Vasso-calet,'[1] or the god who dwelt in that temple. Be that so or not, the Vasso-calet was a very remarkable temple; and what is still more remarkable perhaps is, that the god should have been known by the name of this Arvernian temple of his so far away as Bittburg on the Rhine. But besides the fragmentary inscription already noticed as found on the Puy de Dôme, a complete inscription has been dug up there which supplies us with still another way of designating the god. It is said to read: Num(ini) Aug(usto) et Deo Mercurio Dumiati, Matutinius Victorinus D(ono) D(edit).[2]
Now the name of the mountain, Puy de Dôme, or as it is called by the inhabitants of the district simply le Doum, and the epithet Dumias or Dumiates given to the god whose temple adorned the top of it, cannot well be
- ↑ This is according to a rule still obtaining in Welsh, as when we say Ivan Hirnant, 'Evan of Long-brook,' or Tudur Penllyn, 'Tudor of Penllyn,' in both of which the place-name is to be construed as a genitive; and we have an instance from a time before the case-endings were dropped, in a bilingual inscription from Brecknockshire, which reads Maccutreni Saliciduni, '(the Stone of) Maccutreni of Salicidunon' (Rhys, Lectures on Welsh Phil. p. 382). Then as to the compound Vasso-calet, one has to compare the Welsh treatment of permanent epithets. Thus we say Maelgwn Fychan, 'M. Vaughan or M. the Little,' while a little Maelgwn, to whom the adjective was not constantly applied, would be Maelgwn bychan, 'little Maelgwn.' Put back into an early form, the latter would be Maglocunos biccanos, while the former would be Maglocuno-biccanos; and it is in this way that I would explain the Gaulish Vasso-caleti as a compound in the genitive case. Compare the Irish genitive na Crǽb-rúadi, in the Bk. of the Dun, 99b: it was the name of the king of Ulster's palace, and literally meant the Red Branch, a designation, however, of uncertain connotation. One may also probably compare the Ogmic genitive Neta-Ttrenalugos, with tt for later th, and a neta which is in my opinion not a genitive.
- ↑ Rev. des Soc. sav. Vol. i. (1875), p. 250; Rev. Celt. ii. 426.
