Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/39

Rh put as briefly as possible: in the first place, we clearly have in Mogounus, from which is derived by one or two further steps the well-known place-name Moguntiacum, from the shorter form of which, Moguntia or Mogontia, are derived its modern representatives, French Mayence and German Mainz. The original Gaulish comes doubtless from the same source as the Irish for-mach, 'increase,' tór-mag or tór-mach, 'increase, the act of adding to;' Latin magnus, 'great;' German mögen, macht; English may, might and main. But words of this origin vary widely in point of meaning in the different Aryan languages, and one group of them supplies expression for the idea of a youth who is growing or has just grown to the might and vigour of manhood: sometimes a transition from this meaning takes place to that of a boy or young man as a servant or slave, much as in the case of becoming the French and English page, or the Welsh gwas, 'young man,' used mostly now in the sense of servant. The words in point from the stem mag are such as the Gothic magu, 'boy,' mavi (for magvi), 'girl;' the old Irish mug (genitive moga), 'servant or slave;' Welsh meu-dwy, 'a hermit,' literally servus Dei; Cornish maw, 'a lad or servant;' Breton maouez, 'a woman.' Kindred words are also copious in the Aryan languages of the East, but their divergence of meaning is very remarkable: thus Sanskrit, dwelling on another kind of increase of strength or importance, presents us with a vocable magha, meaning 'a gift or reward,' and maghavan, which means 'freely giving, a giver,' said especially of one who rewards priests and minstrels with offerings: the same two words existed also in Zend, but in that language they retained a more ancient