I think that Donaldson and Mone are unquestionably wrong in making the name of this river Rho-dan-us, from a word dan, water. Still more unreasonable is a derivation in the Cod. Vind., from roth, violent, and dan, Celt. and Hebr. a judge! On this Zeuss (Gramm. Celt.) remarks—"The syllable an of the word Rhodanus is without doubt only derivative, and we have nothing here to do with a judge; nevertheless the meaning violent (currens, rapidus,) is not to be impugned." The word in question seems to be found in Welsh rhedu, to run, to race, Gael. roth, a wheel, &c. But there is a word of opposite meaning, Gael. reidh, smooth, which is liable to intermix. Also the Germ. roth, red, may come in, though I do not think that Förstemann has reason in placing all the German rivers to it.

Allied to the last word is the Eng. race, and the many cognate words in the Indo-European languages which have the sense of rapid motion, as Welsh rhysu, &c.

From the Gael. garbh, Welsh garw, violent, Armstrong derives the name of the Garonne and other rivers.[39] The root seems to be found in Sansc. karv or karp, Latin carpo, &c., implying violent action. The Lat. carpo is applied by the poets to denote rapid progress, as of a river, through a country. So likewise more metaphorically to the manner in which a bold and steep mountain rises from the valley. As also one of our own poets has said—

Hence this root is found in the names of mountains as well as rivers—e.g., the Carpathians (Carpātes), and the Isle of Carpăthus, which "consists for the most part of bare mountains, rising to a central height of 4,000 feet, with a steep and inaccessible coast."[40]

From the Sansc. su, to shoot forth, sûs, sûtis, rushing or darting, Gr. σουσις, cursus, I take to be the following. Among the derived words, the Gael. sûth, a billow, seems to be that which comes nearest to the sense required.

Probably to the above we may put a form sest, sost, found in the following.

To the above root I also place the following, corresponding more distinctly with Old High German schuzzen, Ang.-Sax. sceotan, Eng. shoot, Obs. Gael. and Ir. sciot, dart, arrow.[43]

From the Germ. jagen, to hunt, to drive or ride fast, Bender derives the name of the Jaxt, in the sense of swiftness, suggesting also a comparison with the ancient Jaxartes of Asia. Förstemann considers both suggestions doubtful, but the former seems to me to be reasonable enough. The older sense of jagen is found in the Sansc. yug, to dart forth, formed on the simple verb ya, to go. And appellatives are found in the Finnic words jokk, jöggi, a river. As for the Jaxartes, I am rather inclined to think that the more correct form would be Jazartes, and that it contains the word jezer, before referred to.

From the root vip, to move, p. 64, by the prefix s, is formed Old Norse svipa, Ang.-Sax. swîfan, Eng. sweep, &c. In these the sense varies between going fast and going round, and the same may be the case in the following names.

From the Obs. Gael. sgiap, sgiob, to move rapidly, Eng. skip, may be the following.

In the Gael. brais, impetuous, related perhaps to Lat. verso, we may find the root of the following.

From the Sansc. rab or rav, to dart forth, whence (in a somewhat changed sense) Eng. rave, French ravir, Lat. rabidus, &c. The original meaning of a ravine was a great flood, or as Cotgrave expresses it—"A ravine or inundation of water, which overwhelmeth all things that come in its way."

From the Sansc. math, to move, are derived, as I take it, Old High German muot, Mod. Germ. muth, Ang.-Sax. môd, courage or spirit, Welsh mwyth, swift, &c., to which I place the following.

The Sansc. sphar, sphurj, to burst forth, shews the root of a number of words such as spark, spring, spirt, spruce, spry, in which the sense of briskness or liveliness is more or less contained. But the Sansc. sphar or spar must be traced back to a simpler form spa or spe, as found in spew, to vomit, and in the word spa, now confined to medicinal springs.

Derived forms from the above root are also the following, which correspond more closely with Germ. sprütsen, Ang.-Sax. sprytan, Eng. spirt, Ital. sprizzare. And I think that most of these names are probably German.

In the preceding chapter I have treated of the root al, el, il, to go, and various of its derivations. There is another, alac, alc, ilc, which, as it seems most probably either to have the meaning of swiftness, as in the Lat. alacer, or of tortuousness, as in the Greek ἑλικος, I include in this place.

From the Welsh tarddu, to burst forth, we may take the following. There does not seem any connection between this and the root of dart (jaculum); the latter from the first signifies penetration, and in river-names comes before us in the oblique sense of clearness or transparency.

