there seems to be no sufficient reason to sever the Vasso Galate of the manuscripts of Gregory from the Vassocaleti of the Rhenish inscription.[1] One should rather correct the former according to the latter, and then the whole becomes intelligible in the light of Gregory's description of the Gaulish temple. For caleti proves to be the genitive of the adjective which is in modern Welsh caled, 'hard,' in older Welsh calet, Irish calath of the same meaning. The other part of the Gaulish term vasso is to be equated with the Welsh word gwas,[2] 'mansion or palace; Irish foss, 'a staying or rest,' of the same origin as the Greek ἄστυ, 'town or city;' Sanskrit vastu, 'a seat or place,' vas, 'to dwell or remain;' Eng. was, were. So Vasso-calet must have meant the hard mansion or hard palace; perhaps one should rather say the hard temple, since it is believed that the Gaulish noun survived in the old French vas, which meant a chapel, church, temple or cloister. As to the building being called hard, one has only to recall what Gregory has left on record concerning its walls of thirty feet in thickness and the solid nature of the structure generally.
Lastly, I should construe Mercurius Vassocaleti somewhat in a Celtic fashion, as meaning 'Mercury of the
- ↑ Even those who preferred doing so would have to explain Vasso Galate as meaning the Gaulish temple, and to refer it probably to the same edifice.
- ↑ Much conjecture has been wasted on this term, especially by writers aware only of a Welsh word gwas, meaning a young man or servant, Gaulish vassos (as in Dagovassus), and not of gwas, meaning a palace or mansion, which alone is the one here in point.
