Chapter CXL: Section IV: Fear, Gwr, Vir

The free days of the Kelt were fast ending. He fell before Roman discipline, though not without a worthy struggle.

In Cisalpine Gaul, Marcellus and Scipio themselves found Britomartus, or Viridomarus, king of the Boii, so worthy an antagonist that Marcellus, having slain him in single fight, dedicated his _spolia opima_ in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. In Spain, a Lusitanian hunter or shepherd, named Viriathus, carried on a guerilla warfare with the Roman legions for fourteen years. In Gaul, Cæsar mentions Virdumarus among his allies the Æduans, and says that their chief magistrate was termed _vergobretus_, and among his enemies, the Unelli and Arverni, he records Viridovix, Vergosillanus, and Vercingetorix.

The last chieftain was one of the most gallant men who struggled in vain against the eagles.

However, our concern is chiefly with his name. In fact, these _Virs_ of Cæsar might have been placed in our preceding division, for they are from the same root, _bri_, or force, and still more resemble the Sanscrit _virja_, as well as the Latin _virtus_ and _vir_. Exactly answering to _vir_, though coming in an independent stream from the same source, the Gaelic man is _fear_, plural _fir_; the Cymric is _gwr_, gen. _gyr_, plural _wyr_. Again, valour or virtue is in Welsh _gwyrth_, and _gwr_ is the adjective for excelling.

Thus there can be no reasonable doubt, that the _ver_ or _vir_ of the Latin version of these Keltic heroes was a rendering of the _fear_ of the Gael, or of the _gwr_ of the Cymry, both not infrequent commencements; and the double name of the hero of Cisalpine Gaul, Viridomarus, or Britomartus, brings us back to the original root. It may be that Britomartus referred to his great strength.

Vergobretus, the magistrate of the Ædui, is explained either as _Fear-co-breith_, man who judges, or _War-cy-fraith_, man placed over the laws; or, taking _gwr_ as excelling, and _brawd_, as justice, he would be excelling in justice.

Viriathus must be referred to _fear_, man, and, perhaps, to _aodh_, fire.

Vercingetorix himself may be translated into _Fear-cuin-cedo-righ_, man who is chief of a hundred heads; and his cousin, Vergosillanus, is the man either of the banner or the spear, according as _sillanus_ is referred to _saighean_, a banner, or to _saelan_, a spear.

Here, then, are the tokens of kindred between the Gauls of the continent and the Gael of our islands, for _Fear_, the frequent commencement in both Ireland and Scotland, is assuredly the word that Cæsar rendered by _Vir_, more correctly both in sense and sound than he knew.

Fearghus, man-deed, from _gus_, a deed, is the rendering of one of the most national of Gaelic names, though Macpherson makes it Fearguth, man of the word.

Bold genealogists place Feargus at the head of the line of Scottish kings, and make him contemporary with Alexander the Great. Another Fergus was son of Finn, and considered as even a greater bard than his nephew, Oisean. Poems said to be by him are still extant, in one of which he describes his rescue of his brother, Oisean, who had been beguiled into a fairy cave, and there imprisoned, till he discovered himself to his brother by cutting splinters from his spear, and letting them float down the stream that flowed out of the place of his captivity.

Fearghus, the son of Erc, a Dalriad prince, was, in 493, blessed by St. Patrick, and led the great migration of Scots to Albin, together with his brothers Loarn and Aonnghus, who each named their own district, while he reigned over the whole region of the Scots,—that around Argyle; whither he had transported the stone of dominion, that sooner or later brought conquest to the race who possessed it. From these Fearghus or Farghy in Ireland, Fergus in Scotland, and the feminine Fergusiana still continue in use.

Fearachar is another Scottish form. Ferquard is given as prince of the Scots in Ireland, at some incalculable time; and Fearchur or Ferchar was the king of the Scots just after St. Columbus' death. He is Latinized as Ferquardus; and this was the name of an Earl of Ross in 1231; and as Farquhar has continued in favour in the Highlands. Feardorcha is the blind man. Fardorougha is an incorrect modernism, and Ferdinand and Frederick the supposed equivalent.

_Gwr_, or _Wr_, is the Cymric form of the same word, and the parallel to Fergus among the Picts was Wrguist, or Urguist, a prince who lived about 800, and whose daughter was called after him, married the Scottish Eacha or Fergusiana, and thus led to the union of the two races under her descendant, Kenneth MacAlpin.

Gwrtigearn, excelling king, is a Silurian prince of doubtful fame. Through Latinism we know him as Vortigern. It would seem that when the usurpation of Maximus had involved the Roman empire in confusion, and left Britain without any legions to defend it against the robber nations round, that he made some attempt at a partial revival of national spirit; but, failing this, entered into a treaty with the Anglo-Saxon invaders, and was thought to have betrayed the cause of his country.

What these doings were is another matter. We all know the romantic history of Vortigern’s letter to Henghist and Horsa; of his visit to the Saxon camp; of Rowena and her cup; of the Isle of Thanet marked out by strips of cow-hide; and of the treachery of the Saxons at Stonehenge. There is nothing morally impossible in the story as it was dished up for modern history, and it used to satisfy our ancestors before they had found out that a small king on the Welsh border could hardly have dealt with Thanet, and, moreover, that the Teutonic immigration had been going on for many years past on the eastern coast.

As to the cow-hide and the massacre, they are said to be old Thuringian traditions; and the Welsh seem to have either invented or preserved the story of the fascinations of Rowena. At any rate, they named her; for, alas for Saxon Rowena, there is nothing Teutonic in the word, and the Kymric form _Rhonwen_, white skirt, betrays its origin. Rhonwen, or Bradwen, is the name by which she is called in the _Gododin_, a poem ascribed to the bard Aneurin, and, perhaps, containing some germs of truth, though its connection with the Stonehenge massacre is hotly disputed.

CHAPTER III.

GAELIC NAMES.