[28] See Stengel's edition of li Romans de Durmart le Galois (Tübingen,
1873), lines 4185-340, and my Arthurian Legend, pp. 68-9.
[29] See Williams' Scint Greal, pp. 60-1, 474-5; Nutt's Holy Grail,
p. 44; and my Arthurian Legend, pp. 69-70.
[30] Bardoniaeth D. ab Gwilym, poem 183. A similar descent of
Blodeuwed's appears implied in the following englyn--one of two--by
Anthony Powel, who died in 1618: it is given by Taliesin ab Iolo
in his essay on the Neath Valley, entitled Traethawd ar Gywreined,
Hynafiaeth, a hen Bendefigion Glynn Ned (Aberdare, 1886), p. 15:--
Crug ael, carn gadarn a godwyd yn fryn,
Yn hen fraenwaith bochlwyd;
Main a'i llud man y lladwyd,
Merch hoewen loer Meirchion lwyd.
It refers, with six other englynion by other authors, to a remarkable
rock called Craig y Dinas, with which Taliesin associated a cave
where Arthur or Owen Lawgoch and his men are supposed, according
to him, to enjoy a secular sleep, and it implies that Blodeuwed,
whose end in the Mabinogi of Mâth was to be converted into an owl,
was, according to another account, overwhelmed by Craig y Dinas. It
may be Englished somewhat as follows:
Heaped on a brow, a mighty cairn built like a hill,
Like ancient work rough with age, grey-cheeked;
Stones that confine her where she was slain,
Grey Meirchion's daughter quick and bright as the moon.
[31] This comes from the late series of Triads, iii. 10, where
Merlin's nine companions are called naw beird cylfeird: cylfeird
should be the plural of cylfard, which must be the same word as the
Irish culbard, name of one of the bardic grades in Ireland.
[32] For some more remarks on this subject generally, see my Arthurian
Legend, chapter xv, on the 'Isles of the Dead.'
[33] See his Itinerarium Kambriæ, ii. 11 (p. 139); also my Celtic
Britain, p. 68, and Arthurian Legend, p. 364.
[34] From the Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, i. 302.
[35] I regard nid kywiw as a corruption of ni chywiw from cyf-yw,
an instance of the verb corresponding to cymod (= cym-bod), 'peace,
conciliation.' The preterite has, in the Oxford Bruts, A.D. 1217
(p. 358), been printed kynni for what one may read kymu: the words
would then be y kymu reinald y bre6ys ar brenhin, 'that Reginald de
Breos was reconciled with the king, or settled matters with him.'
[36] See the Book of Taliessin, poem xxx, in Skene's Four Ancient
Books, ii. 181; also Guest's Mabinogion, ii. 354, and the Brython
for 1860, p. 372b, where more than one article of similar capacity
of distinguishing brave men from cowards is mentioned.
[37] See Dugdale's Monasticon, v. 672, where they are printed Dwynech
and Dwynaur respectively.
[38] See my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 649-50.
[39] A full account of them will be found in a volume devoted to
them, and entitled Roman Antiquities at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire,
being a posthumous work of the Rev. W. Hiley Bathurst, with Notes
by C. W. King, London, 1879. See also an article entitled 'Das
Heiligtum des Nodon,' by Dr. Hübner in the Jahrbücher des Vereins
von Alterthumsfreunden im Rheinlande, lxvii. pp. 29-46, where several
things in Mr. King's book are criticized.
[40] See my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 122, 125.
[41] On this subject, see The Welsh People, especially pp. 54-61.
[42] Why our dictionary makers have taken into their heads to treat it
as Tamesis I know not. The Welsh is Tafwys with a diphthong regularly
representing an earlier long e or ei in the second syllable. There
is, as far as I know, no reason to suppose Tafwys an invention,
rather than a genuine vocable of the same origin as the name of the
Glamorganshire river Taff, in Welsh Taf, which is also the name of
the river emptying itself at Laugharne, in Carmarthenshire. Tafwys,
however, does not appear to occur in any old Welsh document; but no
such weakness attaches to the testimony of the French Tamise, which
could hardly come from Tamesis: compare also the place-name Tamise
near the Scheldt in East Flanders; this, however, may be of a wholly
different origin.
[43] A more difficult version has been sent me by Dewi Glan Ffrydlas,
of Bethesda: Caffed y wrach, 'Let him seize the hag'; Methu'r
cryfaglach, 'You have failed, urchin.' But he has not been able to
get any explanation of the words at the Penrhyn Quarries. Cryfaglach
is also the form in Mur y Cryfaglach, 'the Urchin's Wall,' in Jenkins'
Bed Gelert, p. 249. He informs me that this is the name of an old ruin
on an elevated spot some twenty or thirty yards from a swift brook,
and not far in a south-south-easterly direction from Sir Edward
Watkin's chalet.
[44] For this I am indebted to Mr. Wm. Davies (p. 147 above), who tells
me that he copied the original from Chwedlau a Thradodiadau Gwyned,
'Gwyned Tales and Traditions,' published in a periodical, which I
have not been able to consult, called Y Gordofigion, for the year 1873.
[45] The meaning of the word mwthlach is doubtful, as it is now current
in Gwyned only in the sense of a soft, doughy, or puffy person who
is all of a heap, so to say. Pughe gives mwythlan and mwythlen with
similar significations. But mwthlach would seem to have had some such a
meaning in the doggerel as that of rough ground or a place covered with
a scrubby, tangled growth. It is possibly the same word as the Irish
mothlach, 'rough, bushy, ragged, shaggy'; see the Vision of Laisrén,
edited by Professor K. Meyer, in the Otia Merseiana, pp. 114, 117.
[46] The account here given of the Cyhiraeth is taken partly from
Choice Notes, pp. 31-2, and partly from Howells, pp. 31-4, 56-7,
who appears to have got uncertain in his narrative as to the sex of
the Cyhiraeth; but there is no reason whatsoever for regarding it as
either male or female--the latter alone is warranted, as he might
have gathered from her being called y Gyhiraeth, 'the Cyhiraeth,'
never y Cyhiraeth as far as I know. In North Cardiganshire the spectre
intended is known only by another name, that of Gwrach y Rhibyn, but
y Gyhiraeth or yr hen Gyhiraeth is a common term of abuse applied
to a lanky, cadaverous person, both there and in Gwyned; in books,
however, it is found sometimes meaning a phantom funeral. The word
cyhiraeth would seem to have originally meant a skeleton with cyhyrau,
'sinews,' but no flesh. However, cyhyrau, singular cyhyr, would be
more correctly written with an i; for the words are pronounced--even
in Gwyned--cyhir, cyhirau. The spelling cyhyraeth corresponds to no
pronunciation I have ever heard of the word; but there is a third
spelling, cyheuraeth, which corresponds to an actual cyhoereth
or cyhoyreth, the colloquial pronunciation to be heard in parts
of South Wales: I cannot account for this variant. Gwrach y Rhibyn
means the Hag of the Rhibyn, and rhibyn usually means a row, streak,
a line--ma' nhw'n mynd yn un rhibyn, 'they are going in a line.' But
what exactly Gwrach y Rhibyn should connote I am unable to say. I
may mention, however, on the authority of Mr. Gwenogvryn Evans, that
in Mid-Cardiganshire the term Gwrach y Rhibyn means a long roll or
bustle of fern tied with ropes of straw and placed along the middle
of the top of a hayrick. This is to form a ridge over which and on
which the thatch is worked and supported: gwrach unqualified is,
I am told, used in this sense in Glamorganshire. Something about
the Gwrach sprite will be found in the Brython for 1860, p. 23a,
while a different account is given in Jenkins' Bed Gelert, pp. 80-1.
[47] This statement I give from Choice Notes, p. 32; but I must
confess that I am sceptical as to the 'wings of a leathery and bat-like
substance,' or of any other substance whatsoever.
[48] For more about her and similar ancestral personages, see The
Welsh People, pp. 54-61.
[49] This seems to be the Goidelic word borrowed, which in Mod. Irish
is written cnocc or cnoc, 'a hill': the native Welsh form is cnwch,
as in Cnwch Coch in Cardiganshire, Cnwch Dernog (corrupted into Clwch
Dernog) in Anglesey, printed Kuwgh Dernok in the Record of Carnarvon,
p. 59, where it is associated with other interesting names to be
noticed later.
[50] All said by natives of Anglesey about rivers and mountains in
their island must be taken relatively, for though the country has a
very uneven surface it has no real mountain: they are apt to call a
brook a river and a hillock a mountain, though the majestic heights
of Arfon are within sight.
[51] See pp. 13-16 of his essay on the Neath Valley, referred to in
a note at p. 439 above, where Craig y Dinas is also mentioned.
[52] This is an interesting word of obscure origin, to which I should
like our ingenious etymologists to direct their attention.
[53] See the Poetical Works of John Leyden (Edinburgh, 1875), p. 36
(Scenes of Infancy, part ii); also my Arthurian Legend, p. 18.
[54] I am indebted for the English story to an article entitled 'The
Two Pedlar Legends of Lambeth and Swaffham,' contributed by Mr. Gomme
to the pages of the Antiquary, x. 202-5, in which he gives local
details and makes valuable comparisons. I have to thank Mr. Gomme
also for a cutting from the weekly issue of the Leeds Mercury for
Jan. 3, 1885, devoted to 'Local Notes and Queries' (No. cccxii), where
practically the same story is given at greater length as located at
Upsall Castle in Yorkshire.
[55] I have never been to the spot, and I owe these particulars partly
to Mr. J. P. Owen, of 72 Comeragh Road, Kensington, and partly to
the Rev. John Fisher, already quoted at p. 379. This is the parish
where some would locate the story of the sin-eater, which others
stoutly deny, as certain periodical outbursts of polemics in the
pages of the Academy and elsewhere have shown. Mr. Owen, writing to
me in 1893, states, that, when he last visited the dinas some thirty
years previously, he found the mouth of the cave stopped up in order
to prevent cattle and sheep straying into it.
