ed on the shores of the Caspian Sea, and were famous as
good archers among the ancient nations.

The way in which the names of nations and peoples have taken on more
general meanings gives us many glimpses into history.

CHAPTER XIII.

WORDS MADE BY WAR.

Since the earliest ages men have made war on one another, and we have
a great crowd of words, new and old, connected with war. Some of these
are very simple words, especially the names of early weapons; some are
more elaborate and more interesting in their derivation.

The chief of all weapons, the sword, has its simple name from the Old
English language itself, and so has the spear. But it was after the
Norman conquest of England that war became more elaborate, with
armoured knights and fortified towers, and nearly all the names
connected with war of this sort come to us from the French of that
time. The word _war_ itself comes from the Old French word _werre_.
_Battle_, too, comes from the French of this time; and so do _armour_,
_arms_, _fortress_, _siege_, _conquer_, _pursue_, _tower_, _banner_,
and many other words. All of these words came into French originally
from Latin. _Knight_, however, is an Old English word. The French word
for knight, _chevalier_, never passed into English, but from it we got
the word _chivalry_.

The great weapons of modern warfare are the gun and the bayonet. There
are, of course, many kinds of guns, small and large. Formerly it was
the fashion to call the big guns by the name of _cannon_, but in the
great European war this word has hardly been used at all. They are all
"guns," from the rifles carried by the foot soldiers to the Maxims and
the great howitzers which each require a company of men to serve them.
The word _cannon_ comes from the French _canon_, and is sometimes
spelt in this way in English too. It means "great tube."

The derivation of the word _gun_ is more interesting. Gunpowder was
not really discovered until the fifteenth century, but long before
this a kind of machine, or gun, for hurling great stones, or sometimes
arrows, had been used. These instruments were called by the Latin word
_ballista_ (for the Romans had also had machines of this sort), which
comes from the Greek word _ballo_, meaning "throw." In the Middle Ages
weapons of this sort were called by proper names, just as ships are
now. A common name for them was the woman's name _Gunhilda_, which
would be turned into _Gunna_ for short. It is pr