Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/450

 420 The European Sky -god.

self as 'A. /cTtVTTy?,-^ ' he is presumably perpetuating the same tradition of a priestly king who personated the god.

Apollo, then, in several of his most primitive cults, was connected with the oak or poplar, the al'^etpo'^ — a word which meant "oak" before it meant " poplar." ~'^^ In view of this fact I would venture to propound a fresh derivation of Apollo's name. The oldest form of the name seems to have been ^A.TreW(ov. Festus' ^^'' assertion that "the ancients used to say Apello for Apollo " is borne out not only by the occurrence of ^ATreWcov in the inscriptions of Laconia, Megara, Corinth, Crete, Pamphylia, &c., but also by the fact that there was a month called 'ATreXXato? at Delphi, Heraclea, Tauromenium, Macedonia, Lamia, Panticapaeum, Phanagoria, Mylasa, Palmyra, Telanissus, &c., while such names as 'ATreW?^?, 'ATreWato?, 'ATreWt/cwy, were spread far and wide through the Greek world. -'^^ Hence most recent investigators have started from ^ATriXXcov as the " Grundform." ~^^ I would therefore derive ^ATreWcop from the word aTreXkov, of which Hesychius says : aireWov ' acyetpo^, o eVrt elSo'^ S6v?)pov, i.e., " Apellon, a poplar, a kind of tree."

An important inscription found at Delphi in 1895 records certain enactments of the Labyadae, an ancient Delphic phratry.-^^ It appears that a festival named 'AvreXXat was celebrated in the first Delphic month 'ATreXXato?, which corresponded roughly with our July. The festival bore some resemblance to the Athenian Apaturia. Victims called aTreXXata and loaves called Sapdrai were then brought, the

^^ Head, JItsf. num., p. 266. ^^ Folk-Lore, xv., 297.

^^ Paul. exc. Fest., p. 19, Lindemann '^ Apellijieni antiqui dicebant pro Apollinem."

^^^ For references see Pauly-Wissowa, ii., i, G. Meyer Griech. Gratiiinatik^

y- 64 f-

^ See O. Hoffmann Die p-iech. Dialekte, iii., 271. '^'^ Dittenberger Sylloge,- 438, Michel Recucil, 995.