[56] Mr. Fisher refers me to an account of the discovery published
in the Cambrian newspaper for Aug. 14, 1813, a complete file of which
exists, as he informs me, in the library of the Royal Institution of
South Wales at Swansea. Further, at the Cambrians' meeting in 1892
that account was discussed and corrected by Mr. Stepney-Gulston:
see the Archæologia Cambrensis for 1893, pp. 163-7. He also 'pointed
out that on the opposite side of the gap in the ridge the noted cave
of Owain Law Goch was to be found. Near the Pant-y-llyn bone caves
is a place called Craig Derwydon, and close by is the scene of the
exploits of Owain Law Goch, a character who appears to have absorbed
some of the features of Arthurian romance. A cave in the locality
bears Owain's name.'
[57] As in Llewelyn's charter to the Monks of Aberconwy, where we have,
according to Dugdale's Monasticon, v. 673a, a Scubordynemreis, that is
Scubor Dyn Emreis, 'Din-Emreis Barn,' supposed to be Hafod y Borth,
near Bedgelert: see Jenkins' Bed Gelert, p. 198. In the Myvyrian,
i. 195a, it has been printed Din Emrais.
[58] See Somer's Malory's Morte Darthur, xxi. v (= vol. i. p. 849),
and as to the Marchlyn story see p. 236 above. Lastly some details
concerning Llyn Llydaw will be found in the next chapter.
[59] The oldest spellings known of this name occur in manuscript
A of the Annales Cambriæ and in the Book of Llan Dâv as Elized and
Elised, doubtless pronounced Elissed until it became, by dropping the
final dental, Elisse. This in time lost its identity by assimilation
with the English name Ellis. Thus, for example, in Wynne's edition
of Powell's Caradog of Llancarfan's History of Wales (London, 1774),
pp. 22, 24, Elised is reduced to Elis. In the matter of dropping the
d compare our Dewi, 'St. David,' for Dewid, for an instance of which
see Duffus Hardy's Descriptive Catalogue, i. 119. The form Eliseg
with a final g has no foundation in fact. Can the English name Ellis
be itself derived from Elised?
[60] Boncyn is derived from bonc of nearly the same meaning, and
bonc is merely the English word bank borrowed: in South Wales it is
pronounced banc and used in North Cardiganshire in the sense of hill
or mountain.
[61] The name occurs twice in the story of Kulhwch and Olwen: see the
Mabinogion, p. 107, where the editors have read Ricca both times in
'Gormant, son of Ricca.' This is, however, more than balanced by Rita
in the Book of Llan Dâv, namely in Tref Rita, 'Rita's town or stead,'
which occurs five times as the name of a place in the diocese of
Llandaff; see pp. 32, 43, 90, 272. The uncertainty is confined to
the spelling, and it has arisen from the difficulty of deciding in
medieval manuscripts between t and c: there is no reason to suppose
the name was ever pronounced Ricca.
[62] This can hardly be the real name of the place, as it is pronounced
Gwybrnant (and even Gwybrant), which reminds me of the Gwybr fynyd on
which Gwyn ab Nûd wanders about with his hounds: see Evans' facsimile
of the Black Book of Carmarthen, p. 50a, where the words are, dy
gruidir ar wibir winit.
[63] Dugdale has printed this (v. 673a) Carrecerereryr with one er too
much, and the other name forms part of the phrase ad capud Weddua-Vaur,
'to the top of the Great Gwydfa'; but I learn from Mr. Edward Owen,
of Gray's Inn, that the reading of the manuscript is Wedua vawr and
Carrecereryr.
[64] The MSS. except B have y 6ylva, which is clearly not the right
word, as it could only mean 'his place of watching.'
[65] See Derfel Hughes' Llandegai and Llanllechid, p. 53. As to
Drystan it is the Pictish name Drostan, but a kindred form occurs
in Cornwall on a stone near Fowey, where years ago I guessed the
ancient genitive Drustagni; and after examining it recently I am
able to confirm my original guess. The name of Drystan recalls that
of Essyllt, which offers some difficulty. It first occurs in Welsh
in the Nennian Genealogies in the Harleian MS. 3859: see Pedigree
I in the Cymmrodor, ix. 169, where we read that Mermin (Merfyn) was
son of Etthil daughter of Cinnan (Cynan), who succeeded his father
Rhodri Molwynog in the sovereignty of Gwyned in 754. The spelling
Etthil is to be regarded like that of the Welsh names in Nennius, for
some instances of which see § 73 (quoted in the next chapter) and the
Old Welsh words calaur, nouel, patel, so spelt in the Juvencus Codex:
see Skene, ii. 2: in all these l does duty for ll. So Etthil is to be
treated as pronounced Ethill or Ethyll; but Jesus College MS. 20 gives
a more ancient pronunciation (at least as regards the consonants) when
it calls Cynan's daughter Ethellt: see the Cymmrodor, viii. 87. Powell,
in his History of Wales by Caradog of Llancarfan, as edited by Wynne,
writes the name Esylht; and the Medieval Welsh spelling has usually
been Essyllt or Esyllt, which agrees in its sibilant with the French
Iselt or Iseut; but who made the Breton-looking change from Eth to Es
or Is in this name remains a somewhat doubtful point. Professor Zimmer,
in the Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Litteratur, xiii. 73-5,
points out that the name is an Anglo-Saxon Ethylda borrowed, which
he treats as a 'Kurzform für Ethelhild': see also the Revue Celtique,
xii. 397, xiii. 495. The adoption of this name in Wales may be regarded
as proof of intermarriage or alliance between an English family and
the royal house of Gwyned as early as the eighth century.
[66] See the Brython for 1861, pp. 331-2, also Cymru Fu, p. 468, where
Glasynys was also inclined to regard the Hairy Fellow as being Owen.
[67] I have never seen a copy, but Mr. Fisher gives me the title as
follows: Prophwydoliaeth Myrdin Wyllt yn nghyda ber Hanes o'i Fywyd,
wedi eu tynu allan o Lyfr y Daroganau ... Caerfyrdin ... Pris dwy
Geiniog. It has no date, but Mr. Fisher once had a copy with the
date 1847. Recently he has come across another versified prophecy
written in the same style as the printed ones, and referring to
an Owain who may have been Owen Lawgoch. The personage meant is
compared to the most brilliant of pearls, Owain glain golyaf. The
prophecy is to be found at the Swansea Public Library, and occurs in
a seventeenth century manuscript manual of Roman Catholic Devotion,
Latin and Welsh. It gives 1440 as the year of the deliverance of the
Brytaniaid. It forms the first of two poems (fo. 37), the second of
which is ascribed to Taliessin. Such is Mr. Fisher's account of it,
and the lines which he has copied for me cling to the same theme of
the ultimate triumph of the Kymry. Quite recently I have received
further information as to these prophecies from Mr. J. H. Davies,
of Lincoln's Inn (p. 354), who will, it is to be hoped, soon publish
the results of his intimate study of their history in South Wales.
[68] Record of Carnarvon, p. 133, to which attention was called by
me in the Report of the Welsh Land Commission, p. 648: see now The
Welsh People, pp. 343-4, 593-4.
[69] Nor was Owen the only Welshman in the king of France's service:
there was Owen's chaplain, who on one occasion distinguished himself
greatly in battle. He is called in Froissart's text David House, but
the editor has found from other documents that the name was Honvel
Flinc, which is doubtless Howel, whatever the second vocable may have
been: see Froissart, viii, pp. xxxviii, 69.
[70] As to the original destination of the flotilla, see Kervyn de
Lettenhove's edition of Froissart (Brussels, 1870-7), viii. 435-7,
where the editor has brought together several notes, from which it
appears that Owen tried unsuccessfully to recruit an army in Spain,
but that he readily got together in France a considerable force. For
Charles V, on May 8, 1372, ordered the formation of an army, to be
placed under Owen's command for the reconquest of his ancestors'
lands in Wales, and two days later Owen issued a declaration as to
his Welsh claims and his obligations to the French king; but the
flotilla stopped short with Guernsey. It is not improbable, however,
that the fear in England of a descent on Wales by Owen began at least
as early as 1369. In his declaration Owen calls himself Evain de Gales,
which approaches the Welsh spelling Ewein, more frequently Ywein,
modern Ywain, except that all these forms tended to be supplanted by
Owain or Owen. This last is, strictly speaking, the colloquial form,
just as Howel is the colloquial form of Hywel, and bowyd of bywyd,
'life.'
[71] For the account of Owen's life see the Chroniques de J. Froissart
publiées pour la Société de l'Histoire de France, edited with abstracts
and notes by Siméon Luce, more especially vols. viii. pp. 44-9, 64,
66-71, 84, 122, 190, and ix. pp. 74-9, where a summary is given of his
life and a complete account of his death. In Lord Berners' translation,
published in Henry VIII's time, Owen is called Yuan of Wales, as if
anybody could even glance at the romances without finding that Owen
ab Urien, for instance, became in French Ywains or Ivains le fils
Urien in the nominative, and Ywain or Ivain in régime. Thomas Johnes
of Hafod, whose translation was published in 1803-6, betrays still
greater ignorance by giving him the modern name Evan; but he had the
excuse of being himself a Welshman.
[72] For copies of some of the documents in point see Rymer's Foedera,
viii. 356, 365, 382.
