county of Waterford; it is also to be found in lists of the early kings of Erinn.[1] The exact signification of the god's name Segomo is not easy to fix: it may have meant the strong one, the holder or upholder, the defender or protector, or else the victorious one that overpowers and conquers: all one can feel certain about is, that the word is derived from the root segh or sagh, 'to hold, restrain, withstand, overpower,' from which such words come as the Greek ἔχω, 'I hold or have,' ἔσχον, ἴσχω, ἐχυρός, and the like, also the Gothic sigis and the German sieg, 'victory.' It is clear, however, that such a name would suit the god, whether viewed more especially as the chief of the gods or as a mighty and victorious warrior.
Let us now return to Segomo's epithet Dunates. Here again uncertainty must prevail, whether the word be derived or not from the name of a place; but no archæologist has, so far as I know, been able to identify any place-name in point: so we are at liberty to interpret the epithet in another way and to refer it to the same origin as the dunum, Gaulish dūnon, of such names as Augustodunum or Autun and Lugdunum or Lyons. This dūn- is of the same etymology as the familiar English word town and the German zaun, 'a hedge or field-fence;' but its long vowel was probably pronounced as it is in modern French; for the Welsh equivalent is dîn, 'a fortress or stronghold,' whence dinas, 'a fortress, town or city.' The Irish is dún, of the same meaning, but of a different declension; but
- ↑ Nia Segamain in the Book of Fenagh, edited by Prof. Hennessy (Dublin, 1875), p. 29, and simply Nia at p. 56; the Four Masters, A.M. 4881, 4887, 4990, write Nia Sedhamain (dative) and Niadh Sedhamain (genitive). The older and more correct forms would be, genitive Segamon or Segaman, dative Segamain, unless there was an optional O-stem.
