of Latin sicera from Luke 1:15; once in Ludwigslied, where it is described as a bitter drink figuratively poured out for Ludwig's defeated enemies; and once in a gloss written by Notker Labeo in a Latin text of Boethius’ De consolatione philosophiae, where ubel līd glosses mala pocula, “evil drinks” that the witch Circe gave to Ulysses’ sailors. The seventeenth edition of Braune's Althochdeutsches Lesebuch, revised by Ebbinghaus, glosses līd as “Obstwein, sicera,” (1994, s.v. “līd”) “fruit wine, sicera.” The seventh edition of Rudolf Schützeichel's Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch gives “(Obst-)Wein, Trank, Getränk” (2012, s.v. “līd”) “(fruit) wine, potion, drink,” offering a few more general definitions for the word (wine, potion, drink) alongside the “Obstwein” commonly cited in German sources.In Old English, līþ appears in a rather wide variety of sources: twice in the Alfredian Pastoral Care, where context makes apparent that it refers to an intoxicating drink; once in the medical text Leechdoms alongside mete, “food”, suggesting the general meaning “drink” as in “food and drink”; in the Alfredian Consolation of Philosophy, where “various drinks of líþ” serve as one of many sources of kingly corruption; and once in Beowulf, where the Geatish queen Hygd bears a cup of līð to the heroes feasting in Hygelac's hall upon Beowulf's triumphant return from Denmark. The Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online (a digital edition of Bosworth's 1898 An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, revised by Toller, and edited by Sean and Tichy) translates līþ as “strong drink” (2010, s.v. “líþ”). The second edition of Holthausen's Altenglisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch gives “Apfelwein, geistiges Getränk” (1963, s.v. “līð”) “apple wine, spirituous drink,” again perpetuating the notion of leiþu as (a type of) fruit wine, while also offering a more general definition similar to Bosworth-Toller's. In the fourth edition of Klaeber's Beowulf, revised by Fulk, Bjork, and Niles, līðwǣġe is glossed as “cup of strong drink” (2008, s.v. “līð-wǣġe”). Here, together with Schützeichel's definition of OHG līd as given above, we see a break from the most frequently suggested translation for leiþu in Gothic, Old Saxon, and Old High German (Obstwein, “fruit wine”).In Old Norse, líð is attested infrequently and solely in poetry.7 It is listed as a heiti (“poetic synonym”) for beer in Skáldskaparmál, and the word is almost exclusively used in poetic circumlocutions for the mead of poetry, the strong drink of the god Óðinn (Finnur Jónsson 1931, s.v. “líð”). Zoëga's Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic glosses líð as “strong ale” (2004, s.v. “líð”), again referring to a specific drink, as in the German glosses for Gothic, Old Saxon, and Old High German, but not fruit wine. In the Lexicon Poeticum, Finnur Jónsson glosses líð as “øl, drik” (1931, s.v. “líð”), “beer, drink”; Faulkes gives “strong drink” (1998, II, s.v. “líð”); Heggstad et al. has “rusdrikk” (2008, s.v. “líð”), “intoxicating drink.”Aside from the specific definition “beer” given in Skáldskaparmál, Old Norse philologists have also suggested the more general meaning “(intoxicating) drink,” which agrees with the glosses for leiþu given by scholars writing in English about the other Germanic languages (cf. Lehmann's gloss for Got. leiþu, Fulk et al.’s gloss for OE līð-wǣġe, Bosworth and Toller's gloss for OE líþ in the table above) and with glosses given by Schützeichel for OHG līd (wine, potion, drink) and Holthausen for OE līð (spirituous drink).From the attestations of leiþu in these five languages, a variety of possible meanings suggest themselves: a highly intoxicating alcoholic drink (perhaps wine), a concoction, a potion, any kind of alcoholic or non-alcoholic drink, and a poetic term for “beer.” What is not immediately clear is how the contexts of these attestations suggest the meaning “fruit wine.” The question is, then: what kind of drink does leiþu refer to, if to any specific kind of drink at all? If the meaning is indeed quite general, encompassing all of the suggestions listed above, did it have a more or less specific meaning in the earliest stages of Germanic? And