[73] I have not been able to find a copy of this work, and for
drawing my attention to the passage in Hanes Cymru I have again to
thank Mr. Fisher. The pedigree in question will be found printed in
Table I in Askew Roberts' edition of Sir John Wynne's History of
the Gwydir Family (Oswestry, 1878); and a note, apparently copied
from Miss Llwyd, states that it was in a Hengwrt MS. she found the
identification of Owen Lawgoch. The editor surmises that to refer
to p. 865 of Hengwrt MS. 351, which he represents as being a copy of
Hengwrt MS. 96 in the handwriting of Robert Vaughan the Antiquary.
[74] This has already been undertaken: on Feb. 7, 1900, a summary of
this chapter was read to a meeting of the Hon. Society of Cymmrodorion,
and six weeks later Mr. Edward Owen, of Gray's Inn, read an elaborate
paper in which he essayed to fix more exactly Yvain de Galles' place
in the history of Wales. It would be impossible here to do justice to
his reasoning, based as it was on a careful study of the records in
point. Let it suffice for the present, however, that the paper will
in due course appear in the Society's Transactions. Mr. J. H. Davies
also informs me that he is bringing together items of evidence,
which tend, as he thinks, to show that Miss Llwyd's information was
practically correct. Before, however, the question can be considered
satisfactorily answered, some explanation will have to be offered of
Froissart's statement, that Yvain's father's name was Aymon.
[75] We seem also to have an instance in point in Carmarthenshire,
where legend represents Owen and his men sleeping in Ogof Myrdin,
the name of which means Merlin's Cave, and seems to concede priority
of tenancy to the great magician: see the extinct periodical Golud
yr Oes (for 1863), i. 253, which I find to have been probably drawing
on Eliezer Williams' English Works (London, 1840), p. 156.
[76] For the Greek text of the entire passage see the Didot edition
of Plutarch, vol. iii. p. 511 (De Defectu Oraculorum, xviii); also my
Arthurian Legend, pp. 367-8. It is curious to note that storms have,
in a way, been associated in England with the death of her great men
as recently as that of the celebrated Duke of Wellington: see Choice
Notes, p. 270.
[77] See my Arthurian Legend, p. 335. I am indebted to Professor
Morfill for rendering the hexameters into English verse.
[78] They are produced here in their order as printed at the beginning
of the second volume of the Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, and the
series or versions are indicated as i, ii, iii. Version ii will be
found printed in the third volume of the Cymmrodor, pp. 52-61, also in
the Oxford Mabinogion, pp. 297-308, from the Red Book of Hergest of the
fourteenth century. The letter (a, b, c) added is intended to indicate
the order of the three parts of the Triad, for it is not the same in
all the series. Let me here remark in a general way that the former
fondness of the Welsh for Triads was not peculiar to them. The Irish
also must have been at one time addicted to this grouping. Witness the
Triad of Cleverest Countings, in the Book of the Dun Cow, fol. 58a,
and the Triad of the Blemishes of the Women of Ulster, ib. 43b.
[79] As to the names Drystan (also Trystan) and Essyllt, see the
footnote on p. 480 above.
[80] This was meant to explain the unusual term g6rdueichyat, also
written g6rdueichat, g6rueichyat, and gwrddfeichiad. This last comes
in the modern spelling of iii. 101, where this clause is not put in
the middle of the Triad but at the end.
[81] The editor of this version seems to have supposed Pendaran to
have been a place in Dyfed! But his ignorance leaves us no evidence
that he had a different story before him.
[82] This word is found written in Mod. Welsh Annwfn, but it has been
mostly superseded by the curtailed form Annwn, which appears twice
in the Mabinogi of Math. These words have been studied by M. Gaidoz
in Meyer and Stern's Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie, i. 29-34,
where he equates Annwfn with the Breton anauon, which is a plural used
collectively for the souls of the departed, the other world. His view,
however, of these interesting words has since been mentioned in the
same Zeitschrift, iii. 184-5, and opposed in the Annales de Bretagne,
xi. 488.
[83] Edited by Professor Kuno Meyer (London, 1892): see for instance
pp. 76-8.
[84] See Windisch's Irische Texte, p. 256, and now the Irish Text
Society's Fled Bricrend, edited with a translation by George Henderson,
pp. 8, 9.
[85] Windisch, ibid. pp. 99-105.
[86] See the Oxford Mabinogion, p. 196, and Guest's trans., i. 302,
where the Welsh words a gol6ython o gic meluoch are rendered 'and
collops of the flesh of the wild boar,' which can hardly be correct;
for the mel in mel-uoch, or mel-foch in the modern spelling, is
the equivalent of the Irish melg, 'milk.' So the word must refer
either to a pig that had been fed on cows' milk or else a sucking
pig. The former is the more probable meaning, but one is not helped
to decide by the fact, that the word is still sometimes used in books
by writers who imagine that they have here the word mel, 'honey,'
and that the compound means pigs whose flesh is as sweet as honey:
see Dr. Pughe's Dictionary, where melfoch is rendered 'honey swine,'
whatever that may mean.
[87] Windisch's Irische Texte, p. 133, where laith lemnacht = Welsh
llaeth llefrith, 'sweet milk.'
[88] Collfrewi was probably, like Gwenfrewi, a woman's name: this is
a point of some importance when taken in connexion with what was said
at p. 326 above as to Gwydion and Coll's magic.
[89] This reminds one of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Henvinus, whom he
makes into dux Cornubiæ and father of Cunedagius or Cuneda: see ii. 12,
15. Probably Geoffrey's connecting such names as those of Cuneda and
Dyfnwal Moelmud (ii. 17) with Cornwall is due to the fact, that the
name of the Dumnonia of the North had been forgotten long before that
of the Dumnonia to be identified with Devon and Cornwall.
[90] See the Oxford Mabinogion, p. 104, and the Oxford Bruts, p. 292.
[91] See the Oxford Bruts, pp. 299, 317, 345-6, 348, 384. I learn from
Prof. Anwyl that Castell Penwedig is still remembered at Llanfihangel
Genau'r Glyn as the old name of Castell Gwallter in that parish.
[92] See his note in Owen's Pembrokeshire, p. 237, where he also
notices Aber Tarogi, and the editor's notes to p. 55.
[93] Mergaed for Mengwaed hardly requires any explanation; and as
to Breat or rather Vreat, as it occurs in mutation, we have only
to suppose the original carelessly written Vreac for Vreach, and we
have the usual error of neglecting the stroke indicating the n, and
the very common one of confounding c with t. This first-mentioned
name should possibly be analysed into Mengw-aed or Menw-aed for an
Irish Menb-aed, with the menb, 'little,' noticed at p. 510 below;
in that case one might compare such compounds of Aed as Beo-aed and
Lug-aed in the Martyrology of Gorman. Should this prove well founded
the Mod. Welsh transcription of Menwaed should be Menwaed. I have had
the use of other versions of the Triads from MSS. in the Peniarth
collection; but they contribute nothing of any great importance as
regards the proper names in the passages here in question.
[94] See the Oxford Mabinogion, pp. 41, 98, and Guest's trans.,
iii. 313.
[95] See Geoffrey's Historia Regum Britanniæ, vi. 19, viii. 1, 2;
also Giraldus, Itinerarium Kambriæ, ii. 8 (p. 133).
[96] Itinerarium Kambriæ, ii. 9 (p. 136).
[97] Menw's name is to be equated with the Irish word menb, 'little,
small,' and connected with the Welsh derivative di-fenw-i, 'belittling
or reviling': it will be seen that he takes the form of a bird, and
his designation Menw fab Teirgwaed might perhaps be rendered 'Little,
son of Three-Cries.'
[98] Identified by Professor Kuno Meyer in the Transactions of the
Cymmrodorion Society, 1895-6, p. 73, with a place in Leinster called
Sescenn Uairbeóil, 'the Marsh of Uairbhél,' where Uairbhél may possibly
be a man's name, but more likely that of a pass or gap described as
Cold-mouth: compare the Slack or Sloc in the Isle of Man, called in
Manx 'the big Mouth of the Wind.' The Irish name comes near in part
to the Welsh Esgeir Oervel or Oerfel, which means 'the mountain Spur
of cold Weather.'
[99] The word used in the text is ystyr, which now means 'meaning
or signification'; but it is there used in the sense of 'history,'
or of the Latin 'historia,' from which it is probably borrowed.
[100] In the original his designation is Gwrhyr Gwalstawt Ieithoed, and
the man so called is in the Kulhwch credited with the mastery of all
languages, including those of certain birds and quadrupeds. Gwalstawt,
found written also gwalstot, is the Anglo-Saxon word wealhstód,
'an interpreter,' borrowed. The name Gwrhyr is possibly identical
with that of Ferghoir, borne by the Stentor of Fionn mac Cumhaill's
following. Ferghoir's every shout is said to have been audible over
three cantreds. Naturally one who was to parley with a savage host
had good reason to cultivate a far-reaching voice, if he wished to
be certain of returning to his friends. For more about it see the
footnote at p. 489 of my Hibbert Lectures.
[101] The original has Pelumyawc, p. 138, and the name occurs in the
(Red Book) Bruts, p. 355, as Pelunyawc, and p. 411, as Pelunea(wc)
between the commots of Amgoed and Velfrey. The identification here
suggested comes from Mr. Phillimore, who has seen that Peuliniawc
must be a derivative from the name Paulinus, that is of the
Paulinus, probably, who is mentioned in an ancient inscription
at Llandysilio. There are other churches called after Tysilio, so
this one used to be distinguished as Llandysilio yn Nyfed, that is,
Llandysilio-in-Dyfed; but the pronunciation was much the same as
if it had been written Llandysilio yn Yfed, meaning 'Llandysilio
a-drinking,' 'whereof arose a merrye jest,' as George Owen tells us
in his Pembrokeshire, p. 9. It is now sometimes called Llandysilio'r
Gynffon, or 'Llandysilio of the Tail,' from the situation of a part
of the parish on a strip, as it were a tail, of Carmarthenshire land
running into Pembrokeshire.
