Note 40 — Chapter VII · Triumphs of the Water-world

The name of the god, as given in the inscriptions, varies between Nudons and Nodens, the cases actually occurring being the dative Nodonti, Nodenti, and Nudente, and the genitive Nodentis, so I should regard ō or ū as optional in the first syllable, and o as preferable, perhaps, to e in the second, for there is no room for reasonably doubting that we have here to do with the same name as Irish Nuadu, genitive Nuadat, conspicuous in the legendary history of Ireland. Now the Nuadu who naturally occurs to one first, was Nuadu Argetlám or Nuadu of the Silver Hand, from argat, ‘silver, argentum,’ and lám, ‘hand.’ Irish literature explains how he came to have a hand made of silver, and we can identify with him on Welsh ground a Ỻuđ Ỻawereint; for put back as it were into earlier Brythonic, this would be Lūdo(ns) Lām’-argenti̯os: that is to say, a reversal takes place in the order of the elements forming the epithet out of ereint (for older ergeint), ‘silvern, argenteus,’ and ỻaw, for earlier lāma, ‘hand.’ Then comes the alliterative instinct into play, forcing Nūdo(ns) Lāmargenti̯o(s) to become Lūdo(ns) Lāmargenti̯o(s), whence the later form, Ỻuđ Ỻawereint, derives regularly40. Thus we have in Welsh the name Ỻûđ, fashioned into that form under the influence of the epithet, whereas elsewhere it is Nûđ, which occurs as a man’s name in the pedigrees, while an intermediate form was probably Nūdos or Nūdo, of which a genitive NVDI occurs in a post-Roman inscription found near Yarrow Kirk in Selkirkshire. It is worthy of note that the modification of Nūdo into Lūdo must have taken place comparatively early—not improbably while the language was still Goidelic—as we seem to have a survival of the name in that of Lydney itself.