The story seems to belong to that large
class of myths which have been devised in order to explain the
meaning of equivocal words whose true significance has been
forgotten. The epithet Lykaios, as applied to Zeus, had
originally no reference to wolves: it means "the bright one,"
and gave rise to lycanthropic legends only because of the
similarity in sound between the names for "wolf" and
"brightness." Aryan mythology furnishes numerous other
instances of this confusion. The solar deity, Phoibos
Lykegenes, was originally the "offspring of light"; but
popular etymology made a kind of werewolf of him by
interpreting his name as the "wolf-born." The name of the hero
Autolykos means simply the "self-luminous"; but it was more
frequently interpreted as meaning "a very wolf," in allusion
to the supposed character of its possessor. Bazra, the name of
the citadel of Carthage, was the Punic word for "fortress";
but the Greeks confounded it with byrsa, "a hide," and hence
the story of the ox-hides cut into strips by Dido in order to
measure the area of the place to be fortified. The old theory
that the Irish were Phoenicians had a similar origin. The name
Fena, used to designate the old Scoti or Irish, is the plural
of Fion, "fair," seen in the name of the hero Fion Gall, or
"Fingal"; but the monkish chroniclers identified Fena with
phoinix, whence arose the myth; and by a like misunderstanding
of the epithet Miledh, or "warrior," applied to Fion by the
Gaelic bards, there was generated a mythical hero, Milesius,
and the soubriquet "Milesian," colloquially employed in
speaking of the Irish.
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