"Hindu"

[gldnreef at primenet.com]

At 12:23 PM 6/15/97 BST, Lars Martin Fosse wrote:

>>2. Such fancies are regularly found in the 
>>  Puraan (plural needs no "s").
>
>Yes they are. Similar flights of fancy are found not only the Puranas
>(sorry, but I insist on the plural s), but in all old works, whether Indic
>or European.
>

Recently, I found very good examples of false etymologies in a European
context: the __Leyenda Aurea__ of Jacobus de Voragine.  It is the most
popular Medieval collection of hagiography.  At the beginning of each
saint's life there is an etymology of that saint's name that either refers
to his or her legend or to doctrinal principles that he or she embodied.
Here is the English-speaker's reference, though there are translations in
every European language:

__The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints__.  Jacobus de Voragine, William
Granger Ryan, trans. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993
ISBN vol. 1 0-691-00153-7; vol 2 0-691-00154-5.