where and how did the notion of leiþu as fruit wine originate?Significantly, leiþu appears in Gothic, Old Saxon, and Old High German as a translation of the same Greek and Latin word in the same part of the Gospels, namely σίκɛρα/sicera in Luke 1:15. Wulfila translated the Gothic Bible from Koine Greek texts in the fourth century A.D.; these Gospel texts originated barely three centuries before Wulfila's lifetime. It is of course difficult to ascertain the stability or variance of language usage on a word-by-word basis over a gulf of 300 years (especially given the uncommonness of the word σίκɛρα), but it seems quite likely that Wulfila's knowledge of fourth-century Greek represented roughly the same usage as the first-century Greek of the Gospel texts.8 That is to say, Wulfila may well have known exactly what kind of drink σίκɛρα referred to in contemporary Greek usage, and that leiþu was the appropriate Gothic term with which to render it. The monk Otfrid used the Latin Vulgate and the poet of Hêliand used a probably Latin version of Tatian's Gospel harmony Diatessaron as the sources of their poetic Gospel harmonies; if they did not know what sicera was from personal experience or from Greek usage, it is likely that they knew what it was from a definition of sicera in Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae (see Section II below for a discussion of Isidore's definition). Since Gothic, Old Saxon, and Old High German all gloss the same rare foreign word σίκɛρα/sicera as leiþu, then leiþu must not have undergone appreciable semantic shift among these three languages, spread out as they were in time and geography. Its meaning is therefore likely to be shared from Proto-Germanic (PGmc.), and therefore quite ancient. An examination of the etymology of leiþu may prove helpful in determining what this word may have meant in Proto-Germanic.Gothic leiþu is attested only once, with the cited form in the accusative singular, meaning that it must be a masculine or neuter u-stem noun (Lehmann, 1986, s.v. “¨leiþu”); its attested forms in the other Germanic languages indicate that it analogized into the class of a-stem nouns.9 Pokorny derives leiþu from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root *lē̆i-, meaning gießen, fließen, tröpfeln, “pour, flow, drip”; cognates cited include Latin lītus “beach,” Ancient Greek ἄλɛισον, “wine vessel,” Lithuanian líeju, líeti, “to pour.”10 Pokorny does not furnish an Indo-European stem for the Germanic reflexes he lists under the entry for *lē̆i- (all of them reflexes of leiþu in the older Germanic languages); Kroonen reconstructs the PIE root similarly to Pokorny, but adds the laryngeal consonant h3 and gives *l(é)h3i-tu- as the PIE stem which resulted in Germanic *līþu-.11 Markey, endorsing Pokorny's account, connects leiþu to the first class strong verb *līþan (Go. -leiþan, OE līþan, OS lîðan, ON líða “go, travel”) and states that “the general sense of *līþan [‘go, travel (by sea), pass (of time)’] was developed from an earlier specific sense of flowing, gliding, gradual motion and a concrete association with fluidity and liquid.”12Pokorny's etymology, though widely cited (including in Holthausen and de Vries’ etymological dictionaries of Old English and Old Norse), is rejected by Lehmann (1986, s.v. “leiþu”).13 Concerning the etymology of Gothic leiþu, Lehmann states: “Various conjectures, none acceptable. Parallel in O[ld] Ir[ish] līth ‘festival,’ Bret[on] líd ‘festive practice’ also in Gaul[ish] P[roper] N[oun] Lito-genus . . . not [related] to PIE lē̆i ‘flow,’ as in Lat. lītus” (1986, s.v. “leiþu”). Lehmann does not connect leiþu to -leiþan, the etymology of which he characterizes as uncertain (but possibly from PIE *leyt(h)- “go away, die, go”; 1986, s.v. “afleiþan”). Given the speculation attending etymologies of both leiþu and -leiþan (and cognates), it is perhaps best to characterize leiþu's etymology as uncertain.The etymological literature does not appear to reveal any clues as to the original meaning of leiþu. At best, Lehmann's Celtic parallels might suggest a broad semantic association of leiþu's PGmc. etymon with alcohol, although this tells us little that we did not already know about its meaning. Since etymology cannot suggest a more specific