_Catterick for Cattraeth_ (Vol. iv., p. 453.).--I understand MR.
STEPHENS to insinuate that Cattraeth means Catterick or _vice versâ_.
That both names begin with _cat_, and so much only, I am able to
concede.
Catterick was Cataractonium, or Cataracta, a Latin word of Greek
derivation, alluding to the rapids of the Swale. No man can dispute that
Cat-traeth is a compound of regular and truly idiomatic formation.
Therefore the best meaning I can surmise is this: that Aneurin, wishing
to play upon the syllable _cat_, the battle, and disregarding the
falsehood and inapplicability of _traeth_, therefore travestied
Cataracta into Cattraeth. For the meaning of _traeth_, in topography,
see Giraldus, _Itin. Cambr._ lib. ii. cap. 6., and the common sources of
information.
But that meaning was not one tolerated by Aneurin, maugre its untruth,
in order to avail himself of the other and appropriate word. It was one
on which he leant heavily and with emphasis, reproducing, and
multiplying it in several forms. For he calls the scene of contest not
only Cat-traeth, seabeach of battle, but also Gall-traeth, sea-beach of
prowess; and Mordai, the sea-shore: "Gododin ar llawr mordai: Gododin
whose ground-plot is on the sea-shore." Again, the scene of "outcry and
slaughter" is called Uffin; but Uffin was situate on "y mordai ymmoroedd
Gododin," on the sea-shore of the sea of Gododin.
Catterick is remote from the sea, and inconsistent with all that Aneurin
says. And though Sigston should mean in Anglo-Saxon _town of victory_,
from some ancient occurrence, Catterick is assuredly not derived from
_cat_, a battle, in British. Bilinguar etymology, of the same date, and
from the same event, would be suspicious, even if facts did not confute
it.