Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/542

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526

V. THE SUN HERO.

Ruith, mentioned on previous occasions (p. 211), and Lóch Mór, one of the most formidable foes killed by Cúchulainn on the Táin. The pagan formula was continued by the Irish in the names of their saints in Christian times, as, for example, in Mo-Gobnáit, Mo-Bíóc, and dozens of others.^[1] In point of etymology, Duben is obscure and not improbably of Ivernian origin; but it is exceptional that the v of the ogmic form Dovinia or Dovvinias should have been retained, written b, in the later forms, as the general rule would require its complete disappearance.^[2] If you will look at the map, you will observe that

alone, 94b²; Mohauluim gen. 95a²; the h is represented by an s with a dot, which is liable to be forgotten by the scribe, as happens once on 95a¹, where also Moluigid occurs, applied to a Lugaid identical probably in point of origin with the slayer of Cúchulainn. As to Mo-Febis, see the Bk. of the Dun, 74, where Febis or Femis is said to have been the mother's name; but the Four Masters make Mofebis a man, and date his death A.M. 3751, though they mention his son Mog Ruith engaged in war A.M. 3579, or 172 years earlier. Allusions to Mafemis will be found also in the Bk. of Leinster, 15b, 19a, and Mofemis in O'Curry's Manners, ij. 9.

↑ See the index to the Martyrology of Donegal (Dublin, 1864), and Stokes' Calendar of Oengus, p. ccxciij.
↑ It is right to say that the exact sound meant to be represented by vv is not known, if it be taken to have differed from the ordinary power of a single v. The irregular retention of the consonant may be supposed based on some peculiarity of dialect connected with Munster; and an important parallel, which countenances this view, offers itself in the name Eber of the mythic ancestor or eponymous hero of the Ivernian populations of the south of Ireland, especially Munster. The name is otherwise reduced to Ier, Er and Ir, which is the one usually preferred as that of the ancestor of the Ivernian element in Ulster: the form represented in common by Eber and the shorter names must have been in early Irish Iveros or Everos. Eber is also written Emer, which comes down from a time when both b and m here, as well as the b in Duben, Duibne, were sounded v. Ier is not often to be met with, but it occurs, for instance, in the Bk. of

[1] See the index to the Martyrology of Donegal (Dublin, 1864), and Stokes' Calendar of Oengus, p. ccxciij.

[p526-2] It is right to say that the exact sound meant to be represented by vv is not known, if it be taken to have differed from the ordinary power of a single v. The irregular retention of the consonant may be supposed based on some peculiarity of dialect connected with Munster; and an important parallel, which countenances this view, offers itself in the name Eber of the mythic ancestor or eponymous hero of the Ivernian populations of the south of Ireland, especially Munster. The name is otherwise reduced to Ier, Er and Ir, which is the one usually preferred as that of the ancestor of the Ivernian element in Ulster: the form represented in common by Eber and the shorter names must have been in early Irish Iveros or Everos. Eber is also written Emer, which comes down from a time when both b and m here, as well as the b in Duben, Duibne, were sounded v. Ier is not often to be met with, but it occurs, for instance, in the Bk. of

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