528 Rude Stone Antiquities of Brittany. By Miss Russell. 



Coomrach as it is actually pronounced in Wales. Caesar 

 mentions a chief elsewhere in France by the name of Camu- 

 logenus ; and while I am inclined to think, from a case given in 

 Carpentier's Ducange, that the "genus" is the Celtic, or rather 

 Gaelic, hen, head, and has nothing to do with gens, I should 

 suppose Camulo to be a form of Cambro, differing little from it 

 in sound, in fact ; and unlikely as it seems at first, that this name 

 may be connected with the cultus of the elements, and mean 

 " sun- worshippers ! " which the Bretons do not seem to have 

 been. 



Dr Angus Smith, in a paper only published after his death, 

 worked out the word ham or hem, in connection w T ith chemistry, 

 as meaning sun or heat : but he never knew that this old root 

 survives in full use among the gypsies, who call the sun ham in 

 their perfectly distinct Indo-European language. The Roman 

 " camillus " meant an incense-bearer, or something of the kind. 

 I do not know where Macaulay found Camers as the name or title 

 of the Alban high-priest ; it is not in Livy ; but it is very 

 possible it originally meant the " man of the sun." 



The altar of Mars Camulus, found near Kilsyth on the Roman 

 wall, seems to have been one of the large class of archaeological 

 mares' nests ; the title of the Cambrian Mars has been regarded 

 as the name of a native deity. And while the Camerons are 

 certainly Cambrians ; there is an actual Galbrett or British 

 IStranger in the Lochiel pedigree, though it must have become a 

 sort of family designation by his time, as he seems to have been 

 a Highlander — on the other hand Gillus, who is one traditional 

 form of King Galdus, or Gwallawg, is brought to Dunstaffnage, 

 from Galloway, by the romantic historians (see Dr Angus 

 Smith's Loch Etive papers). Mr Skene says that of Dunstaff- 

 nage, as a royal fortress, history knows nothing ; but its having 

 been the original seat of the Camuls would be consistent with 

 its traditional importance, while it is possible that the King- 

 Arthur of the Argyle pedigree may have been substituted at 

 some period for a vague tradition of King Galdus. That the 

 other legendary ancestor, Diarmid killed by the boar, was a sun- 

 god, has been suspected before now. A very tolerable boar 

 occurs with the concentric circles on a stone near Inverness. 

 There is ancient authority for the story of Adonis being regard- 

 ed as a "solar myth." And Diarmid means "the armed 

 god." 



