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I. THE GUALISH PANTHEON.
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musique de Félicien David. C'était au Caire, en 1834, pendant un voyage que douze saint-simoniens faisaient en Orient. Le vice-roi demanda à Félicien David de donner des leçons de musique à ses femmes; mais pour observer les convenances musulmanes, Félicien David devait donner les leçons aux ennuques qui les auraient transmises et répétées ensuite aux sultanes!'

In spite of Caesar's words, then, I cannot help regarding the Gaulish god whom he equated with Jupiter as far from possessing the importance or rank which that equation would suggest; nor is it improbable, after all, that the phenomenon of thunder was treated as one of the forms of his activity; and at this point something must be said on that subject. The Welsh word for thunder is taran, which enables us to identify several god-names in ancient inscriptions. One of them was Taranucus on a monument from Dalmatia, which reads: Iovi Taranuco, Arria Successa v(otum) s(olvit):[1] another was the related form Taranucnus attested by two inscriptions[2] on the banks of the Rhine, neither of which alludes to Jupiter by that appellation, nor indeed need they be supposed to have meant him. Both names seem to be derived from a simpler one, Taranus, borne by a divinity identified with thunder; and Taranucnus, in Gaulish Taranucnos, is formed like the Gaulish patronymics Oppianicnos, 'son of Oppianos', and Toutissicnos, 'son of Toutissos.' Treated analogously, we have to interpret Taranucnos as meaning the Son of Taranus, or Thunder. A curious inscription found at Vienne,

  1. Berlin Corpus, iii. No. 2804; Rev. Celt. v. 385.
  2. Brambach, 1589, 1812; Rev. Celt. v. 386.