_Cimmerii, Cimbri_ (Vol. iv., p. 444.).--If the belief which derives the
Cimbrians from Gomer, son of Japhet, be on the increase, I fear the
movements of our restless race are not altogether progressive.
But there is good reason to think, that the Cimbri were of the
Brito-Gallic race and tongue. Morimarusa (Pliny, iv. 27.) does not
belong to Indogermanic, or any such high categories as will prove nearly
what you please. It is a piece of exact and determinate Brito-Gallic.
Pompeius Festus and Plutarch agree in stating, that the meaning of the
name was _robbers_;--not, of course, as applied to individual offenders,
or to any offenders, but as the hereditary boast of predatory tribes.
"Thou shalt want ere I want" is the motto of the Lords Cranstoun, and
was the motto of all Cimbrians.
Cimmerii has certainly every appearance of being the same name as
Cimbri. In like manner, Cymmry becomes Cumbria and (unaccountably)
Cambria; Ambrosius becomes Emmrys, and Humber Hymmyr. What remains of
the old word Cimbr, or Cimmr, as meaning Latro, is the verb _cymmeryd_
(and its cognate words), to take, or, more etymologically, to apportion:
Dividers of booty. The change of the sharp iota into that short vowel of
which we possess not the long, but of which the long is the French _eu_,
forms the difficulty; but the savages of Asia, and those of Caius
Marius, may be conceived to have used vowels of shriller pronunciation
than the Gauls and Britons.
The Brigantes of Yorkshire, &c., bore a synonymous appellation, still
used in French and Armorican, and not wholly extinct in Welsh. Of a race
named Cimbri, or Cumbri, in this island, nothing whatever is known from
ancient geography or history. And probably no such name co-existed with
that of the Brigantes. For, if the two synonymes were used together,
neither would express a distinctive peculiarity. The fable of the Brut
probably has a core of general truth, when it refers that name to the
days of the Cambro-Scoto-Saxon tripartition, disguised as
Cambro-Albano-Loegrian.