42 Mr. Ferguson on the Antiquity of the Kiliee or Boomerang. 



The only names of the straight spear which appear to be connected with the 

 word Aclys, are the Latin jacw^Mm, and the Sclavonic ^iA^e/. To the radix of 

 Ancyle are clearly referrible Xayxos, fyx°^) cyx^'^j among the Greeks, and 

 lancea among the Gauls. It is worthy of remark, that iyyps has been applied 

 to the sword, and that the Latin equivalent, ensis, properly means the curved 

 cimeter. 



Clava, also, Is a name common to the two classes of weapons, glavea in the 

 old Latin signifying a straight spear : to this also, by a return to the original 

 element cam, (from which clam and all its derivations are formed,) may be 

 referred the Irish gavla, and the English jauefow. 



Identical with Caia are the Irish gai, the Welsh guayu, and the Cornish 

 and Armorican guayu; and perhaps to the same root may be traced the Gaulish 

 gcBsa, the Irish keis, and the German speiss. 



The Irish cuaille, signifying a straight javelin, is in like manner identical 

 with one of the present names of the crooked weapon ; and it is not impossible 

 that, as the Oscans and iEolic Greeks said pedor for quatuor, pilum itself may 

 be a form of kilum, especially as we find several words of this family, pile, pole, 

 pill, pale, pail, for example, applied indifferently to signify a straight instrument, 

 and a spherical body or vessel. 



occurs in three different passages : first, where Abbo, personifying one of the towers of the city, 

 represents it looking abroad over the hostile array brought against it. 



" Prospiciens turrisque nihil sub se nisi picta 

 Scuta videt, tellus ab els obtecta latebat : 

 Inde super cernens lapides conspexit acerbos 

 Et diras, ut apes, dense tranare Cateias." 



Again, in the same book ; 



" Pila dabat, rupesque simul, celeresque Cateias 

 Plebs inimica deo." 



1. i. p. 409. 



1. i. p. 416, G. 



And again, in the second book, speaking of Count Otho, one of the defenders : 



" Fossata volatu 

 Transiliit propero, clypeum gestensque Cateiam." 



1. ii. p. 419, C. 