[102] This Aber Towy appears to have been a town with a harbour in
1042, for we read in Brut y Tywysogion of a cruel engagement fought
there between Gruffyd ab Llewelyn and Howel ab Edwin, who, with
Irish auxiliaries, tried to effect a landing. Not long ago a storm,
carrying away the accumulation of sand, laid bare a good deal of the
site. It is to be hoped that excavations will be made soon on the spot.
[103] See the Transactions of the Cymmrodorion, 1894-5,
pp. 146-7. There are a good many clyns about South Wales, but our
etymologists are careful to have them in most cases written glyn,
'a glen.' Our story, however, shows that the word came under the
influence of glyn long ago, for it should be, when accented, clûn,
corresponding to Irish cluain, 'a meadow.' We have it as clun in Clun
Kein in the Black Book, p. 34b, where I guess it to mean the place
now called Cilcain, 'Kilken' in Flintshire, which is accented on the
first syllabic; and we have had it in y Clun Hir, 'the Long Meadow,'
mentioned above at p. 22.
[104] Cas Llychwr, 'Loughor Castle,' is supposed to involve in its
Llychwr, Llwchwr, or Loughor, the name of the place in the Antoninus
Itinerary, 484, 1, to wit Leucarum; but the guttural spirant ch between
vowels in Llychwr argues a phonetic process which was Goidelic rather
than Brythonic.
[105] Llwydawc Gouynnyat would seem to mean Llwydawc the Asker
or Demander, and the epithet occurs also in the Kulhwch in the
name Gallcoyt Gouynynat (Mabinogion, 106), to be read doubtless
G. Gouynnyat, 'G. who asks or demands': possibly one should rather
compare with Go-uynnyat the word tra-mynyat, 'a wild boar': see
Williams' Seint Greal, pp. 374, 381. However, the epithets in the Twrch
Trwyth story do not count so far as concerns the place-names derived.
[106] Other instances of the like shortening occur in words like
cefnder, 'a cousin,' for cefnderw, and ardel, 'to own,' for ardelw. As
to Amman, it enters, also, into a group of Glamorganshire place-names:
witness Aber Amman and Cwm Amman, near Aberdare.
[107] It should perhaps be looked for near Brechfa, where there is
a Hafod Grugyn, and, as I am told, a Garth also which is, however,
not further defined. For it appears that both Brechfa and Cayo,
though now in Carmarthenshire, once belonged to Keredigion: see Owen's
Pembrokeshire, p. 216. But perhaps another spot should be considered:
J. D. Rhys, the grammarian (p. 22 above), gives in the Peniarth MS. 118
a list of caers or castles called after giants, and among them is that
of Grugyn in the parish, he says, of 'Llan Hilar.' I have, however, not
been able to hear of any trace of the name there, though I should guess
the spot to have been Pen y Castell, called in English Castle Hill, the
residence of Mr. Loxdale in the parish of Llanilar, near Aberystwyth.
[108] I have re-examined the passage, and I have no doubt that the
editors were wrong in printing Gregyn: the manuscript has Grugyn,
which comes in the last line of column 841. Now besides that the line
is in part somewhat faint, the scribe has evidently omitted something
from the original story, and I guess that the lacuna occurs in the
first line of the next column after the words y llas, 'was killed,'
which seem to end the story of Grugyn.
[109] Those who have discovered an independent Welsh appellative wy
meaning water are not to be reasoned with. The Welsh wy only means
an egg, while the meaning of Gwy as the name of the Wye has still to
be discovered.
[110] This name also occurs in a passage quoted in Jones' Brecknock,
ii. 501, from a Carte MS. which he treats as relating to the year 1234:
the MS. is said to be at the Bodleian, though I have not succeeded in
tracing it. But Jones gives Villa de Ystraddewi, and speaks of a chapel
of St. John's of Stradtewi, which must have been St. John's Church,
at Tretower, one of the ecclesiastical districts of Cwm Du: see also
p. 497. The name is probably to be treated as Strad or Strat d'Ewe.
[111] A river may in Welsh be briefly called after anybody or
anything. Thus in North Cardiganshire there is a stream called Einon,
that is to say 'Einion's river,' and the flat land on both sides of
it is called Ystrad Einon, which looks as if one might translate
it Einion's Strath, but it means the Strath of Einion's river, or
of the stream called Einon, as one will at once see from the upper
course of the water being called Blaen Einon, which can only mean the
upper course of the Einon river. So here yw is in English 'yew,' but
Ystrad Yw and Llygad Yw have to be rendered the Strath of the Yew burn
and the Eye of the Yew burn respectively. It is moreover felt by the
Welsh-speaking people of the district that yw is the plural of ywen,
'a single yew,' and as there is only one yew at the source somebody had
the brilliant idea of making the name right by calling it Ywen, and
this has got into the maps as Ewyn, as though it were the Welsh word
for foam. Who began it I cannot say, but Theophilus Jones has it in
his History of the County of Brecknock, published in 1809. Nevertheless
the name is still Yw, not Ywen or Ewyn, in the Welsh of the district,
though Lewis gives it as Ywen in his article on Llanvihangel-Cwm-Du.
[112] For exact information as to the Gaer, the Yw, and Llygad Yw,
I am indebted chiefly to the courtesy of Lord Glanusk, the owner of
that historic strath, and to the Rector of Llansantffread, who made
a special visit to Llygad Yw for me; also to Mr. Francis Evans, of
the Farmers' Arms at the Bwlch, who would be glad to change the name
Llygad Yw into Llygad dan yr Ywen, 'the Source beneath the Yew-tree,'
partly on account of the position 'of the spring emanating under the
but of the yew tree,' and partly because there is only a single yew
there. Theophilus Jones complained a century ago that the Gaer in
Ystrad Yw had not attracted the attention it deserved; and I have
been greatly disappointed to find that the Cambrian Archæological
Association has had nothing to say of it. At any rate, I have tried
the Index of its proceedings and found only a single mention of
it. The whole district is said to teem with antiquities, Celtic,
Roman, and Norman.
[113] Theophilus Jones, in his Brecknockshire, ii. 502, describes
Miarth or Myarth as a 'very extensive' camp, and proceeds as
follows:--'Another British camp of less extent is seen on a knoll on
Pentir hill, westward of the Rhiangoll and the parish church of Cwmdu,
above a wood called Coed y Gaer, and nearly opposite to the peak or
summit called Cloch y Pibwr, or the piper's call.' This would probably
be more accurately rendered the Piper's Rock or Stone, with cloch
treated as the Goidelic word for a stone rather than the Brythonic
word for a bell: how many more clochs in our place-names are Goidelic?
[114] The Twrch would seem to have crossed somewhere opposite the
mouth of the Wye, let us say not very far from Aust; but he escapes to
Cornwall without anything happening to him, so we are left without any
indication whether the story originally regarded Kernyw as including
the Penrhyn Awstin of the Coll story given at p. 503.
[115] For this suggestion I am indebted to the Rev. Dr. Gaster in the
Cymmrodorion's Transactions for 1894-5, p. 34, and also for references
in point to M. Cosquin's Contes Populaires de la Lorraine, i. 134,
141, 152. Compare also such Gaelic stories as that of the Bodach Glas,
translated by Mrs. Mackellar, in the Celtic Magazine, xii. 12-6, 57-64.
[116] In some native Welsh words we have an option between a prefix
ym and am, an option arising out of the fact that originally it
was neither ym nor am, but m, for an earlier mbi, of the same origin
as Latin ambi and Greek amphi, 'around, about.' The article, its
meaning in the combination in banbh being forgotten, would fall under
the influence of the analogy of the prefix, now am or ym, so far as
the pronunciation was concerned.
[117] Possibly the benwic was thrown in to correct the reckoning when
the redactor discovered, as he thought, that he had one too many to
account for: it has been pointed out that he had forgotten that one
had been killed in Ireland.
[118] It is just possible, however, that in an older version it was
named, and that the place was no other than the rock just above
Ystrad Yw, called Craig Lwyd or, as it is said to be pronounced,
Craig Llwyd. If so, Llwyd would seem to have been substituted for
the dissyllable Llwydog: compare the same person called Llwyt and
Llwydeu in the Mabinogion, pp. 57, 110, 136.
[119] The name is well known in that of Llanrhaiadr yn Mochnant,
'Llanrhaiadr in Mochnant,' in the north of Montgomeryshire.
[120] Between Colwyn Bay and Llandudno Junction, on the Chester and
Holyhead line of railway.
[121] I have discussed some of the traces of the Goidels in Wales in
the Arch. Camb. for 1895, pp. 18-39, 264-302; 1899, pp. 160-7.
[122] In fact the genitive Grúcind occurs in the Book of Leinster,
fo. 359a.
[123] The sort of question one would like to ask in that district is,
whether there is a spot there called Bed y Rhyswyr, Carn y Rhyswyr,
or the like. The word rhyswr is found applied to Arthur himself in
the Life of Gruffyd ab Cynan, as the equivalent probably of the
Latin Arthur Miles (p. 538 below): see the Myvyrian Archaiology,
ii. 590. Similarly the soldiers or champions of Christ are called
rys6yr crist in the Welsh Life of St. David: see the Elucidarium and
other Tracts (in the Anecdota Oxoniensia), p. 118.
