Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/134

118 literally 'the Water of the Goddess;' Irish dé, 'a goddess,' gen. dée, déi, dé, déa, dae, acc. dé.

7. More distantly related but still of the same origin are such words as the Latin dies, 'a day;' Welsh dyᵭ, the same; Irish in-diu, 'to-day.'

Now the question must sooner or later present itself, what did the words Zeus, Dyaus, and their congeners, originally mean? Two answers at least are given, of which the one is, that they meant the heavens or the sky. The other view is that the truer meaning of the word Dyaus, for instance, would be 'the bright or the shining one,' since it is derived from the root div or dyu, 'to shine, to lighten;' and that it was this activity of shining and illuminating the world which was embodied in the name. This is corroborated in the main by the recent researches of M. Gaidoz, who finds that the wheel-symbol is to be understood as an image of the sun, and that the warrior-like Jupiter—that is the Gaulish god whom I should treat as a Roman Mars and Jupiter in one—was originally the god of the sun, who by extension became that of the heavens, and otherwise acquired attributes which made the ancient Romans regard him as their good Father in Heaven. But his name, which has been interpreted to mean the shining or bright one, has not invariably ceased to be an appellative. Thus in Old Norse, where it was Týr, it was by no means confined to him: it remained more or less of an appellative, as may be inferred from compounds such as Sig-týr, 'the god of victory,' which