Blair Collection > History of the Celtic language

186 HISTORY OF THE
" Na i?iiulanaich arda lia'cheann
Ri searb-bheiceil,
Na CwZanaich san cla' dudaid
Ri fuaim gheimnich."
i.e. The towering hoary leaders heaving, roaring ;
The itrgers with sullen allies swell the chorus.
The Celt will see that a translation to any other
language equally expressive with the original is
impossible; that is Nature herself speaking!
The Latins, it would seem, got hold of the name
of this wave, and, in ignorance of the root, actually
converted it into a very whale ! Lat. balcena, a
whale. It is remarkable that u, added to the
letter b, makes a more active verb than either
a or e: and why ? Because action or exertion
necessarily calls forth a protrusion of the lips,
followed by a forcible impulse of the breath, pro-
ducing bii or j)U' Hence it becomes the root of
ftwail, to strike; ^wailtier, a striker, a thrasher, a
barn servant; buiMe, a stroke, the pulsation of
the heart. So in Chaldee, " And he set his
heart (his bn W) on Daniel to deliver him." —
Daniel vi. 14. We have treated this root under
nb lb. The character B, as a mutation of P,
both Naturally and Cahalistically considered, in-
volves the idea of inflation. We have already
instanced iehir, the inflating serpent; to which we
may add, Z*otal, a bottle; 6«lg, the belly, a Z*/lge,
a satk made of skins; Swilgein, a globule; Z>einn, a
mountain, the idea being a swelling, or protuber-