[ page ]used in the twelfth century, though as yet probably in the unaffected form gam.
With regard to this word gam, although this is the more usual ancient form, still from the analogy of the Welsh gauaf for an older *gaiam, the Latin hiems, the Greek χεῖμα (winter), the Sanscrit, hima (snow), found in Hima-laya = ‘snowy mountains’ or ‘snow’s abode,’ from the analogy, too, of our own gem-red) (whence geiṁ reaḋ), we should expect rather a form with a slender vowel, as ‘gaim’ or ‘geim’. As a matter of fact, this very gaim is also found: e.g., the line quoted above from the Aṁra, reads in O’Beirne Crowe’s edition from Leaḃar na h-Uiḋre: “Snigid Gaim, rofaiṫ sam.” So also we find gem in other compounds besides gem-red, for instance, gem-aidċe[1] = a winter’s night (Leaḃar breac).
Before I leave gaṁ, I may call to mind the fact that, though the word is no longer a living current name for winter, we have at least one instance of its use in a placename—namely, Sliaḃ Gaṁ, the Irish name for the miscalled ‘Ox Mountains,’ which form part of the boundary between the counties of Sligo and Mayo. Sliaḃ Gaṁ is the name of these mountains in all our native Irish writers, and is evidently very ancient. Gaṁ here shows no trace of inflection. It is either genitive singular, with the inflection lost, the name in that case meaning ‘snowy mountain,’ or a genitive plural, the name then meaning ‘mount of snows,’ rather than ‘mount of winters.’ From the similarity, however, of gaṁ to the living word daṁ (ox), someone with little knowledge of the language—and, doubtless, with the ‘bovine cultus’ strong on his bovine brain—imagined it could mean nothing but ‘Ox Mountains,’ and the mistranslation is copied from one map to another. Sliaḃ Gaṁ is indeed, in one sense, our Irish Himalaya, and the name is to be compared with that of Sliaḃ-sneaċta = ‘snowy-mountain’ in Inishowen, Druim-sneaċta = ‘snowy-ridge’ in Co. Monaghan (O’Curry); Snae-fell (a Norse name), in the Isle of Man; Snowdon, in N. Wales, and such like.
As to the -rad in sam-rad which, owing to the law of caol le caol, became -red in gem-red, I believe it to be a shortened and broken form of ráiṫe, which, though it now only means a quarter of the year, a season, a term of three months, must originally have meant a part, any part or division. The word ráiṫe, I take it, has lost an initial p, and is for p-ráiṫ-e = prat = part-, just as ró is for *pró, lán for *plán, riaṁ for *priam, etc. Two classes of words are formed with this ending—(1) Collectives, as laoċ-raḋ, rioġ-raḋ, mac-raḋ, etc., which were anciently declined as feminines singular, but are now considered plurals, and written laoċ-raiḋ, eaċraiḋ, ⁊c. , and (2) singulars, like saṁ-raḋ, geim-reaḋ, son-raḋ, fuilreaḋ, ⁊c., which were sometimes used as masculines and sometimes neuters—now always masculines. Laoċ-raḋ means, therefore, as Windisch translates it, Krieger-schaar, warrior-division, hero-kind, -rad = schaar = part, share or division.
I have suggested that our word gam (winter) originally meant snow, like the hima in Hima-laya, and that most probably this is the meaning we should give the word in the name Sliaḃ Gaṁ. Gem-red would then mean the ‘snow-part,’ the ‘snowy time’ or division of the year. What did gam mean originally, or is this to inquire too curiously? There can be little doubt that it is the same word as sum in the English sum-mer, and som in the German som-mer. But what is the meaning of this sam, som or sum? I do not think it can mean anything else but sun. Sam and gam then are the sun and the snow, the sunny time and the snowy time. But sam is not the Irish word for sun, neither is it a Teutonic word, unless sum or som be the original of sun and sonne. Cormac, in his Glossary, suggested a Hebrew origin of the word sam, saying that in that language the word meant sun. It is undoubtedly true that the Hebrew word for sun may be written shimsh, shemsh, shamsh, or even sams, as in the proper name Samson, as given in the Vulgate. It is admitted that this proper name signifies either ‘sun-like’ or a ‘splendid sun,’ and that it is the first part which means sun. We will not say that the Celts and Teutons borrowed this word from the Hebrews, but is it not possible that it is a word common to all three races, only that in the Hebrew alone it has its true and ultimate explanation? In the last century and beginning of this everything in Irish was traced, without any real grounds, to Hebrew and Phœnician, but those who compared them seem to have known little of either Irish or Hebrew. But now we have gone to the other extreme, never thinking of the Hebrew, and ridiculing every comparison that is made between them. No one who knows Irish seems to learn Hebrew, and no one who knows Hebrew seems to learn Irish, or at any rate no one seems to know enough of both to make an intelligent comparison. The Aryan character of the Celtic dialects no one now doubts, but is it quite certain that the Semitic and Aryan tongues have no common roots? I do not think it is, and I believe the venerable Cormac made many a wilder shot than when he compared the Irish sam ‘summer,’ with the Hebrew Samson, the ‘sun-like.’
Besides samrad and gemred, the ancient Irish had two other names for each of their divisions of the year, but still from the same roots, sam and gam. For summer they had samfuċt and samain, and for winter, gamfuċt and gamain. These names arose at different times and, perhaps, were used in different parts of the country. Samfuċt and gamfuċt are given in O’Donovan’s Essay, already referred to, quoted from the law tract, H-3-18, p. 13, T.C.D. They do not seem to have got into general use, or, if they ever did, they gave way to samrad and gemred, and became obsolete. They are, however, of the very same formation and meaning as the other names, for the one is sam-thuċt = summer time or period, the other, gam-thuċt = winter-time or period, for tuċt (O’Reilly) means time, season or period. In these two words we find a relic of old Irish pronunciation, that is the aspirated t (th) represented by f, just as in a few words yet the same thing holds. e.g., sruṫ (stream), and sruṫan (streamlet), are pronounced almost like sruf and srufan. The progress—or rather the deterioration—of the aspirated t down to a mere h, as it is at present, was probably this: At first it was a real dental aspirate, as it is in Welsh to this day (cf. mam a thâd=mother and father), corresponding to the sound of the Greek Theta and to the English th in think. This next turned into an f sound, which survived in a few words, but mostly passed into the corresponding guttural aspirate ch, which in time became weakened to h. It is well-known that the aspirates freely interchange with each other in all the Aryan languages.
And now for samain. I hold that this word was originally used to mean the summer, that it was a synonym of samrad and samfuċt, that it was probably earlier in origin than either of these, but that in its true sense it eventually gave way to the others, especially the former, and that it survived only in a very restricted sense. I do not know if anyone has as yet questioned the explanation
- ↑ There is in Maynooth College Library a collection of stories, called “Gaduiḋe geur na geaṁ-oiḋċe.”
