ON THE MEANING OF RIVER-NAMES.
The names of rivers may be divided into two classes, appellative and descriptive—or in other words, into those which describe a river simply as "the water" or "the river," and those which refer to some special quality or property of its own.
In the case of a descriptive name we may be sure that it has been given—not from any fine-drawn attribute, but from some obvious characteristic—not from anything which we have to seek, but from something which, as the French say, "saute aux yeux." If a stream be very rapid and impetuous—if its course be winding and tortuous—if its waters be very clear or very turbid—these are all marked features which would naturally give it a name.
But such derivations as the following from Bullet can only serve to provoke a smile. Thus of the Wandle in Surrey he says—"Abounding in excellent trouts—van, good, dluz, a trout." (I much fear that the "excellent trouts" have been made for the derivation, and not the derivation for the trouts.) Of the Irt in Cumberland he says—"Pearls are found in this river. Irt signifies surprising, prodigious, marvellous." Marvellous indeed! But Bullet, though nothing can be more childish than many of his etymological processes, has the merit of at least taking pains to find out what is actually the notable feature in each case under consideration, a point which the scholarly Germans sometimes rather neglect.
River-names, in relation to their meaning, may be ranked under seven heads.
1. Those which describe a river simply as "the water," "the river." Parallel with this, and under the same head, we may take the words which describe a river as "that which flows," because the root-meaning of most of the words signifying water is, that which flows, that which runs, that which goes. Nevertheless, there may be sometimes fine shades of difference which we cannot now perceive, and which would remove the names out of this class into the next one.
2. Those which, passing out of the appellative into the descriptive, characterize a river as that which runs violently, that which flows gently, or that which spreads widely.
3. Those which describe a river by the nature of its course, as winding, crooked, or otherwise.
4. Those which refer to the quality of its waters, as clear, bright, turbid, or otherwise.
5. Those which refer to the sound made by its waters.
6. Those which refer to the nature of its source, or the manner of its formation, as by the confluence of two or more streams.
7. Those which refer to it as a boundary or as a protection.
Under one or other of the above heads may be classed the greater part of the river-names of Europe.
And how dry and unimaginative a list it is! We dive deep into the ancient language of Hindostan for the meaning of words, but we recall none of the religious veneration to the personified river which is so strikingly manifest even to the present day. As we read in the Vedas of three thousand years ago of the way-farers supplicating the spirit of the stream for a safe passage, so we read in the newspapers of to-day of the pilgrims, as the train rattled over the iron bridge, casting their propitiatory offerings into the river below. We seek for word-meanings in the classical tongue of Greece, but they come up tinged with no colour of its graceful myths. Few and far between are the cases—and even these are doubtful, to say the least—in which anything of fancy, of poetry, or of mythology, is to be traced in the river-names of Europe.