[124] Rudvyw Rys would be in Modern Welsh Rhudfyw Rys, and probably
means Rhudfyw the Champion or Fighter, as Rhys is likely to have been
synonymous with rhyswr. The corresponding Irish name was Russ or Ross,
genitive Rossa, and it appears to come from the same origin as Irish
ross, 'a headland, a forest,' Welsh rhos, 'moorland, uncultivated
ground.' The original meaning was presumably 'exposed or open and
untilled land'; and Stokes supposes the word to stand for an early
(p)ro-sto- with sto of the same origin as Latin sto, 'I stand,' and
as the English word stand itself. In that case Ros, genitive Rossa,
Welsh Rhys, would mean one who stands out to fight, a prostatês,
so to say. But not only are these words of a different declension
implying a nominative Ro-stus, but the Welsh one must have been once
accented Ro-stús on the ending which is now lost, otherwise there is
no accounting for the change of the remaining vowel into y. Other
instances postulating an early Welsh accentuation of the same kind
are very probably llyg, 'a fieldmouse,' Irish luch, 'a mouse'; pryd,
'form,' Irish cruth; pryf, 'a worm,' Irish cruim; so also with ych,
'an ox,' and nyth, 'a nest,' Irish nett, genitive nitt, derived by
Stokes from nizdo-, which, however, must have been oxytone, like the
corresponding Sanskrit nidhá. There is one very interesting compound of
rhys, namely the saint's name Rhwydrys, as it were Redo-rostus to be
compared with Gaulish Eporedo-rix, which is found in Irish analysed
into rí Eochraidhi, designating the fairy king who was father to
Étáin: see Windisch's Irische Texte, p. 119. Bledrws, Bledrus, as
contrasted with Bledrys, Bledris, postulate Goidelic accentuation,
while one has to treat Bledruis as a compromise between Bledrws and
Bledris, unless it be due to misreading a Bledruif (Book of Llan Dâv,
pp. 185, 221-2, and Arch. Camb. for 1875, p. 370). The Goidelic accent
at an early date moved to first syllables, hence cruth (with its vowel
influenced by the u of a stem qurt) under the stress accent, became,
when unstressed, cridh (from a simplified stem crt) as in Noicride
(also Nóicrothach, Windisch, ibid., pp. 259, 261, 266)
and Luicridh (Four Masters, A.D. 748), Luccraid, genitive Luccraide
(Book of Leinster, 359f), Luguqurit- in Ogam.
[125] These operations cannot have been the first of the kind in
the district, as a writer in the Archæologia Cambrensis for 1862,
pp. 159-60, in extracting a note from the Proceedings of the Society
of Antiquaries (series II, vol. i. p. 10) relative to the discovery
of the canoe, adds a statement based on the same volume, p. 161,
to the effect that 'within half a mile of Llyn Llydaw there are the
remains of a British town, not marked in the ordnance map, comprising
the foundations of numerous circular dwellings. In some of them
quantities of the refuse of copper smeltings were found. This town
should be visited and examined with care by some of the members of
our Association.' This was written not far short of forty years ago;
but I am not aware that the Association has done anything positive
as yet in this matter.
[126] According to Jenkins' Bed Gelert, p. 300, the canoe was
subsequently sold for a substantial price, and nobody seems to
know what has eventually become of it. It is to be hoped this is
not correct.
[127] See Holder's Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz, s. v. Litavia.
[128] For these notes I am indebted to Williams' Dictionary of Eminent
Welshmen, and to Rees' Welsh Saints, pp. 187, 191; for our Paulinus
is not yet recognized in the Dictionary of Christian Biography. His
day was Nov. 22.
[129] There are two other inscriptions in South Wales which contain
the name Paulinus, one on a stone found in the neighbourhood of Port
Talbot in Glamorgan, reading Hic iacit Cantusus Pater Paulinus,
which seems to imply that Paulinus set up the stone to the memory
of a son of his named Cantusus. The other, found on the site of the
extinct church of Llanwrthwl, near Dolau Cothi in Carmarthenshire,
is a remarkable one in a kind of hexameter to the following effect:--
Servatur fidæi patrieque semper amator
Hic Paulinus iacit cultor pientisimus æqui.
Whether we have one or two or three Paulini in these inscriptions
I cannot say. Welsh writers, however, have made the name sometimes
into Pawl Hên, 'Paul the Aged,' but, so far as I can see, without
rhyme or reason.
[130] Since I chanced on this inscription my friend Professor Lindsay
of St. Andrews has called my attention to Plautus' Asinaria, 499
(II. iv. 92), where one reads, Periphanes Rhodo mercator dives,
'Periphanes a wealthy merchant of Rhodes'; he finds also Æsculapius
Epidauro (Arnobius, 278. 18), and elsewhere Nepos Philippis and
Priscus Vienna.
[131] See Stokes' Patrick, pp. 16, 412.
[132] This will give the reader some idea of the pre-Norman orthography
of Welsh, with l for the sound of ll and b for that of v.
[133] The softening of Cafall to Gafall could not take place after the
masculine corn, 'a horn'; but it was just right after the feminine
carn, 'a cairn.' So here corn is doubtless a colloquial corruption;
and so is probably the t at the end, for as llt has frequently been
reduced to ll, as in cyfaill, 'a friend,' from the older cyfaillt,
in Medieval Irish comalta, 'a foster brother or sister,' the language
has sometimes reversed the process, as when one hears hollt for holl,
'all,' or reads fferyllt, 'alchemist, chemist,' for fferyll from
Vergilius. The Nennian orthography does not much trouble itself to
distinguish between l and ll, and even when Carn Cabal was written the
pronunciation was probably Carn Gavall, the mutation being ignored
in the spelling, which frequently happens in the case even of Welsh
people who never fail to mutate their consonants in speaking. Lastly,
though it was a dog that was called Cafall, it is remarkable that
the word has exactly the form taken by caballus in Welsh: for cafall,
as meaning some sort of a horse, see Silvan Evans' Geiriadur.
[134] An instance or two of Trwyd will be found in a note by Silvan
Evans in Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales, ii. 393.
[135] For more about these names and kindred ones, see a note of mine
in the Arch. Cambrensis, 1898, pp. 61-3.
[136] See my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 398-401.
[137] See the Black Book of Carmarthen in Evans' facsimile, p. 47b;
Thomas Stephens' Gododin, p. 146; Dent's Malory, preface, p. xxvi;
and Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales, ii. 51, 63, 155.
[138] See the Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen for 1890, p. 512.
[139] See De Courson's Cartulaire de l'abbaye de Redon, pp. 163, 186.
[140] See Reeves' note to the passage just cited in his edition of
Adamnan's Vita, pp. 6, 7.
[141] Here possibly one might mention likewise Gilmin Troetu or
Troeddu, 'Gilmin of the Black Foot,' the legendary ancestor (p. 444)
of the Wynns of Glyn Llifon, in Carnarvonshire. So the name might be a
shortening of some such a combination as Gilla-min, 'the attendant of
Min or Men,' a name we have also in Mocu-Min, 'Min's Kin,' a family
or sept so called more than once by Adamnan. Perhaps one would also
be right in regarding as of similar origin the name of Gilberd or
Gilbert, son of Cadgyffro, who is mentioned in the Kulhwch, and in
the Black Book, fo. 14b: at any rate I am not convinced that the name
is to be identified with the Gillebert of the Normans, unless that
was itself derived from Celtic. But there is a discrepancy between
Gilmin, Gilbert, with unmutated m and b, and Gilvaethwy with its
mutation consonant v. In all three, however, Gil, had it been Welsh,
would probably have appeared as Gill, as indicated by the name Gilla
in the Kulhwch (Oxford Mabinogion, p. 110), in which we seem to have
the later form of the old name Gildas. Compare such Irish instances
as Fiachna and Cera, which seem to imply stems originally ending in
-asa-s (masculine) and -asa (feminine); and see the Journal of the
Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 1899, P. 402.
[142] An article in the Rennes Dindsenchas is devoted to Liath: see the
Rev. Celtique, xvi. 78-9. As to Celtchar, genitive Celtchair, the name
would seem to have meant 'him who is fond of concealment.' The Mabinogi
form of the Welsh name is Llwyt uab kil coet, which literally meant
'Ll. son of (him of) the Retreat of the Wood.' But in the Twrch Trwyth
story, under a slightly different form of designation, we appear to
have the same person as Llwydeu mab kelcoet and Llwydeu mab kel coet,
which would seem to mean 'Ll. son of (him of) the Hidden Wood.' It
looks as if the bilingual story-teller of the language transition
had not been able to give up the cel of Celtchar at the same time
that he rendered celt by coet, 'wood or trees,' as if identifying
it with cailt: witness the Medieval Irish caill, 'a wood or forest,'
dative plural cailtib, derivative adjective caillteamhuil, 'silvester';
and see Windisch's Irische Texte, p. 410, s. v. caill.
[143] Windisch's Irische Texte, p. 217, and the Book of the Dun Cow,
fo. 47b.
[144] There has been a good deal of confusion as to the name Llyr:
thus for instance, the Welsh translations of Geoffrey of Monmouth
make the Leir of his Latin into Llyr, and the personage intended is
represented as the father of three daughters named Gonerilla, Regan,
and Cordeilla or Cordelia. But Cordelia is probably the Creurdilad of
the Black Book, p. 49b, and the Creidylat of the Kulhwch story (the
Oxford Mabinogion, pp. 113, 134), and her father was Llûd Llawereint (=
Irish Nuada Airgetlám) and not Llyr. Then as to the Leir of Geoffrey's
Latin, that name looks as if given its form on the strength of the
legr- of Legraceaster, the Anglo-Saxon name of the town now called
Leicester, of which William of Malmesbury (Gesta Pontificum, § 176)
says, Legrecestra est civitas antiqua in Mediterraneis Anglis, a Legra
fluvio præterfluente sic vocata. Mr. Stevenson regards Legra as an old
name of the Soar, and as surviving in that of the village of Leire,
spelled Legre in Domesday. It seems to point back to a Legere or
Ligere, which recalls Liger, 'the Loire.'