With the Sansc. till, to move, to agitate, we may probably connect the Gael. dile and tuil, Welsh diluw, dylif, dylwch, a flood, deluge, as also Ang.-Sax. dilgian, German tilgen, to overthrow, destroy, &c. The Ang.-Sax. dêlan, Germ. thielen, to divide, in the sense of boundary, may however intermix in these names.

With the two Welsh forms dylif and dylwch, deluge, we may perhaps connect the following, though for the former the Ang.-Sax. delfan, to dig, delf, a ditch, may also be suitable.

From the Gael. and Ir. taosg, to pour, tias, tide, flood, may be the following. Perhaps the special sense of cataract may come in, at least in some cases, as two of the under-noted rivers, the Tees and the Tosa, are noted for their falls.

From the Sansc. gad or gand, Ang.-Sax. geôtan, Suio-Goth. gjuta, Danish gyde, Old Norse giosa, Old High Ger. giezen, Obs. Gael. guis, all having the meaning of Eng. "gush," we get the following. The Gotha or Gœta of Sweden may probably derive its name from the well-known fall which it makes at Trolhætta. So also the Gaddada of Hindostan is noted for its falls; and the Giessbach is of European celebrity. But in some of the other names the sense may not extend beyond that of wandering, as we find it in Eng. gad, which I take to be also from this root. Or that of stream, as in Old High Germ. giozo, Gael. and Ir. gaisidh, rivulus.

From the Sansc. arb or arv, to ravage or destroy, cognate with Lat. orbo, &c., may be the following. To the very marked characteristic of the Arve in Savoy I have referred at p. 6. But there is a word of precisely opposite meaning, the Celt. arab, Welsh araf, gentle, which is very liable to intermix.

In the Sansc. cal, to move, and the derivatives Sansc. calas, Gr. κελης, Obs. Gael. callaidh, Latin celer, all having the same meaning—the sense of rapidity seems sufficiently marked to include them in this chapter.

I am inclined to bring in here, as a derivative form of cal, and perhaps corresponding with the Obs. Gael. callaidh, celer, the forms caled, calt, gelt. That the Germ. kalt, Eng. cold, may intermix, is very probable, but I do not think that all the English rivers at any rate can be placed to it. There is more to be said for it in the case of the Caldew than of the others, for one of the two streams that form it is called the Cald-beck (i.e., cold brook), and it seems natural that the whole river should then assume the name of Caldew (cold river). Yet there may be nothing more in it than that the Saxons or Danes who succeeded to the name, adopted it in their own sense, and conformed to it. It is to be observed that although the form Caldew corresponds with the Germ. Chaldhowa, yet that the local pronunciation is invariably Cauda (=Calda), corresponding with the Scandinavian form. Upon the whole however, there is much doubt about this group; the form gelt Förstemann refers, as I myself had previously done, to Old Norse gelta, in the sense of resonare. In the following names I take the Kalit(va) of Russia, and the Celydnus and Celadon of Greece to approach the nearest to the original form.

I am also inclined to bring in, as another derivative form of cal, the word calip, calb, kelp. The only appellatives I find for it are the word kelp, sea-weed, and the Scottish kelpie, a water-spirit, wherein, as in other words of the same sort, may perhaps lie a word for water. However, this can be considered as nothing more than a conjecture.

The Sansc. car, to move, Lat. curro, like some other words of the same sort, branches out into two different meanings—that of going fast, and that of going round. Hence the river-names from this root have in some cases the sense of rapidity, and in others of tortuousness; and these two senses are somewhat at variance with each other, because tortuousness is more generally connected with slowness. Separating the two meanings as well as I can, I bring in the following here.

There appear to be several words in which the sense of violence or rapidity is brought out by the preposition pra, pro, fro, in composition with a verb. Thus the Welsh ffre-uo, to gush, whence ffrau, a torrent, seems to correspond with the Sansc. pra-i, Lat. præ-eo, &c. Or perhaps we should take a verb with a stronger sense, say yu, to gush, and presume a Sansc. pra-yu = Welsh ffre-uo. In the Albanian πρό, a torrent, corresponding with Welsh ffrau, there seems, however, no trace of a verb.

The Welsh ffrydio, to stream, to gush, appears to be formed similarly from the preposition fra, joined with the verb eddu, to press on, to go, corresponding with Sansc. it, Latin ito, &c. Hence it would correspond with a Sansc. pra-it, Lat. præ-ito, &c. From the verb comes the appellative ffrwd, a torrent, corresponding with the Bohem. praud, of the same meaning.