V. THE SUN HERO.
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Leinster to mean 'Dér, or Tear, daughter of Forgall king of Lochlann,'[1] which one cannot help comparing with the name of Fand, and associating with Derborgaill's love for Cúchulainn, as an analogous case of the nature myth representing the drop glistening in the sun's rays.
- ↑ Irish dér means a 'tear,' and is in fact the etymological equivalent of that English word and its congeners in other languages, such as Greek δάκρυ}} and Welsh deigr of the same signification, both Irish and English having levelled the path of the voice by removing the guttural consonant. So Derborgaill literally meant Forgall's tear. As to the structure of the name, it is to be observed that it is not a compound, and that, though dér, 'a tear,' has not yet been met with except as a feminine, the cognates make it fairly certain that it was originally neuter in Irish. It is known that, under the influence of neuters of the O declension (Latin ij. decL), other neuters in Irish sometimes take a final nasal, which should correspond, but for this false analogy, to the ν of ἀγαθον and the m of bellum, and is found written in Gaulish v or n. Thus, though the Irish muir is of the same meaning, etymology and declension as the Latin mare, it becomes muirn in Muir n-Icht, 'the Ictian Sea,' or the English Channel; similarly, teg or tech, 'house,' of the same etymology and declension as the Greek τέγος, becomes tegn, as in teg n-dagfir, 'domus viri boni:' for more instances, see the Grammatica Celtica2, pp. 235, 270. Treated in the same way, dér would become dérn, and prefixed to Forgaill would, according to the rule as to n + f (earlier n + v), yield Dervorgaill, with the v prevented from hardening into f, and the n ultimately elided. Dervorgaill would be written in the ancient Irish orthography Derborgaill, which the scribe of the story in the Bk. of Leinster, 125, has spelled Derbforgaill, in which he inserted an f with the punctum delens in order to preserve the transparence of the etymology which he wished to advocate, and which appears to have been the right one. Accordingly the name should be now pronounced Der Vorgaill, or, in one word, Dervorgaill with the accent on the middle syllable; and that it is so, I learn from Prof. Mackinnon of Edinburgh, who recollects this name borne by an old woman in his native isle of Colonsay when he was a child: it was, as he kindly informs me, always accented on the syllable vor. The dér here in question is to be distinguished from dĕr, said to mean a girl; and it is to be borne in mind in reading this conjecture.
