Before the earth was known to be a ball, Oceanus, the Father of all the river-gods and water-nymphs, was conceived to be a river flowing perpetually round the flat circle of the world, and out of, and into this river the sun and stars were thought to rise and set. Our word _ocean_ is assumed to be from the Greek form _okeanus_, and the official surmise as to the origin of the word is--"perhaps from _okis_--swift". But what "swiftness" there is about the unperturbable and mighty sea, I am at a loss to recognise. In the Highlands the islanders of St. Kilda used to pour out libations to a sea-god, known as Shony, and in this British Shony we have probably the truer origin of _ocean_. [Illustration: FIG. 25.--Personification of River. From _Christian Iconography_ (Didron).] The ancients generally supposed the All Good as wandering abroad and peering unobserved into the thoughts and actions of his children. This proclivity was a conspicuous characteristic of Jupiter, and also of the Scandinavian All Father, one of whose titles was Gangrad, or "The Wanderer". The verb to _gad_, and the expression "_gadding about_," may have arisen from this wandering proclivity of the gods or gads, and the word _jaunt_, a synonym for "gadding" (of unknown etymology), points to the probability that the rambling tendencies of "Gangrad" and other gods were similarly assigned by the British to their _Giant_, "_jeyantt_," or Good _John_. _Jaunty_ or _janty_ means full of fire or life, and the words _gentle_, _genial_, and _generous_ are implications of the original good Giant's attributes. [Illustration: FIG. 26.--Figure of Time with Three Faces. From a French Miniature of the XIV. cent. From _Christian Iconography_ (Didron).] [Illustration: FIG. 27.--The Three Divine Faces with two eyes and one single body. From a French Miniature of the XVI. cent. From _Christian Iconography_ (Didron).] The coins of King Janus of Sicily bore on their obverse the figure of god Janus; on the reverse a dove, and it is evident that the dove was as much a symbol of Father Janus as it was of Mother Jane or Mother Juno. Christianity still recognises the dove or pigeon as the symbol of the Holy Ghost, and it is probable that the word _pigeon_ may be attributed to the fact that the pigeon was invariably associated with _pi_, or _pa geon_.[155] [Illustration: FIG. 28.--BRAHMA.--From _A Dictionary of Non-classical Mythology_ (Edwardes & Spence).]