Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/91

Rh as Dagda the Great; and that she had two sisters who were also called Brigit, the one the patroness of the healing art, and the other of smith-work. This means, in other words, that the Goidels formerly worshipped a Minerva called Brigit, who presided over the three chief professions known in Erinn: to her province in fact might be said to belong just what Caesar terms operum atque artificiorum initia. How largely the prestige of the goddess helped to make the fortune of the saint who took her name, St. Bridget or Bride, it would perhaps be difficult to say, and I pass on to the name Brigit, which makes in the genitive Brigte. This implies an early Goidelic nominative Brigentî, and enables us to identify a presumably corresponding goddess in the Brigantia of Latin inscriptions found here, namely in the country of her namesakes the Brigantes. Add to this that a Gaulish inscription found at Volnay, near Beaune, reads: Iccavos Oppianicnos ieuru Brigindoni cantalon. This literally means that Iccavos, son of Oppianos, made for Brigindo something denoted by the accusative cantalon