Somersetshire Axe, the Wiltshire Ash, the Scotch
Esk, the Monmouthshire Usk, the Oxfordshire
Isis.

The Sanscrit word ud (collected waters) is
also a starting-place for derivations, according to
Grimson. To it the river Otter owes its name,
and also the Dorsetshire Woder and the Sussex
Adur, a word which exactly corresponds in
origin with the French Adour; and now, though
we disappoint Cumberland people, we must
remark that their Eden does not derive its name
from Paradise, but from the old Welsh verb
eddaih (to flow), like the Nottinghamshire Idle
and the Scotch Ettrick.

The Welsh word dwfr (water) has stood
godfather to many rivers. It stood sponsor to the
Yorkshire Dow and the Staffordshire Dove, and
through its stream it gave a name to the town
of Dover: signifying simply to move. The root
exists in the Basque word ur (water), and the
Hungarian er (a brook). Under this one roof,
Grimson clusters the Radnorshire and
Worcestershire Arrows, the Sligo Arrow and the Sussex
Arun, the Yorkshire Arke and the Lancashire
Irk.

One would not have expected that any
English river would have a name derived from the
same source as that of the great German Rhine,
yet so it is. The Sanscrit ri (to flow) is found
in the name of the German stream, as well as of
the Worcestershire Rea, the Devonshire Wray,
and the Rye, the tributary of the Liffey.

There is an old Welsh root, rhedu (to race),
says Grimson, speaking affectionately of it, from
whence not only the Rhône derives its name,
but also that quiet little streamlet in our
beautiful lake district, the Rotha, the Shropshire
Rodden, the Thames tributary, Rother, the
Sussex Roller, and the Ross-shire Rasay.

From the Welsh word garw (violent) many
rivers have derived their names, as Garfwater, a
burn in Lanarkshire, the Gryffe in Renfrew,
and the Girvan in Ayr; while from the old
Gaelic sqiot (English ship), expressing sudden
and abrupt force, the Sheffield Sheaf and the
Skippen owe their titles.

There is a Sanscrit word, sphar (to burst
forth), a venerable root from which, says Grimson,
many young shoots have sprung, such as
our English words spark, spring, spirt, spruce,
spry, spa, spew, all expressing a lively force.
The Spry at Elgin, the Scotch streams Spean
and Spear, the Westmoreland Sprint, were named
from the vivacity and vigour of their currents.

Languages, while they live, show their inner
life by growing, changing. Thus the Sanscrit
word tine (to agitate), while it lived, became the
root of the Welsh word dilinco (a deluge), and
the German tilgen (to overthrow). From this
word, with an intermixture of the sense of
boundary from the German thielen (to divide),
comes the name of the Northumberland Tile,
and the Diel of Limerick.

It is not unfrequent for a word to have two
conflicting derivations. In that case the actual
nature of the stream must guide the etymologist.
For instance, the Ayrshire Irvine may
have been named either from the Celtic arav
(gentle), or the Sanscrit arv (to destroy). So
again in the rivers—Gelt, and Chelt, and Calder
—there is the German kalt (cold), and the old
Gaelic Callaidh (swift).

"Sometimes," says Grimson, "the old
Sanscrit word, as, for example, car (to move),
branches into two different meanings, one
expressing the going fast, the other the going
round. From one or both of these comes the
Perthshire Garry and the Selkirkshire Garrow."

The derivation of the Medway has been much
discussed. One of the great German philologists
traces it to the word mead (honey), and the old
Norse veig (a cup); that is to say, the bowl of
honey. Gibson, on the other hand, thinks its
original name was the Mid-way, because it flows
through the middle of Kent. Grimson, last but
not least, derives the name from the Gaelic
meath (mild), and the old Norse mida (to move
softly, mildly), for, says he, the Medway is a
grave gently flowing river.

The Gaelic word liomh (smooth, clammy, or
sluggish) enters into the names of many rivers,
as the Leam at Leamington; the Dorsetshire
Lyme; the Devonshire Leman; the Kentish
Limen; and the Scottish Loch Lomond. From
the Gaelic foil (slow, gentle), the old word-
painters named the Fal, at Falmouth, the Scotch
Fillar, and the Cork Foilagh. The Welsh verb
taenan (to expand), used for broad and expanding
streams, boasts a large family of godchildren
rivers—as the Tavy, the Dee, the Tay, the
Teign, the Tamar, and even the Thames itself.

Let me cull a few more derivations from
Grimson, curious and valuable, because they
show the early intermingling of nations. The
derivations I shall now choose shall be less
abstract and more indubitable. They are derivations
of names which betray more love and fixed
observation in namers, and imply, therefore, less
vagrancy and more civilisation in race.

The Aberdeen stream the Bucket, the Shropshire
Bowl, and the Aberdeen Bogie, all come
from the Sanscrit root bhuj (English bow),
meaning tortuous; the Cam, at Cambridge, from
the Gaelic and Welsh words cam (to bend); the
Cumberland Crummock from the Welsh word
crom (curved); the Derwent from the Welsh
Derwyn (to wind). "In many river names,
a root implying clearness, brightness, or
transparency, is to be traced," says Grimson. The
old Gaelic can (white, pure) is embedded in
the names of the Essex Cann, the Kentish Ken,
the Devonshire Kenne, the Cornish Conner, and
the Lancashire Conder. The early settlers in
England little thought that a few centuries
would leave no trace of them but a burial
mound or two, and the name they gave to the
rivers beside which they dwelt. Yet the old
Celtic word vind, Welsh gwynn (white), as
fossilised in the names of the rivers Vent
(Cumberland), Quenny (Shropshire), Finn (Ulster),
Finnan (Inverness), and Windermere, Cumble,
and the Wandle (Surrey), are all the records,
except a few stray words, we possess of those
early races.