Alaunus or Alaunius (Gaulish: Alaunos) is a Gaulish god of healing and prophecy. His name is known from inscriptions found in Lurs, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence in Southern France[1] and in Mannheim in western Germany. In the latter inscription, Alaunus is used as an epithet of Mercury.[2] The feminine form Alauna (from an earlier *Alamnā) is at the origin of many place-names and hydronyms across Europe,[3] including the Roman-era names of Valognes in Normandy, Maryport and Watercrook in Cumbria, River Alyn in North Wales, Alcester in Warwickshire, Ardoch in Perthshire, and Learchild and the River Aln in Northumberland.[citation needed]
The Gaulish theonym Alaunos stems from a Proto-Celtic form reconstructed as *Alamnos. The etymology remains uncertain. It has been traditionally derived from the root *al- ('feed, raise, nurture'), and compared with the Latin alumnus ('nursling') and with names of rivers such as Almus in Moesia, Yealm (*Almii) in England, or Alme in Westphalia. *Alamnos could thus be translated as 'the Nourishing One'.[3][4]
A Gallic tribe named Alauni (Αλαυνοί) is also attested in Noricum, and linguist Xavier Delamarre has argued that the root alǝ-, meaning 'to wander', "would suit river names as much as ethnic ones". In this view, *Alamnos may be compared with the Celtic stem *alamo- ('herd'; cf. Old Irish alam, Welsh alaf), and the ethnonym Alauni rendered as the 'errants' or the 'nomads', contrasting with the name of the Anauni ('the Staying Ones').[3]
