Godfrey Higgins, in his "Celtic Druids," speaks of Samhan or Saman as "one of the gods, the most revered in Ireland." He says:—"An annual solemnity was instituted to his honour, which is yet celebrated on the evening of the first day of November, which yet at this day is called the Oidhche Samhna, or the night of Samhan." He further informs us that he was "also called Bal-Sab or Lord of Death," and that "Samhan was also the sun, or rather the image of the sun," and adds:—
"These attributes of Samhan seem at first contradictory, but they are not unusual amongst the heathen gods. With the Greeks, Dionysos, the good Demiurge, is identified with Hades. In Egypt, Osiris was the lord of Death; with the Scandinavians, Odin, the god beneficent, was, at the same time, King of the infernal regions. This deity was above all the others whom we have named, but he was below the supreme being Baal. If Samhan were the sun, as we see he was, he answers to Mithra of the Persians, who was the middle link between Oromasdes and Arimanes—between the Creator and the Destroyer, and was called the Preserver."[4]
With the aid of the Hindoo Vedas, perhaps some light may be thrown on this subject, as well as upon the origin of the names of some other rivers in the neighbourhood, which have hitherto eluded satisfactory explanation.
The gods of the Vedas appear to have been, more or less, personifications of what were termed "the elements." The sun, the moon, the sky or firmament, the dawn and evening twilight, the sea, lightning, clouds, rain, wind, frost, fire, &c., and their attendant active phenomena, contributed mainly to the construction of their mythological edifice. Indra was god of the firmament, the earliest thunderer, the forerunner of Zeus, Jupiter and Thor; Agni was the god of fire, and Soma was the deity who brought down to earth the celestial liquor, the "drink of the gods," the amrita of the Vedas, the nectar of the Greeks. Soma was so designated because the "soma plant, which the Hindoos now identify with the Asclepias acida or Sarcostemma viminale," contained "a milky juice of a sweetish sub-acid flavour, which, being mixed with honey and other ingredients, yielded to the enraptured Aryans the first fermented liquor their race had ever known." All celestial or atmospheric phenomena were named from earthly objects. Clouds were called rocks and cows, and the mountain streams of the former and the milk of the latter were the liquid nourishers and fertilisers of the soil. The lightning-god was believed to pierce the rock or the rain cloud, and so water the parched earth. Walter Kelly says:—
"The identity of the heavenly soma with the cloud-water, and the close connection in which fire and soma are brought in various Aryan legends, prove that the drink of the gods was conceived to be a product of the storm. It appears also that the earthly soma was boiled or brewed before it was fermented, whence it must have followed, as a matter of course, that its divine counterpart should be supposed to undergo the same process. Hence it is manifest that we cannot claim for any of the later ages the credit of having invented the metaphor involved in the common saying, 'It's brewing a storm.' In that phrase, as in many others, we only repeat the thoughts of our primæval ancestors."
Dr. Kuhn identifies the modern word brew with the brajj of the Rig Veda, which has reference to the roasting of barley for brewing purposes, and is intimately connected with the Bhrigus, beings who "brewed and lightened" the heavenly soma out of the stormy phenomena of the mountain regions. In the Welsh of the present day, brygu means to grow out, to overspread. One modern Welsh word, brwysg, means drunk, and another brwys, fertile, luxuriant. The double use of the term at the present time, is, therefore, in singular harmony with the hypothesis of Kuhn, and adds much to its probability. Kelly says:—"One of the synonyms of soma is madhu, which means a mixed drink; and this word is the methu of the Greeks, and the mead of our own Saxon, Norse, and Celto-British ancestors."
Near Rutchester, in Northumberland, the ancient Vindobala, is an excavation made in the solid rock, the cause or use of which is not with certainty known. It is 12 feet long, 4½ feet broad, and 2 feet deep, "and has a hole close to the bottom at one end." It is locally named the "Giant's Grave." It is not improbable, from remains discovered near it, that it has had some connection with a temple dedicated to the worship of Mithras. A manuscript by Sir David Smith, preserved in Alnwick Castle, referring to this singular excavation, says:—"The old peasants here have a tradition that the Romans made a beverage somewhat like beer of the bells of heather (heath), and that this trough was used in the process of making such drink." Dr. Collingwood Bruce, commenting on the above, says:—"The opinion long prevailed in Northumberland that the Picts had the art of preparing an intoxicating liquor from heather-bells, and that the secret died with them."
The names of the gods underwent much change as time advanced, and the race was scattered. Bel became the luminous deity of some of the settlers in Britain; Soma became a higher deity in importance than Indra or Agni, and absorbed their attributes. In the Zend version the drink soma is spelled haoma. The hymns addressed to Soma, in a later age, are styled Sama Vedas. Hence it may easily be inferred the Belisama of Ptolemy is a Latinised form of the British words which indicated that the Ribble water was the "liquor of the gods" furnished by Bel and Sama for the fertilisation of the earth. The hoary rocky mountains of Pennygent, Ingleborough, and Pendle, and the storm-clouds that contended with lightning about their summits, furnish sufficiently characteristic natural phenomena to justify the appropriateness of the appellation. This deification of rivers was by no means an uncommon occurrence. Sir William Betham, in his "Gael and Cymbri," says, expressly, "the Celtæ were much addicted to the worship of fountains and rivers as divinities. They had a deity called Divona, or the river-god." The Wharf, which springs not far from the source of the Ribble, received these honours from legionaries of Rome or some of their auxiliaries, who appear to have worshipped the stream as the water-goddess "Verbeia." The Roman name appears to be merely a Latin form of the ancient British word of which the modern name Wharf is a corruption. The Lune, too, appears to have had similar honours conferred upon it, as is evidenced by an altar found at Skerton, near Lancaster, inscribed DEO JALONO. The word Lune was anciently written Lone, and the hundred is still named Lonsdale. Indeed, the personification of rivers is not yet extinct. We speak of "Old Father Thames" to this day.
The Ituna Estuarium of Ptolemy is universally assigned to the Solway, the chief river entering it being called the Eden at the present time. As t and d are convertible, and the Latin i was pronounced e, as on the continent now, Eduna most probably expresses to our ears the ancient sound, which is the exact counterpart of the modern one, the Latin terminal letter not entering into the question. Does the Vedic and Teutonic mythologies throw any light on the derivation of this name? Kelly says:—
"The cloud-maidens are known in the Vedas as Apas (waters), and are styled brides of the gods (Dêvapatnis) and Návyah, i.e., navigators of the celestial sea. Nearly related to them, but less divine, are the Apsarases; damsels whose habitat is between the earth and the sun. They are the houris of the Vedic paradise, destined to delight the souls of heroes. Their name means either 'the formless' or 'the water going,' and they appear to have been personifications of the manifold but ill-defined forms of the mists; but other natural phenomena may also have been represented under their image."