meaning, we will have to return to the source texts in which leiþu first appears. Many instances of leiþu in early Germanic texts are translations from Greek and Latin sources, the lexicons of which have been studied extensively from antiquity into the modern age. In particular, we know a great deal about the Greco-Latin word σίκɛρα/sicera, of which Gothic, OS, OHG leiþu/lîð/līd are glosses. If we can establish what kind of drink σίκɛρα/sicera was, we can ascertain what kind of drink leiþu might have been among the early Germanic peoples. It will therefore prove illuminating to examine what is known about σίκɛρα/sicera in classical sources and in modern Biblical commentaries.As mentioned in Section 1, Isidore of Seville was familiar with sicera and described it in his Etymologiae, including details on its production. This description would have been available to the monk Otfrid and to the poet of Hêliand. Isidore gives the following definition of sicera:14Isidore's definition specifies that sicera referred to Near Eastern alcoholic drinks other than wine, especially alcoholic drinks made from grains, fruit, or palm fruits. Significant here is the indication that sicera refers to a general class of strong alcoholic drinks rather than a specific kind of drink. What might have been the Germanic equivalent to sicera, apparently referred to by the term leiþu? Reading Isidore's description and accounting already for the existence of beer, wine, and mead among the early Germanic peoples, Wackernagel writes:16Wackernagel's article on the types of ancient Germanic alcohol seems to be the source of German-speaking scholars’ tendency to gloss leiþu as Obstwein, and at first glance, his argument is quite convincing. Before the advent of distillation techniques, the only way to produce a highly alcoholic drink would have been to ferment the most sugary substance available. In the case of first-century inhabitants of the Levant, this would have been grain, fruit, or dates; in the case of the early Germanic peoples, this would surely have been native European fruits such as apples, plums, and pears. Hagen, who writes on food and drink production in early medieval England, notes that “second millennium B.C. settlers in the foothills of the Alps [made] fruit wines from wild grapes, blackberries, raspberries, elderberries, berries of . . . nightshade and cornelian cherries,” and remarks that the same range of fruits would likely have been available to the early medieval English, although “the mulberry is the only fruit we hear of as being regularly used in drinks, apart from grapes and apples”; compare OE mōraþ, “drink formed by boiling down and sweetening wine (with mulberries),” æppelwīn, apparently “apple wine.”17 Hence it is clear that fruit wine is a drink that the early Germanic peoples could and would have imbibed. However, a further examination of sicera reveals that assigning the meaning “fruit wine” to its Germanic gloss leiþu is slightly misleading.18Meyer's Exegetical Handbook to the Gospels of Mark and Luke defines σίκɛρα thus: τὸ σίκɛρα, [from Hebrew]שֵׁכָר [šēḵār], which does not occur in the Greek writers, is any exciting drink of the nature of wine, but not made of grapes; [appears in] Leviticus 10:9 and frequently in the [Septuagint]. It was prepared from corn, fruit, dates, palms, and so forth19Again, σίκɛρα is described as a class of intoxicating drinks, rather than one specific type of drink. Looking at the Hebrew origin of σίκɛρα, we find further support for the term's rather general, categorical meaning: Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible defines Hebrew שֵׁכָר <šēḵār> as “intoxicating drink, strong drink.”20 Hence Biblical commentators agree with Isidore and essentially support Wackernagel's suggestion. Note, however, that both in Isidore's Etymologiae and in Meyer's Handbook, σίκɛρα/sicera/שֵׁכָר refers to a class of strong drinks, different from the commonest drink available to people in a given time and place (wine, for first-century AD inhabitants of the Levant). It appears that Wulfila, Otfrid, and the poet of Hêliand recognized this when they glossed σίκɛρα/sicera as leiþu. Wackernagel's conclusion is correct in that leiþu specifies a strong alcoholic drink different