Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

16 Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race
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Celtic Place-names in Europe
To answer these questions fully would take us (for the purposes
of this volume) too deeply into philological discussions, which
only the Celtic scholar can fully appreciate. The evidence will be
found fully set forth in de Jubainville's work, already frequently
referred to. The study of European place-names forms the basis
of the argument. Take the Celtic name Noviomagus composed of
two Celtic words, the adjective meaning new, and magos (Irish
magh) a field or plain. 15 There were nine places of this name
known in antiquity. Six were in France, among them the places
now called Noyon, in Oise, Nijon, in Vosges, Nyons, in Drôme.
Three outside of France were Nimègue, in Belgium, Neumagen,
in the Rhineland, and one at Speyer, in the Palatinate.
The word dunum, so often traceable in Gaelic place-names
in the present day (Dundalk, Dunrobin, &c.), and meaning
fortress or castle, is another typically Celtic element in European
place-names. It occurred very frequently in France—e.g.,
Lug-dunum (Lyons), Viro-dunum (Verdun). It is also found
in Switzerland—e.g., Minno-dunum (Moudon), Eburo-dunum
(Yverdon)—and in the Netherlands, where the famous city of
Leyden goes back to a Celtic Lug-dunum. In Great Britain
the Celtic term was often changed by simple translation into
castra; thus Camulo-dunum became Colchester, Brano-dunum
Brancaster. In Spain and Portugal eight names terminating
in dunum are mentioned by classical writers. In Germany
the modern names Kempton, Karnberg, Liegnitz, go back
respectively to the Celtic forms Cambo-dunum, Carro-aunum,
Lugi-dunum, and we find a Singi-dunum, now Belgrade, in
Servia, a Novi-dunum, now Isaktscha, in Roumania, a Carrodunum
in South Russia, near the Dniester, and another in Croatia,
now Pitsmeza. Sego-dunum, now Rodez, in France, turns up
also in Bavaria (Wurzburg), and in England (Sege-dunum, now
15
E.g., Moymell (magh-meala), the Plain of Honey, a Gaelic name for
Fairyland, and many place-names.