Spirals (NEW CONCEPTS)

[DPCrisp]

[Hatty]

[DPCrisp]

[Mick Harper]

Yes but nobody could quarrel with 'mump' being from the Dutch mompen, because it refers to William III who passed this way in 1688 going from Torbay to London and said, "That is a cheat or a means to deceive, mompen." Christ, who are these people? Do they just get out their European dictionaries and select the nearest word geographically?

As Hatty says, we have the word in English, plain as a pikefish, mumps. That's plural of a mump. Hence the illness which is an outbreak of swellings. It means a bump now, it meant a bump then. When something is a bump and has a name meaning bump then it's often wise to assume that's the etymology in a nutshell.

[Chad]

Mump, bump, lump....even a Quasimodo's hump.

[Hatty]

Maze itself is a strange combination, with its sense of bewilderment and a-mazement and being lost yet confined. It's like the physical expression of mental confusion or maybe a protected space wherein to muse (or be bemused).

Talking of confusion I need some help with Michael. Burrowbridge with its ruined Michael mount is on the river Tone which flows on south through Dorset via Muckleford. So far so Michael-y except that muckle is supposed to mean 'much'. Creech St. Michael, just down the road from Burrowbridge, used to be known as Creech Muchel says Victoria County History, whose diligent compilers can generally be trusted. Muchel is from OE micel and means 'great' so as to differentiate 'Creech Muchel' from, er, Little Creech except it doesn't exist apart from a farm. In addition, the inn at Creech St Michael used to be called the Fiery Dragon "later known as the Green Dragon or Creech Inn, and formerly the church house, (fn. 6) still belonged to the lord of the manor in 1794. (fn. 7)" so VCH informs us (there's still a Green Dragon area).

Muckleford looks teeny-weeny on the OS map, just south of the even teenier Grimstone, though it could conceivably have once been a 'great ford'. The discrepancy can be found elsewhere, for instance Muckle Green Holm, described by wiki as "an uninhabited island in the North Isles of the Orkney archipelago in Scotland. It is roughly 32 hectares in extent and rises to 28 metres above sea level, the summit having a trig point. The literal meaning of the name is somewhat contradictory. 'Holm' is from the Old Norse holmr, meaning a small and rounded islet.[3] 'Muckle' is Scots for 'big' or 'large' so it's a big small island. ".

Michael in Hebrew means 'who is like God [El]'. The etymology of much according to the online dictionary is surprisingly similar
ME. muche, moche, shortening of muchel, mochel, repr. late OE. myċel, var. of micel = OS. mikil, OHG. michil, ON. mikill, Goth. mikils; Gmc. deriv. of IE. *meg-, repr. by L. magnus, Gr. magas, Skr. mahā- great. assuming it's correct.

[DPCrisp]

I sense a pattern here.

These all mean something blobby or protuberant (including some figuratively "useless blobs"), striking some kind of blow (as might raise a lump), a depression (literal or figurative):

bump, chump, clump, crump, dump, dumpling, erump {= erupt = erumped: I bet there's lots of cases of -pt = -mped}, flump, glump, grump, gump, hump, jump, lump, mump, mushrump, plump, pump, rump, schlump, slump, stump, sump, thrump, thump, tump, whump, wump, chomp, clomp, stomp, tromp, whomp, yomp, blimp, pimple, wimp, camp, champ, champion, clamp, damp, hippocampus {hippos horse + kampos sea-monster: cf. Dragon Hill. What's it got to do with Poseidon?}, ramp, scamp, slamp, stamp, swamp, tamp, tampion/ tompion/ tampon, tramp, crumb, dumb, plum, plumb, thumb, tumor, tuber, bomb, clomb, comb, coomb, rhomb/rhombus, thrombus, tomb, womb, wame, climb, clomb, nimb/nimbus, kemp, clamb/clamber, gamb, jamb.

And that's without trying.

[Mick Harper]

Is the origin onomatopaiea? The sound of something hard going into something soft, say stone into mud with the consequent disturbance of a level plain. The sheer number of words that derive is highly suggestive of an onomatopaiea-plus-word-association origin of language itself. But now we need some oompa-sound words in other Indo-European languages to get us going. Maybe we can even re-engage with mompen.

[Hatty]

Mump apparently has other, more plausible meanings, namely to mumble meaninglessly or to chew constantly, both activities connected to the area where people are afflicted by mumps.

Dictionary says:
# (v. i.) To move the lips with the mouth closed; to mumble, as in sulkiness.
# (v. t.) To utter imperfectly, brokenly, or feebly.
# (v. t.) To deprive of (something) by cheating; to impose upon.
# (v. t.) To work over with the mouth; to mumble; as, to mump food.
# (v. i.) To cheat; to deceive; to play the beggar.
# (v. i.) To be sullen or sulky.
# (v. i.) To talk imperfectly, brokenly, or feebly; to chatter unintelligibly.

Quite close to lump(en) in the sense of doltishness and moving lumps (of food) or humping (to sulk is to 'get the hump' and camels with their humps are notoriously sullen). The notion of cheating/deceiving is rather alien in this context.

[Hatty]

[Hatty]

[Hatty]

Cave in Welsh is ogof which reminds me of Og, an uncommon word in English, in fact I'd never heard of it before visiting Ogbourne St George. An 'og' word that comes to mind is agog whose origin is unknown but might be related to eager or edge though I quite fancy an oak connection, a giant among trees. (An ogre, also of uncertain origin, is another kind of giant, possibly from Gog/Magog?)

Ogmios, "a Gaulish deity", is thought to be linked to the Irish Ogma, alleged inventor of the ogam alphabet, and, rather surprisingly, to Hermes though no explanation is proffered; perhaps ogam, being inscribed on the edge of a stone, is seen as pertaining to the messenger god (of stones) but then any system of writing would be equally apposite.

Wiki says carefully:
A Proto-Indo-European root *og-mo- 'furrow, track, incised line'[10] may be the origin of the stem of the name. In addition, Proto-Celtic had a causative verbal suffix *-ej- ~ *-Ä«j-.
All very vague though straight tracks and straight notches are both lines (of communication).

A cave like a cellar is where something is kept safe or (hermetically) sealed, or perhaps the source whence written characters emerged as if by magic?

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Which reminds me, I've solved one small problem. A key difficulty of the Megalithic System is to know when to branch off the main leyline to get to wherever it is you want to go (assuming it is not where the leyline happens to go). In a pre-literate age, signposts are not possible.
The answer is...hermits ie employees of Hermes, people employed to live permanently out in the sticks (though at significant places) because they have to be available at all times but, unlike simple lock-keepers or turnpike gatemen, these people have to be really quite bright because they have to know the way to practically everywhere. It was prolly your first job in the Druidic career-structure.

Hence the later association of these 'hermits' as being wise-men. Or rather the tradition established by them was utilised by individual nutter/ intellectuals in the Christian era.

[Hatty]

The orthodox view as such is that hermits occupied hill-tops where they kept a light burning, hence 'beacons'. Even now the spaces between built-up areas are remarkably devoid of humans when you need directions.