Tuisco
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tuisto or Tuisco was according to Tacitus (Germania, ch. 2) the ancestor of all Germanic tribes. This honour he shared with his son, Mannus. According to Jakob Grimm, his name and variant forms (Thuisco, Thuiskon, Tuisco) come from the adjective tivisco derived from the name of the god Tiu; the name Tiu, Proto-Germanic *Tîwaz, derives from Proto-Indo-European *Dyeus, the god of the daylit sky, and the adjective derived from it could mean either "celestial" or "son of Tiu". This etymology however presupopses that Tuisco is the original name, and Tuisto a scribal error. More accepted is the explanation of Tuisto as from tvi- "two".
Some have suggested that this describes a hermaphrodite (two-sexed) being, and then go on to postulate that, if so Tuisto could be the same being as the primeval giant Ymir who was a hermaphrodite that procreated the race of giants.
A more insightful theory relates Tuisto to various Germanic words meaning "conflict/dispute/division", eg. German zwist, Swedish, tvista, Dutch twisten, etc. (which also spring from the "tvi-" root) and compares his status to the Roman Mars and his relationship to the founding of Rome. It is Mars and his son Romulus, and not Jupiter, that is the father of Rome and its peoples.
Based on this comparison, it is very possible that Tuisto is another name for the Norse god Tyr who is often compared to Mars, and who said to be no peacemaker. Furthermore, even as Tyr's linguistic counterparts such as the Greek Zeus and the Indic Dyaus were birthed by Earth goddesses (Gaea, Prthivi), so to is Tuisto said to have sprung from the earth.
In terms of the Icelandic Eddas, this makes Tuisto comparable to Buri, who was licked by all-nourishing cow Audhumbla (another guise of the Earthmother) from a sundry block of ice, and then went on to sire an offpsring (Mannus, Bor), who in turn sired a trio of brothers (Ingui- Irmin-Istaev/Iscio, Odin-Vili-Ve). Not surprisingly, Irmin is a known by-name for the god Odin, as substantiated in the Eddas.de:Tuisto nl:Tuïsto
