EARLY HISTORY AND NAMES 5 



from the Sanskrit lal, to be wanton, If this deriva- 

 tion be accepted, lamb is the frisking or sportive 

 animal. An Old English plural was lamben. 



The Hebrew tale, signifying a young unweaned 

 lamb, comes apparently from a perfectly distinct 

 root ; and the same is the case with kebes (feminine 

 kebesa), properly signifying a sheep of more than a 

 year old, but generally translated lamb. 



Wether, the term applied to the castrated male, 

 is the equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon wether or 

 wedder, the Danish vceder, and the German widder, 

 all of which denote the ram. The modern French 

 term for wether is mouton, and the Old French 

 moton or molton, probably from the Gaulish multos, 

 which appears akin to the Welsh moHt, the Old Irish 

 molt, the Cornish mols, and the Breton maout, all of 

 which refer to the ram. It has been suggested that 

 the Middle Latin multoneni, or mutilonem, is the 

 equivalent of the Latin mutiius and mutilare, so 

 that mouton, from which, of course, is derived the 

 English mutton, signifies the mutilated, and so the 

 castrated animal. In reference to this, it is stated 

 in the Century Dictionary that " it seems very 

 unlikely that the Celtic forms are unconnected ; if 

 they are from popular Latin the adoption must 

 have taken place at a very early period." 



In this connection it is interesting to note that 

 the borrowing from the French of a name for the 

 flesh of an animal which retains in English its 