[145] I say in that case, as this is not quite conclusive; for Welsh
has an appellative llyr, 'mare, æquor,' which may be a generalizing
of Llyr; or else it may represent an early lerio-s from lero-s (see
p. 549 below), and our Llyr may possibly be this and not the Irish
genitive Lir retained as Llyr. That, however, seems to me improbable
on the whole.
[146] Here it is relevant to direct the reader's attention to Nutt's
Legend of the Holy Grail, p. 28, where, in giving an abstract of the
Petit saint Graal, he speaks of the Brân of that romance, in French
Bron, nominative Brons, as having the keeping of the Grail and dwelling
'in these isles of Ireland.'
[147] The Dôn and Llyr groups are not brought into conflict or even
placed in contact with one another; and the reason seems to be that
the story-teller wanted to introduce the sons of Beli as supreme
in Britain after the death of Brân. Beli and his sons are also
represented in Maxen's Dream as ruling over Britain when the Roman
conqueror arrives. What is to be made of Beli may be learnt from The
Welsh People, pp. 41-3.
[148] These things one learns about Lir from the story mentioned
in the text as the 'Fate of the Children of Lir,' as to which it is
right, however, to say that no ancient manuscript version is known:
see M. d'Arbois dc Jubainville's Essai d'un Catalogue de la Litérature
épique de l'Irlande, p. 8.
[149] See Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales, ii. 303, also 108-9,
where the fragment of the poem as given in the Book of Taliessin is
printed. The line here quoted has been rendered in vol. i. 286, 'With
Matheu and Govannon,' which places the old pagan Gofannon in rather
unexpected company. A few lines later in the poem mention is made of a
Kaer Gofannon: where was that? Skene, in a note on it (ii. 452), says
that 'In an old list of the churches of Linlithgow, printed by Theiner,
appears Vicaria de Gumanyn. The place meant is probably Dalmeny, on
the Firth of Forth, formerly called Dumanyn.' This is interesting only
as showing that Gumanyn is probably to be construed Dumanyn, and that
Dalmeny represents an ancient Dún Manann in a neighbourhood where one
already has Clach Manann, 'the stone of Manau,' and Sliabh Manann,
'Mountain of Manau' now respectively Clackmannan and Slamannan,
in what Nennius calls Manau Guotodin.
[150] This occurred unrecognized and, therefore, unaltered by the
scribe of the Nennian Pedigree no. xvi in the Cymmrodor, ix. 176,
as he found it written in an old spelling, Louhen. map. Guid
gen. map. Caratauc. map. Cinbelin, where Caradog is made father of
Gwydion; for in Guid-gen we seem to have the compound name which
suggested Gwydion. This agrees with the fact that the Mabinogi of
Math treats Gwydion as the father of Llew Llawgyffes; but the pedigree
itself seems to have been strangely put together.
[151] See Bertrand's Religion des Gaulois, pp. 314-9, 343-5, and
especially the plates.
[152] The Oxford Mabinogion, pp. 40-3; Guest's Mabinogion, iii. 124-8.
[153] See Louis Leger's Cyrille et Méthode (Paris, 1868), p. 22.
[154] See Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ Historia Scriptorum, xii. 794. The
whole passage is worth quoting; it runs thus: Erat autem simulacrum
triceps, quod in uno corpore tria capita habens Triglaus vocabatur;
quod solum accipiens, ipsa capitella sibi cohærentia, corpore
comminuto, secum inde quasi pro tropheo asportavit, et postea Romam
pro argumento conversionis illorum transmisit.
[155] See The Welsh People, pp. 56-7.
[156] The Oxford Mabinogion, p. 147; Guest's Mabinogion, ii. 398.
[157] This may have meant the 'Blue Slate or Flagstone'; but there is
no telling so long as the place is not identified. It may have been
in the Pictish district of Galloway, or else somewhere beyond the
Forth. Query whether it was the same place as Llech Gelydon in Prydyn,
mentioned in Boned y Saint: see the Myvyrian Archaiology, ii. 49.
[158] The story of Kulhwch and Olwen has a different legend which
represents Nynio and Peibio changed by the Almighty into two oxen
called Ychen Banna6c: see the Oxford Mabinogion, p. 121, also my
Arthurian Legend, p. 304, and the remarks which are to follow in this
chapter with respect to those oxen.
[159] For the story in Welsh see the Iolo MSS., pp. 193-4, where a
footnote tells the reader that it was copied from the book of 'Iaco
ab Dewi.' From his father's manuscript, Taliesin Williams printed
an abstract in English in his notes to his poem entitled the Doom
of Colyn Dolphyn (London, 1837), pp. 119-20, from which it will be
found translated into German in the notes to San-Marte's Geoffrey of
Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniæ, pp. 402-3.
[160] Oxford Bruts, p. 213: compare p. 146, together with Geoffrey's
Latin, vii. 3, x. 3.
[161] See Kölbing's Altenglische Bibliothek, the fifth volume of
which consists of Libeaus Desconus, edited by Max Kaluza (Leipsic,
1890), lines 163, 591, and Introduction, p. cxxxxiv. For calling my
attention to this, I have to thank my friend, Mr. Henry Bradley.
[162] Malory's Morte Darthur, i. 27: see also i. 17-8, 28; ii. 6, 8-9.
[163] See Evans' Autotype Facsimile, fo. 33a: could the spot so called
(in the Welsh text argel Ardudwy) be somewhere in the neighbourhood of
Llyn Irdyn (p. 148), a district said to be rich in the remains of a
prehistoric antiquity? J. Evans, author of the North Wales volume of
the Beauties of England and Wales, says, after hurriedly enumerating
such antiquities, p. 909: 'Perhaps in no part of Britain is there
still remaining such an assemblage of relicks belonging to druidical
rites and customs as are found in this place, and the adjacent parts.'
[164] As to Rion, see Gaston Paris and Ulrich's Merlin (Paris, 1886),
i. 202, 239-46. Other instances will readily occur to the reader,
such as the Domesday Roelend or Roelent for Rothelan, in Modern
Welsh Rhudlan; but for more instances of this elision by French and
Anglo-Norman scribes of vowel-flanked d and th, see Notes and Queries
for Oct. 28, 1899, pp. 351-2, and Nov. 18, p. 415; also Vising's Étude
sur le Dialecte anglo-normand du xije Siècle (Upsala, 1882), p. 88; and
F. Hildebrand's article on Domesday, in the Zeitschrift für romanische
Philologie, 1884, p. 360. According to Suchier in Gröber's Grundriss
der rom. Philologie, i. 581, this process of elision became complete in
the twelfth century: see also Schwan's Grammatik des Altfranzösischen
(Leipsic, 1888), p. 65. For most of these references, I have to thank
my friend and neighbour, Mr. Stevenson of Exeter College.
[165] It comes from the same Llwyd MS. which has already been cited
at pp. 233-4: see the Cambrian Journal for 1859, pp. 209-10.
[166] I notice in the maps a spot called Panylau, which is nearer to
Llyn Gwynain than to Llyn y Dinas.
[167] See Morris' Celtic Remains, s. v. Serigi, and the Iolo MSS.,
p. 81.
[168] The Iolo MSS., p. 81, have Syrigi Wydel son of Mwrchan son of
Eurnach Hen.
[169] See Triads, ii. 12, and the Mabinogion, p. 301: in Triads,
i. 72, iii. 86, instead of Solor we have Doler and Dolor.
[170] See the Oxford Mabinogion, pp. 125-8.
[171] Evans' Autotype Facsimile, fo. 48a; see also my preface to
Dent's Malory, p. xxvii; likewise p. 457 above.
[172] See my Lectures on Welsh Philology, pp. 377-9; and, as to the
Caer Gai tradition, the Arch. Camb. for 1850, p. 204, and Morris'
Celtic Remains, p. 63. I may add as to Llanuwchllyn, that the oldest
inhabitants pronounce that name Llanuwllyn.
[173] I cannot discover that it has ever been investigated by the
Cambrian Archæological Association or any other antiquaries. Compare
the case of the neighbouring site with the traces of the copper
smeltings mentioned in the note on p. 532 above. To my knowledge the
Cambrians have twice failed to make their way nearer to the ruins
than Llanberis, or at most Llanberis Pass, significantly called in
Welsh Pen Gorffwysfa for the older name Gorffwysfa Beris, 'Peris'
Resting-place': thus we loyally follow the example of resting set by
the saint, and leave alone the archæology of the district.
[174] The subject has been discussed at length by Mr. Jacobs, in a
note to the legend, in his Celtic Fairy Tales, pp. 259-64; and quite
recently by Mr. D. E. Jenkins in his Bed Gelert (Portmadoc, 1899),
pp. 56-74.
[175] Professor J. Morris Jones, to whom I am indebted for the
particulars connected with these names, informs me that the local
pronunciation is Drónwy; but Mrs. Rhys remembers that, years ago,
at Amlwch, it was always sounded Darónwy. The Professor also tells
me that Dernog is never made into Dyrnog: the Kuwgh of the Record is
doubtless to be corrected into Knwgh, and probably also Dornok into
Dernok, which is the reading in the margin. Cornewe is doubtless the
district name which we have still in Llanfair y'Nghornwy, 'St. Mary's
in Cornwy': the mill is supposed to be that of Bodronyn.
[176] The Book of Llan Dáv has an old form Cinust for an earlier
Cingust or Congust. The early Brythonic nominative must have
been Cunogústu-s and the early Goidelic Cúnagusu-s, and from the
difference of accentuation come the o of Conghus, Connws, and the y
of the Welsh Cynwst: compare Irish Fergus and Welsh Gurgúst, later
Gurúst (one syllable), whence Grwst, finally the accented rwst of
Llanrwst, the name of a small town on the river Conwy. Moreover the
accentuation Cúnogusi is the reason why it was not written Cunogussi:
compare Bárrivendi and Véndubari in one and the same inscription
from Carmarthenshire.
