Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/679

Rh escaped the deluge, occasioned by the mutilation of the cosmic person of Hymi in the Norse story (p. 115), is named Ber-gelmir and called a wise giant, which excludes him from being one of the Anses, just as Cronus and his brothers were Titans, and not of the number of the gods strictly so-called. It is not said, however, that he saved the human race in his ark; but that the original story was to that effect, may be inferred from the cognate ones in Greek and in Welsh. In the latter the name found given to the rescuer of the human race is Nevyᵭ; but the one we are now seeking should be the etymological counterpart of the Greek and Sanskrit forms serving as our clue, and traces of it offer themselves in the Welsh Manawyᵭan and the Irish Manannán. Now the latter is fabled to have been the name of the first king of the Isle of Man, whence that appellation has sometimes been assumed to be derived. But this is an error, and it inverts the relation of the names; for the matter is not as simple as it looks. It comes briefly to this: Manannán gave his original name, in a form corresponding to Manu and its congeners, to the island, making it Manavia Insula or, as it were, for which we have in Welsh and Irish respectively Manaw and Manann. Then. from these names of the island the god