Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/29

Rh supposed unconnected, and the question arises as to the nature of the connection between them. Now Dôme or Doum is here probably a Celtic word, and it could in that case hardly be doubted that it should be referred to the same origin as the Irish word duma, 'a tumulus or mound of any kind;' but the Irish duma means an early Celtic form, dumjo-s or dumjo-n, and this stem dumjo we seem to have exactly in Dumiati. The Gaulish word as applied to the mountain may have simply meant the top or summit, in which case the epithet of the god would refer to him as the divinity of the top of the Puy; but other explanations are possible, though I do not think it necessary to detain you with an examination of them.

So much as to the god's epithets; but none of the Allobrogic monuments seem to supply us with any of his Gaulish names, while a curious inscription referring to him comes from Thornbury on the Swale, in Yorkshire, where no name or epithet is given: he is described simply as the discoverer of roads and paths. The words are: Deo qui vias et semitas commentus est. There is, however, no great difficulty in identifying him under a Gaulish name. He was called Ogmios, or at any rate that was one of his principal names, and under that we have a very curious account of his attributes from the pen of Lucian, a chatty Greek, who wrote and travelled in the second century of our era. His words are to the