[177] Such as that of a holding called Wele Dauid ap Gwelsantfrait,
the latter part of which is perversely written or wrongly read so for
Gwas Sant Freit, a rendering into Welsh of the very Goidelic name,
Mael-Brigte, 'Servant of St. Bridget.' This Wele, with Wele Conus and
Wele More, is contained in the Extent marginally headed Darronwy cum
Hameletta de Kuwghdernok.
[178] This comes in Triad i. 49 = ii. 40; as to which it is to be noted
that the name is Catwallawn in i and ii, but Caswallawn in iii. 27,
as in the Oxford Mabinogion.
[179] Serrigi, Serigi, or Syrigi looks like a Latin genitive torn
out of its context, but derived in the last resort from the Norse
name Sigtrygg-r, which the Four Masters give as Sitriucc or Sitriug:
see their entries from 891 to 1091. The Scandinavians of Dublin and
its neighbourhood were addicted to descents on the shores of North
Wales; and we have possibly a trace of occupation by them in Gauell
Seirith, 'Seirith's holding,' in the Record of Carnarvon, p. 63,
where the place in question is represented as being in the manor of
Cemmaes, in Anglesey. The name Seirith was probably that written by
the Four Masters as Sichfraith Sichraidh (also Serridh, A. D. 971),
that is to say the Norse Sigræd-r before it lost the f retained in its
German equivalent Siegfried. We seem to detect Seirith later as Seri
in place-names in Anglesey--as for example in the name of the farms
called Seri Fawr and Seri Bach between Llandrygarn and Llannerch y Med,
also in a Pen Seri, 'Seri's Knoll or Hill,' at Bryn Du, near Ty Croes
station, and in another Pen Seri on Holyhead Island, between Holyhead
and Llain Goch, on the way to the South Stack. Lastly Dugdale, v. 672b
mentions a Claud Seri, 'Seri's Dyke or Ditch,' as being somewhere
in the neighbourhood of Llanwnda, in Carnarvonshire--not very far
perhaps from the Gwyrfai and the spot where the Iolo MSS. (pp. 81-2)
represent Serrigi repulsed by Caswallon and driven back to Anglesey,
previous to his being crushed at Cerrig y Gwydyl. The reader must,
however, be warned that the modern Seri is sometimes pronounced Sieri
or Sheri, which suggests the possibility of some of the instances
involving rather a form of the English word sheriff.
[180] See my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 546-8.
[181] The case with regard to the extreme south of the Principality
is somewhat similar; for inscriptions in Glamorgan seem to bring the
last echoes there of Goidelic speech down to the seventh century:
see the Archæologia Cambrensis for 1899, pp. 160-6.
[182] See Evans' Report on MSS. in the Welsh Language, p. 837, where
the Welsh is quoted from p. 131 of the Peniarth MS. 134.
[183] See my Arthurian Legend, p. 70.
[184] See the Revue Celtique, ii. 197-9, where Dr. Stokes has published
the original with a translation and notes; also p. 435 above.
[185] The gentlemen to whom I am chiefly indebted for the information
embodied in the foregoing notes are the following four: the Rev. John
Jones of Ystad Meurig, Professor Robert Williams of St. David's
College, the Vicar of Llandewi Brefi, Mr. J. H. Davies of Cwrt Mawr
and Lincoln's Inn (p. 354); and as to the 'wild cattle' story of Llyn
Eidwen, Mr. J. E. Rogers of Aber Meurig is my authority.
[186] So I had it many years ago from an old woman from Llangeitho,
and so Mr. J. G. Evans remembers his mother repeating it; but now it
is made into Llan Dewi Brefi braith, with the mutations disregarded.
[187] See the Archæologia Cambrensis for 1868, p. 88.
[188] See ib. p. 87. I have ascertained on the best authority the
identity of the present owner of the horn, though I have not succeeded
in eliciting from him any reply to my inquiries. I conclude that
there is something wrong with the postal service in my native county.
[189] Several passages bearing on the word bannog have been brought
together in Silvan Evans' Geiriadur. He gives the meaning as 'high,
lofty, prominent, conspicuous.' The word is derived from ban, 'a
summit or peak,' plural bannau, so common in the names of hills
and mountains in South Wales--as in y Fan in Carmarthenshire,
Bannwchdeni (p. 22) in Breconshire, Pen y Bannau near Pont Rhyd
Fendigaid in Cardiganshire, Bannau Brycheiniog and Bannau Sir Gaer,
the mountains called in English the Beacons of Breconshire and
Carmarthenshire respectively. In North Wales we have it possibly in
the compound Tryfan, which the mapsters will have us call Tryfaen;
and the corresponding word in Scotch Gaelic appears in such names
as Ben Nevis and the like, while in Irish the word benn meant a horn
or peak. I am, nevertheless, not at all sure that Ychen Bannog meant
horned oxen or even tall and conspicuous oxen; for there is a Welsh
word man, meaning a spot or mark (Latin menda), and the adjective
was mannawc, mannog, 'spotted, marked, particoloured.' Now in the
soft mutation all four words--ban, bannog, and man, mannog--would
begin with f = v, which might help to confusion between them. This
may be illustrated in a way from Williams' Seint Greal (pp. 88-92),
where Gwalchmai has a dream in which he sees 150 bulls with spots or
patches of colour on them, except three only which were 'without any
spot in the world' (neb ryw vann or byt), or as it is also put 'without
spot' (heb vann). This word vann, applied to the colour of the bulls,
comes from the radical form mann; and the adjective was mannawc or
mannog, which would mean spotted, particoloured, or having patches
of colour. Now the oxen of Welsh legends are also sometimes called
Ychen Mannog (pp. 131-2), and it is possible, that, whichever way the
term is written, it should be interpreted to mean spotted, marked,
or particoloured oxen. I take it also that Llan Dewi Frefi fraith was
meant as synonymous with Llan Dewi Frefi fannog, which did not fit the
rhyme. Lastly, the Dyfed use of the saying Fel dau ych bannog, 'Like
two Bannog oxen,' in the sense of 'equal and inseparable companions'
(as instanced in the Geiriadur), sounds like the antithesis of the
passage in the Kulhwch (Mabinogion, p. 121). For there we have words
to the following effect: 'Though thou shouldst get that, there is
something which thou wilt not get, namely the two oxen of Bannog,
the one on the other side of the Bannog mountain and the other on
this side, and to bring them together to draw the same plough. They
are, to wit, Nynio and Peibio, whom God fashioned into oxen for their
sins.' Here the difficulty contemplated was not to separate the two,
but to bring them together to work under the same yoke. This is more
in harmony with the story of the mad quarrel between the two brother
kings bearing those names as mentioned above.
[190] See the Revue Celtique, iii. 310, after Gruter, 570, 6.
[191] An important paper on the Tarvos Trigaranus, from the pen of
M. Salomon Reinach, will be found in the Revue Celtique, xviii. 253-66;
and M. d'A. de Jubainville's remarkable equations are to be read in
the same periodical, xix. 245-50: see also xx. 374-5.
[192] This, we are told, was a stone with a hollow in it for pounding
corn, so as to separate the husks from the grain; and such a stone
stood formerly somewhere near the door of every farm house in Scotland.
[193] The editor here explains in a note that 'this was a common
saying formerly, when people were heard to regret trifles.'
[194] I have heard of this belief in Wales late in the sixties;
but the presence was assumed to be that of a witch, not of a fairy.
[195] The word twt, 'tidy,' is another vocable which has found its
way into Wales from the western counties of England; and though its
meaning is more universally that of 'tidy or natty,' the term gwas twt,
which in North Cardiganshire means a youth who is ready to run on all
kinds of errands, would seem to bring us to its earlier meaning of the
French tout--as if gwas twt might be rendered a 'garçon à tout'--which
survives as tote in the counties of Gloucester and Hereford, as I
am informed by Professor Wright. Possibly, however, one may prefer
to connect twt with the nautical English word taut; but we want more
light. In any case one may venture to say that colloquial Welsh swarms
with words whose origin is to be sought outside the Principality.
[196] See Folk-Lore for 1889, pp. 144-52.
[197] Ibid. for 1891, p. 246, where one will find this rhyme the
subject of a note--rendered useless by a false reference--by Köhler;
see also the same volume, p. 132, where Mr. Kirby gives more lines
of the rhyme.
[198] See Choice Notes from 'Notes and Queries,' p. 35.
[199] A number of instructive instances will be found mentioned,
and discussed in his wonted and lucid fashion, by Mr. Clodd in his
Tom Tit Tot, pp. 80-105.
[200] The Welsh spelling is caws pob, 'baked (or roasted) cheese,'
so called in parts of South Wales, such as Carmarthenshire, whereas in
North Wales it is caws pobi. It is best known to Englishmen as 'Welsh
rabbit,' which superior persons 'ruling the roast' in our kitchens
choose to make into rarebit: how they would deal with 'Scotch woodcock'
and 'Oxford hare,' I do not know. I should have mentioned that copies
of the Hundred Mery Talys are exceedingly scarce, and that the above,
which is the seventy-sixth in the collection, has here been copied
from the Cymmrodor, iii. 115-6, where we have the following sapient
note:--'Cause bobe, it will be observed, is St. Peter's rendering of
the phrase Caws wedi ei bobi. The chief of the Apostles apparently had
only a rather imperfect knowledge of Welsh, which is not to be wondered
at, as we know that even his Hebrew was far from giving satisfaction
to the priests of the capital.' From these words one can only say that
St. Peter would seem to have known Welsh far better than the author
of that note, and that he had acquired it from natives of South Wales,
perhaps from the neighbourhood of Kidwelly. I have to thank my friend
Mr. James Cotton for a version of the cheese story in the Bodleian
Library, namely in Malone MS. 19 (p. 144), where a certain master at
Winchester School has put it into elegiacs which make St. Peter cry
out with the desired effect: Tostus io Walli, tostus modo caseus.
