Origin of Mythology, 197 



The Sirens, sea nymphs, whose melodious and fasci- 

 nating- strains arrested seamen, and made them forget 

 their employment, were also beinsrs of fiction, derivinsr 

 their name irom t^s or I'-e', to smg. 



The dryads, or nymphs of the woods, receive their 

 name from a primitive appellation of a tree, and «'<J«5, form, 

 species. The root of this word is common to the Celtic, 

 Teutonic, and Slavonian families of men — in Welch, 

 deru ; in Irish, darach ; in Greek, ^?^<i ; in Slavonic, 

 drevu ; in Saxon, treoxv or treo, whence we have tree. 

 The Greeks appropriated the word to the oak, but pri- 

 marily and generally, the word is an appellative of tree.* 



Nymphs, another name of imaginary deities, which 

 presided over rivers and fountains, is formed from a pri- 

 mitive word signifying water ; the root of Nemea, a riv- 

 er near Corinth, and of Niemen in Poland. The radical 

 word, nam, or naum, water, still exists in several dialects 

 of the Burman empire. f 



There were also nymphs of the mountains, called or- 

 cades, from »/"»«. a mountain. These were the compan- 

 ions of Diana, in hunting. Others, called Napae, from 

 N«5r«5, v««^»j, a grove or declivity, presided over hills and 

 dales. 



The Naiads, from *£«/«, to flow, or the I'oot of this word, 

 presided over springs and rivers. 



The sea nymphs were called Oceanides, from oceanus 

 and i'^^oi, species, form.i: 



Orpheus, the celebrated musician, who is said to have 

 softened, by the melody of his notes, the ferocity of wild 

 beasts, and arrested the current of rivers, is represented 

 to have been the son of Apollo, and to have received a 

 lyre from his father, or from Mercury. But the name of 

 this imaginary being is formed of two Celtic words, oir, 

 gold, and y^-ttc^, a whistle — the golden wdiistle. In the 

 same language, Oirjid is music, and Oirjideach, the gene- 



* See Lempriere, and the Lexicons of the several languages, anrl 

 Hesychius under ^ftv^. The name, in some languages, seems to have 

 been applied to the oak, by way of distinction. 



t Asiat. Res. vol. v. 228. 



\ Hesiod's Theog.-— Ovid. Met. xiv. 328- — Virg. Georg iv.34l- — 

 £a\. i. 500— -Homer's Odyssey,, lib. v, G48;et seq. 