from a more commonly available intoxicating beverage. This would have included fruit wine, but crucially, it did not refer solely to fruit wine. The use of the word leiþu in the later stages of the Germanic languages (and indeed in some instances of the older languages) will serve to illustrate this point.Certain instances of leiþu in the older Germanic languages make apparent that the term did not refer only, or even primarily, to fruit wine. Take for instance Old English metes ne līþes in the Leechdoms, suggesting the basic sense of “(neither) food nor drink.” Likewise, Old Norse líð had by the thirteenth century assumed a rather specific and restricted position in the lexicon. Markey attributes the change in meaning of leiþu in Old English and Old Norse to semantic shifts after speakers gradually lost familiarity with what leiþu was (fruit wine, in accordance with Wackernagel)21. It is clear that some degree of semantic shift has taken place in both languages, given its broad and almost contradictory set of meanings in Old English and its extremely restricted usage in Old Norse, but this is almost certainly not because it once referred to fruit wine, a previously specific meaning that had since been forgotten. Fell argues that OE bēor, traditionally thought of as simply “beer” and synonymous with ealu, “ale,” referred in fact to a different drink, one “made from honey and the juice of a fruit other than grapes, as the glosses ofetes wos [‘fruit juice’] and æppelwīn [‘apple wine’] suggest”; hence anything like a fruit wine was apparently referred to by words other than līþ in Old English, as evidenced by bēor, ofetes wōs, æppelwīn, and mōraþ.22 She argues for a similar meaning of ON bjórr (traditionally “beer”) as a honey-based drink which could be synonymous with mjǫðr, “mead,” though without any apparent reference to fruit.23 It is unclear whether the medieval Norse consumed any form of fruit-infused drink apart from vín, “wine,” itself a luxurious and uncommon drink imported from the south.A few instances of leiþu in Old Saxon and Old High German, where we have a secure sense of the word's meaning via Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, show that leiþu always had a broad rather than a narrow range of meanings.In the first example, the basic meaning “alcoholic drink” is clear. That lîð here appears in apposition to uuîn suggests a very close semantic affinity between the two words, although it is not abundantly clear from the apposition alone whether 1. OS lîð is synonymous with wine (i.e. lîð = uuîn, uuîn = lîð), 2. lîð has a more general meaning (“[alcoholic] drink”), which encompasses uuîn but does not refer exclusively to it (i.e. uuîn is a type of lîð), or 3. lîð does in fact refer to a different kind of drink (such as fruit wine), but is similar enough to uuîn in its capacity as an alcoholic drink to merit the apposition. Since it is known that the lines under discussion derive from the text of Luke 1:15, where wine and sicera are distinct types of drinks in Greek and Latin, we can eliminate option one. Option three then appears the most enticing explanation (mirroring, as it would, the contrast of wine and sicera), but the usage of lîð elsewhere in Old Saxon suggests that option two is superior.For the second example, vinegar is essentially spoiled wine, perhaps even spoiled fruit wine, so the wine-based connotation holds. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that the Hêliand poet meant to suggest that Christ's crucifiers gave him an uncommon spirit that was costly to produce; Hagen remarks that “[f]ruit juices would have been available [in early medieval England], but only for a limited period of the year, and a large amount of fruit would have been needed to produce any quantity of liquid.”24 No doubt the same was true in the Saxons’ Northwest German homeland (although Hêliand is, of course, set in Roman Judea). Hence it is far more likely that the poet intended spoiled regular wine to be understood, especially if it is being mixed with gall in a cruel and humiliating gesture. This lends support to a more general definition of lîð than either regular (grape) wine or fruit wine: “(alcoholic) drink, concoction.”The use of līd in example 1 is metaphorical and likely