History of Christian names

by Charlotte M. Yonge

What these doings were is another matter. We all know the romantic history of Vortigern’s letter to Henghist and Horsa; of his visit to the Saxon camp; of Rowena and her cup; of the Isle of Thanet marked out by strips of cow-hide; and of the treachery of the Saxons at Stonehenge. There is nothing morally impossible in the story as it was dished up for modern history, and it used to satisfy our ancestors before they had found out that a small king on the Welsh border could hardly have dealt with Thanet, and, moreover, that the Teutonic immigration had been going on for many years past on the eastern coast.

As to the cow-hide and the massacre, they are said to be old Thuringian traditions; and the Welsh seem to have either invented or preserved the story of the fascinations of Rowena. At any rate, they named her; for, alas for Saxon Rowena, there is nothing Teutonic in the word, and the Kymric form Rhonwen, white skirt, betrays its origin. Rhonwen, or Bradwen, is the name by which she is called in the Gododin, a poem ascribed to the bard Aneurin, and, perhaps, containing some germs of truth, though its connection with the Stonehenge massacre is hotly disputed.

CHAPTER III.
GAELIC NAMES.

Section I.—Scottish Colonists.

The strange and wild beliefs that prevailed regarding the original settlement of ancient Ireland, have left strong traces on the names still borne by the population, both there and in Scotland.

We need not go back quite to Adam’s great-grandson, and the wicked race that sprang from him, and all perished, except one giant, who took up his abode in a cave, and there lived till he was baptized by St. Patrick; nor to Fintan, who was changed into a salmon during the time that the flood prevailed, and afterwards gave rise to the proverb, “I could tell you many things were I as old as Fintan.” A bard, so called, was said to have existed, and a poem is attributed to him, which gives a very queer account of the first settlers, though he does not there claim quite such a startling experience.

Fomorians, Fir Bolg, men dwelling in caves, or, more probably, ravaging men, and Tuath De Danan, i.e. chiefs, priests, and bards, are all conducted in turn to Erin by tradition and poetry; but none equal in fame or interest the tribe called Milesian, from whom the purest Irish blood is supposed to descend.

The favourite legends start this famous colony from the East, where Phenius, the head of the family, was supposed to have taught the Phœnicians letters, and left them his name! His son, Niul, not to be behindhand with him, named the Nile, having been sent on an embassy to Egypt, where he married Pharaoh’s daughter! Whether her name was Scota or not, authorities are not agreed; but all declare that it was her father who was drowned in the Red Sea, and that a subsequent dispute with the Egyptians caused either Niul or his son to migrate to Spain.

It is this Niul, or Niale, to whom the whole legion of Niales are to be referred. The name, from niadh, means a champion, and was probably carried backwards to the ancestor from the various Neills, who thought they might as well claim the Nile as their namesake.

Neill of the Nine Hostages, was one of the greatest of the ancient heroes; he was the last but one of the pagan kings of Ireland, and himself most unconsciously imported the seed of the Gospel, for it was his men who, in a piratical descent on the Roman colony of Valentia, carried off the boy who, in after days, was to become the Apostle of Ireland,—one of the many slaves by whom the Gospel has been extended. Neill of the Nine Hostages was killed by an assassin about the year 405; but his family, the Hy Neill, or children of Neill, became one of the leading septs in the North of Ireland. Of them the story is told, that on going to settle on the Ulster coast, one of them resolved to take seisin of the new country by touching the shore before any one else, and finding his boat outstripped, he tore out his dagger, cut off his right hand at the wist, and threw it on the beach, so that his fingers were the first laid on the domain. Such, at least, is the tale that accounts for the O'Neill’s war-cry, Lamhdearg Aboo (Red hand set on), and for the red hand on the shield of the O'Neills and of Ulster, afterwards given by James I. to the knights baronets, whom he created as ‘undertakers’ of the new colony of English, which he wished to found in Ulster.