英语词汇skull的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

skull. When the English poet Lord Byron drank from a skull he was hardly being original. Human skulls used as drinking cups have been traced back before 7000 b.c. Herodotus, for ex- ample, mentions that the Scythians made drinking vessels out of skulls of their enemies by sawing off the skull below the eye- brows, covering the outside with leather and gilding the inside with silver or gold. He also notes that people near the River Don in southern Russia boiled the flesh of a dead parent with that of sheep and ate it, preserving the parent’s skull as a keep- sake cup. An old story, “The Lay of Weyland the Smith,” tells how the eponymous hero slew his opponent’s sons, making golden cups out of their brainpans and gems out of their eyes, which he sent to their mother, and fashioning broaches from their teeth, which he sent to their sisters. Skulls were also used as drinking cups by the Vikings and the skulls of saints were used as drinking cups in medieval monasteries. Such customs have led some etymologists to suggest that the word skull itself meant a drinking cup before it acquired its present meaning. No proof of the derivation has been established, but there is a strong connection between the Old Norse skal, “a bowl,” and skull. Another possibility is that skull derived from the Old Norse skel, “a seashell.”

词汇	skull
词源	skull. When the English poet Lord Byron drank from a skull he was hardly being original. Human skulls used as drinking cups have been traced back before 7000 b.c. Herodotus, for ex- ample, mentions that the Scythians made drinking vessels out of skulls of their enemies by sawing off the skull below the eye- brows, covering the outside with leather and gilding the inside with silver or gold. He also notes that people near the River Don in southern Russia boiled the flesh of a dead parent with that of sheep and ate it, preserving the parent’s skull as a keep- sake cup. An old story, “The Lay of Weyland the Smith,” tells how the eponymous hero slew his opponent’s sons, making golden cups out of their brainpans and gems out of their eyes, which he sent to their mother, and fashioning broaches from their teeth, which he sent to their sisters. Skulls were also used as drinking cups by the Vikings and the skulls of saints were used as drinking cups in medieval monasteries. Such customs have led some etymologists to suggest that the word skull itself meant a drinking cup before it acquired its present meaning. No proof of the derivation has been established, but there is a strong connection between the Old Norse skal, “a bowl,” and skull. Another possibility is that skull derived from the Old Norse skel, “a seashell.”
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