proverbial in the ancient Germanic languages; there is precedent elsewhere that pouring a bitter or fateful drink for one's enemies signified that one defeated them or otherwise dealt them a distressing fate.25 This is certainly the case in Ludwigslied, where Ludwig's pouring of līd for his enemies represents his victory over them; compare also Beow. ll. 769b-771a: “Denum eallum wearð / ceasterbūendum / cēnra gehwylcum, / eorlum ealuscerwen” (For all the Danes, for every bold city-dweller, for the men, ale was dispensed), meaning that the people in Heorot are distressed by Grendel's raid. We can also interpret Ludwig's pouring of līd for his enemies as a metaphor for his prowess in battle, an ironic and almost comic depiction of a hospitable lord serving his retainers (really, a mighty lord vanquishing his foes). The pouring of a drink by a hospitable lord suggests that an alcoholic drink is in view (figuratively, of course). Līd must refer here to an alcoholic drink, bitter in this case because it symbolizes a less-than-optimal fate in battle (one can assume that a fruit wine would have been quite sweet, making the gloss “fruit wine” improbable yet again, but this is beside the point). Līd in the second example refers to a bewitched potion that the sorceress Circe gives to Ulysses’ men as an apparent act of hospitality in order to transform them into her animal servants; Boethius evokes this scene from The Odyssey in a reflection on evil's transformative effect on the human personality. That the drink in question was a potion is secure from the content of The Odyssey as well as Boethius’ Latin (mala pocula, “bad drinks”); in the Old High German translation, it is clear that the intended meaning is more like “concoction” than “alcoholic drink.” It clearly does not suggest the meaning “fruit wine”; furthermore, it is clear that leiþu did not refer solely to fruit wine in any of the older Germanic languages, and indeed, it may not have even referred strictly to alcoholic drinks (as in the senses “concoction,” in the OS example from Hêl. [example 1 in Table 2 above] and “potion/concoction,” in the OHG example from Boet. [example 2 in Table 3 above]). The contexts in which this word occurs after the early Middle Ages also suggest a broad meaning.Leiþu is not attested in any stage later than Old English, Old Saxon, or Old Norse. The word does, however, have reflexes in Middle High German (MHG), fifteenth-century Old Frisian (OFr.), and in Modern High German dialects of the nineteenth century:In Middle High German, lît appears frequently in native poetry, alongside other words for alcoholic drinks and with additional modifiers, mirroring usage in the older Germanic languages (cf. OS Thô im thes uuînes brast, them liudiun thes lîðes, OHG Ni fúllit er sih uuínes, ouh lídes nihéines; OHG Bitteres lides). The Middle High German sources here suggest a general meaning of the word lît such as “(unspecified) alcoholic drink,” albeit one with a decidedly positive connotation: it is expanded on with the qualifier “of rich spices” in a festive setting (Crône); it is used paratactically to refer to high-quality wine and mead which Solomon's people pour into the wells of Jerusalem to abate the depredations of a thirsty dragon (Lob Sal.); and, similarly to an earlier usage in Old English, it refers to the excellent drink of eternal life which Christ gives to those who pray for his grace (Hartm. Red. Gl., cf. OE example 1 in Table 1 above).The MHG attestations are all purely poetic; bearing in mind that ON líð had fossilized into a poetic term and many of the attestations in the older Germanic languages come from poetic sources or translations of set phrases (“wine and strong drink” as in Lk 1:15 and numerous times in the Old Testament; eight out of thirteen tokens from Table 1 are poetic or from the aforementioned set phrase, but note again that these tokens are not exhaustive), it seems possible that this word had heightened connotations in the Germanic languages, most generally for a strong alcoholic drink; compare the meaning of the English terms “spirit, libation, strong drink.” Heyne notes that OHG līd is used to gloss Latin latex, a mostly poetic word meaning “water, fluid, liquid,” although it also glosses a number