196 Origin of Mythology. 



Neptune, says Bochart, was Japhet ; for Japhet pos- 

 sessed the isles of the Gentiles, and the maritime coun- 

 tries. Faber thinks the word composed o^ Nu-hiph-tanhiy 

 which, according to him, signify the Hipp'ian- Fish-God^ 

 or Noah, in allusion to the ark and deluge. Vallancey 

 supposes this word to be compounded of the Celtic naomh, 

 a saint or deity, and tonn, tun, a cistern, Avhich would make 

 Neptune very justly the god of the deep. 



But Neptune derives his name from a primitive word, 

 signifying water, whose derivatives are numerous in Eu- 

 rope, Asia and Africa ; and even in America. It is 

 seen in the Greek NfVr^*, to wash or lave ; in the Arabic 

 jiap, to drink or satiate with drink ; in the Hebrew n^h to 

 gush forth, as a spring ; in the Arabic nebet, to gush or 

 spring forth, as water ; in the names of a multitude of 

 rivers, as in Nieper, Enipeus, Neva, in Europe ; in Nu- 

 ba, a lake in Africa ; in Nieva and Niepa, in Siberia ; arid 

 in nehbi, nepee, or nepei, the common name of water in 

 the dialects of the American Algonkins, Knisteneaux, 

 and Chipeways. The ancient name of the Ladoga, a 

 lake in Russia, was Neho ; and a river in Spain was for- 

 merly called Nah'ius, or Navio. 



Neptune, the god of the ocean, is then a mere imagin- 

 ary being, whose name is taken from the element over 

 which he presided ; that is, Neptune is the ocean per- 

 sonified. Gebelin supposes the last syllable of this name, 

 to be the Celtic tun or dun, profound. Neptun, the pro- 

 found water. This is probable ; but of the first sylla- 

 ble, the basis of the word, there can be no doubt.* 



The Nereids are creatures of fancy, whose name is 

 composed of inj nehr, a river, a name still retained in Ori. 

 ental countries, and «<^"«?> form, species. They were the 

 daughters ofA^'ereus, the ocean, or son of the ocean, whose 

 name had the same origin. The same word still exists- 

 in the Indian nara, water, and fiere, a wave.f 



* For aulhorities under this head, see Bochart, lib. i. I — Faber, i, 

 1 25 — Gebelin, vol. i. Hist, de Sat. p. 71 — Parkhurst, under the words 

 snentioned— Strabo, lib. viii. 3. 32— Plin. lib. iv. 8, and vi. 7 — Pausa- 

 liias^ lib. ix. — D'Anville, p. 610 — LudolPs Lex. col. 304 — Carver's 

 Travels, p. 403. Dublin, 1779 — Mackenzie's Voyage, p. 105 — Me- 

 la, iii. 1— Tooke's View olthe Russian Empire, vol. i. 224, 226 — - 

 ■yaiiancey's Essay on the Celtic Language, p. 22. 



t Hesiod's Theog. 253, 240--.Asiat, Res, vol. vi. p, 530, 