of more commonplace words pertinent to drinking, including poculum “drink, cup” (see example 3 in Table 1 above), potus “a drink, draft, (act of) drinking” and liquor “liquid”; two out of three of the OHG examples cited above are poetic/in a set phrase.26 The Old English evidence comes largely from prose sources, so perhaps OE līþ did not have especially poetic connotations; four out of five of the OE examples in Table 1 are prose, but note the heightened, metaphorical style of example 1. Some confusion of the word's gender in MHG, demonstrable in examples 1 (neuter) and 3 (masculine), suggests that the word was either obscure or fading into obscurity, which may be taken as evidence of its status as a heightened term; however, its preservation in compounds associated with alcoholic drinks in nineteenth-century dialectal German (see below) seems to indicate its status as nonpoetic, since it is unlikely that a poetic word would shed its heightened connotations and assume mundane ones over time (the opposite typically being the case).Interestingly, Lexer also provides the translation geistiges Getränk überhaupt, “spirituous drink generally” for MHG lît in the compounds lîthûs, “tavern” (< lît-house), lîtgëbe, “host at a tavern” (< lît-giver) and lîtkouf, “drink had to close a business deal” (< lît-purchase). It would be odd indeed to render these terms as “fruit wine-house,” “fruit wine-giver,” and “fruit wine had to close a business deal,” hence Lexer resorted to a gloss similar to that most commonly applied to leiþu by philologists writing in English, “strong drink.”Old Frisian legal texts contain a number of references to līth, as in the example above detailing the punishment for maliciously dousing another person with it (Gesetz. Hun.). Köbler's Altfriesisches Wörterbuch glosses OFr. līth as Getränk, “drink,” suggesting any sort of potable liquid, but the dictionary also contains the entry līthskelde, “drinking debt,” which most certainly refers to debt accumulated from drinking beyond one's means in the context of a tavern (2014, s.v. “līth”). Indeed, the existence of a legal clause punishing willful dousing of another person with an unspecified fluid makes sense if that fluid is an alcoholic drink; the clause is probably referring to a late medieval bar fight. Hence, for OFr. līth, the general meaning “alcoholic drink” suggests itself once again.Judging by their presence in Schmid's Schwäbisches Wörterbuch (1831) and in Schmeller's Bayerisches Wörterbuch (1872), the last reflexes of leiþu appear to have been Swabian and Bavarian lidhus/Leithaus and lidgeb/Leitgeb, apparently reflexes of MHG lîthûs and lîtgëbe. It should be noted that Schmid's and Schmeller's dictionaries have a thoroughly philological bent, listing attestations of their entries dating back to Middle High German and not always reaching up to the nineteenth century (Schmeller's dictionary is much more copious with its attestations, and orders them chronologically); therefore it is suspect that the entries contained within represented current usage in Bavarian and Swabian. Nonetheless, Schmeller does write the following about a Leithaus in Berchtesgaden, Bavaria: Noch heißt ein Wirtshaus in Berchtesgaden, in Kempten vorzugsweise das Leithaus (Leuthaus; in Kempten Landhaus): ‘Jakob Schwarzenbeck, Gastgeber zum Leuthaus in Berchtesgaden’; auf dem Schild steht: ‘Gasthof zum Leuthaus’ (9. September 1848).27(It is still preferable to call a tavern a Leithaus in Berchtesgaden [and] in Kempten [Leuthaus; in Kempten Landhaus]: “Jakob Schwarzenbeck, host at the Leuthaus in Berchtesgaden”; the sign reads: “Leuthaus Inn” [9. September 1848].)28A cursory Google search in quotes of Leithaus and Leuthaus suggest two continuing, if not especially common usages: as a surname, presumably originating as an occupational surname for a host at a tavern (the same is true of Leitgeb, e.g., the Austrian soccer player Christoph Leitgeb), and as a word for a building associated with an abbey. An unspecified Leuthaus of the Wilten Abbey in Innsbruck, Austria appears as the first search result; there is no indication that it was ever a bar or tavern, and a search in quotes for Läuthaus brings up results associated with religious buildings in Austria, including a monastery in Lambach and a church in Mürztal. How MHG lîthûs came to be associated with religious architecture is eminently unclear, if lîthûs is indeed the true etymon of these terms.An 1846 newspaper for Berchtesgaden contains the article “Hat Berchtesgaden ein Leuthaus oder Leithaus?” where the author discusses a learned man who wrote in a (different) learned newspaper about the name of the Berchtesgaden Leuthaus, chiding its inhabitants for their incorrect pronunciation of what should have been Leithaus.29 The article then proceeds to detail the history of the Leitkauf's (< MHG lîtkouf) that purportedly took place in the Berchtesgaden Leuthaus.30 Presumably this Berchtesgaden Leuthaus is the one mentioned above in Schmeller's dictionary; hence the Berchtesgaden Leuthaus was still an inn and tavern in 1846, although Bavarian speakers had reanalyzed the Leit- element of the compound as Leut-, “people.” Cleary, Leit proper did not carry any meaning to Bavarian speakers.The newspaper article also mentions the verb verleutgeben with the apparent meaning “to serve (someone) alcohol (esp. beer).” A Google search in quotes of verleutgeben brings up a string of publications from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, apparently from Austria and Bavaria (titles include Einführung der Getränkesteuer in Niederösterreich from 1780 and Königlich-baierisches Salzach-Kreis-Blatt from 1811). Significant for verleutgeben is the fact that the texts in which it is attested are not dictionaries or otherwise philologically-oriented texts; the presence of this word in the aforementioned texts must represent common usage for the period. So, for all intents and purposes, it appears that the latest that the word leiþu survived in a recognizable form with a direct connection to alcohol was the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the Austro-Bavarian verb verleutgeben, “to serve (someone) beer.” Leiþu no longer survives in any modern Germanic language. Still, from the beginning of the word's attestations to its apparent disappearance in the nineteenth century, the general meaning “strong drink” prevails over the specific meaning “fruit wine.”From textual attestations in the earliest Germanic languages, etymology, ancient glosses, and an assessment of the word's many reflexes throughout the historical stages of Germanic, it becomes clear that leiþu did not refer primarily to fruit wine. Wackernagel and the German-speaking scholars who follow his suggested definition were not necessarily incorrect in associating the meaning “fruit wine” with leiþu. The semantic field of leiþu could certainly have included such drinks as fruit wine, since leiþu appears paratactically alongside a number of different drinks, suggesting that leiþu could function as an umbrella term for “(alcoholic) drink.” A variety of meanings occur for this term throughout time and space: strong alcoholic drink (perhaps wine), concoction, a potion, a drink in general, a poetic term for “beer,” a (poetic?) term for a pleasant alcoholic drink, liquor in general, etc. However, there is no context in which the specific meaning “fruit wine” is unavoidable or even especially likely. The English term “strong drink” seems the most suitable translation of leiþu, following most philologists writing in English; for German, the translations starkes Getränk, “strong drink” or geistiges Getränk, “spirituous drink” are appropriate.Boet. = Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae (Latin, Old English, Old High German)Beow. = Beowulf (Old English)Crône = Diu Crône (Middle High German)Gesetz. Hun. = Gesetze der Hunsingoer (Old Frisian)Hêl. = Hêliand (Old Saxon)Hartm. Red. Gl. = Hartmanns Rede vom Glouven (Middle High German)Lob Sal. = Lob Salomos (Middle High German)Ludw. = Ludwigslied (Old High German)Otf. = Otfrids Evangelienbuch (Old High German)Past. = Pope Gregory I's Pastoral Care (Latin, Old English)Gmc. = GermanicGo. = GothicMHG = Middle High GermanOHG = Old High GermanOE = Old EnglishOFr. = Old FrisianON = Old NorseOS = Old SaxonLat. = LatinPGmc. = Proto-GermanicPIE = Proto-Indo-EuropeanONP = Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog / A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose: https://onp.ku.dk/onp/onp.php