[201] See Choice Notes from 'Notes and Queries,' pp. 117-8.
[202] For instance, when Cúchulainn had fallen asleep under the
effect of fairy music, Fergus warned his friends that he was not to
be disturbed, as he seemed to be dreaming and seeing a vision: see
Windisch's Irische Texte, p. 208; also the Revue Celtique, v. 231. For
parallels to the two stories in this paragraph, see Tylor's first
chapter on Animism in his Primitive Culture, and especially the legend
of King Gunthram, i. 442.
[203] See Mr. Gomme's presidential address to the Folk-Lore Society,
printed in Folk-Lore for 1892, pp. 6-7.
[204] See Sale's preliminary discourse to his translation of the Koran,
§ iv.
[205] Perhaps we may regard this as the more Goidelic account of
Blodeuwed's origin: at any rate, traces of a different one have been
noticed in a note at p. 439 above.
[206] One version of it is given in the Myvyrian Archaiology, i. 176-8;
and two other versions are to be found in the Cymmrodor, viii. 177-89,
where it is suggested that the author was Iolo Goch, who flourished
in the fourteenth century. See also my Arthurian Legend, pp. 57-8.
[207] See also the notes on these passages, given in San-Marte's
edition of Geoffrey, pp. 219, 463-5, and his Beiträge zur bretonischen
und celtisch germanischen Heldensage (Quedlinburg and Leipsic, 1847),
p. 81.
[208] See Choice Notes, pp. 69-70.
[209] See Wood-Martin's Pagan Ireland (London, 1895), p. 140.
[210] See Choice Notes, p. 61, where it is also stated that the
country people in Yorkshire used to give the name of souls to certain
night-flying white moths. See also the Athenæum, No. 1041, Oct. 9,
1847.
[211] For this also I am indebted to Wood-Martin's book, p. 140.
[212] See the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 198, and Windisch's Irische
Texte, pp. 136-45. An abstract of the story will be found in the
Hibbert Lectures on Celtic Heathendom, p. 502.
[213] See the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 129a-133a; Windisch's Irische
Texte, pp. 117-33, more especially pp. 127-31; also my Arthurian
Legend, pp. 29-33.
[214] See the Book of Taliessin, poem vii, in Skene's Four Ancient
Books of Wales, ii. 136-7; also poem viii, p. 137 et seq.
[215] Some account of this process will be found in Elton's Origins of
English History (London, 1882), p. 33, where he has drawn on Martin's
Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, published in 1703:
see pp. 204-5.
[216] For one or two instances of the nomenclature in question,
see pp. 76-7 above.
[217] Sywedyd is probably a word of Goidelic origin: compare Irish súi,
'a sage,' genitive súad, and derivative súithe, 'wisdom.' Stokes
suggests the derivation su-vet, in which case súi = su-vi, for
su-viss = su-vet-s, and sú-ithe = suvetia, while the Welsh sywedyd
is formally su-vetios or su-vetiios. Welsh has also syw, from súi,
like dryw, 'a druid,' from Goidelic drúi. Syw, it is true, now only
means elegant, tidy; but Dr. Davies of Mallwyd believed its original
signification to have been 'sapiens, doctus, peritus.' The root vet
is most probably to be identified with the wet of Med. Welsh gwet-id,
'a saying,' dy-wawt, 'dixit,' whence it appears that the bases were vet
and vat, with the latter of which Irish fáith, 'a poet or prophet,'
Latin vates, agrees, as also the Welsh gwawd, 'poetry, sarcasm,' and
in Mod. Welsh, 'any kind of derision.' In the Book of Taliessin syw
has, besides the plurals sywyon and sywydon (Skene, ii. 142, 152),
possibly an older plural, sywet (p. 155) = su-vet-es, while for
súithe = su-vetia we seem to have sywyd or sewyd (pp. 142, 152, 193);
but all the passages in point are more or less obscure, I must confess.
[218] See the Book of Taliessin, in Skene's Four Ancient Books of
Wales, ii. 130-1, 134, 142, 151-2, 155.
[219] As, for instance, in the account given of Uath mac Imomain in
Fled Bricrenn: see the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 110b, and Windisch's
Irische Texte, p. 293.
[220] The Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 77a, and the Book of Leinster,
fo. 75b: compare also the story of Tuan mac Cairill in the Book of
the Dun Cow, fo. 16b, where the Tuatha Dé Danann are represented as
Tuatha Dee ocus Ande, 'the tribes of gods and not-gods,' to whom one
of the manuscripts adds a people of legendary Ireland called the
Galiúin. See the story as recently edited by Professor Kuno Meyer
in Nutt's Voyage of Bran, ii. 291-300, where, however, the sense
of § 12 with its allusion to the fall of Lucifer is missed in the
translation. It should read, I think, somewhat as follows:--'Of these
are the Tuatha Dee and Ande, whose origin is unknown to the learned,
except that they think it probable, judging from the intelligence of
the Tuatha and their superiority in knowledge, that they belong to
the exiles who came from heaven.'
[221] See Evans' Black Book of Carmarthen, fo. 33b; also the
Mabinogion, pp. 104, 306. The Irish lucht cumachtai would be in Welsh
literally rendered llwyth cyfoeth, 'the cyfoeth tribe or host,'
as it were. For cyfoeth, in Med. Welsh, meant power or dominion,
whence cyfoethog, 'powerful,' and holl-gyfoethog, 'almighty'; but in
Mod. Welsh cyfoeth and cyfoethog have been degraded to mean 'riches'
and 'rich' respectively. Now if we dropped the prefix cum from the
Irish cumachtai, and its equivalent cyf from the Welsh cyfoeth,
we should have lucht cumachtai reduced to an approximate analogy
to llwyth Oeth, 'the Oeth tribe,' for which we have the attested
equivalent Teulu Oeth, 'the Oeth household or family.' Oeth, however,
seems to have meant powerful rather than power, and this seems to
have been its force in Gwalchmai's poetry of the twelfth century,
where I find it twice: see the Myvyrian Arch., i. 196b, 203a. In
the former passage we have oeth dybydaf o dybwyf ryd, 'I shall be
powerful if I be free,' and in the latter oeth ym uthrwyd, 'mightily
was I astonished or dismayed.' An-oeth was the negative of oeth, and
meant weak, feeble, frivolous: so we find its plural, anoetheu, applied
in the story of Kulhwch to the strange quests on which Kulhwch had to
engage himself and his friends, before he could hope to obtain Olwen to
be his wife. This has its parallel in the use of the adjective gwan,
'weak,' in the following instance among them:--Arthur and his men
were ready to set out in search of Mabon son of Modron, who was said
to have been kidnapped, when only three nights old, from between his
mother Modron and the wall; and though this had happened a fabulously
long time before Arthur was born, nothing had ever been since heard
of Mabon's fate. Now Arthur's men said that they would set out in
search of him, but they considered that Arthur should not accompany
them on feeble quests of the kind: their words were (p. 128), ny elli
di uynet ath lu y geissa6 peth mor uan ar rei hynn, 'thou canst not
go with thy army to seek a thing so weak as these are.' Here we have
uan as the synonym of an-oeth; but Oeth ac Anoeth probably became a
phrase which was seldom analysed or understood; so we have besides
Teulu Oeth ac Anoeth, a Caer Oeth ac Anoeth, or fortress of O. and
A., and a Carchar Caer Oeth ac Anoeth, or the Prison of Caer O. and
A., which is more shortly designated also Carchar Oeth ac Anoeth,
or the Prison of O. and A. A late account of the building of that
strange prison and fortress by Manawydan is given in the Iolo MSS.,
pp. 185-6, 263, and it is needless to point out that Manawydan, son
of Llyr, was no other than the Manannán mac Lir of Irish literature,
the greatest wizard among the Tuatha Dé or Tuatha Dé Danann; for the
practical equivalence of those names is proved by the Book of the
Dun Cow, fo. 16b. For further details about Oeth and Anoeth, Silvan
Evans' Geiriadur may be consulted, s. v. Anoeth, where instances are
cited of the application of those terms to tilled land and wild or
uncultivated land. Here the words seem to have the secondary meanings
of profitable and unprofitable lands, respectively: compare a somewhat
analogous use of grym, 'strength, force,' in a passage relating to
the mutilated horses of Matholwch--hyt nad oed rym a ellit ar meirch,
'so that no use was possible in the case of the horses,' meaning that
they were of no use whatever, or that they had been done for: see the
Oxford Mabinogion, p. 29, and Lady Charlotte Guest's, iii. 107, where
the translation 'and rendered them useless' is barely strong enough.
[222] It is right, however, to state that M. d'A. de Jubainville's
account of the views of Erigena is challenged by Mr. Nutt, ii. 105.
[223] For instance, by Silvan Evans in his Geiriadur, where,
s. v. dihaed, he suggests 'unmerited' or 'undeserved' as conveying
the sense meant.
[224] The reader will find them quoted under the word Druida in
Holder's Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz: see also M. Alexandre Bertrand's
Religion des Gaulois, especially the chapter entitled Les Druides,
pp. 252-76, and Nutt's Voyage of Bran, ii. 107-12.
[225] See Valerius Maximus, ii. 6. 10.
[226] See the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 68a.
[227] Notably Johannes Schmidt in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, xxiii. 267, where
he gives the following gradations of the stem in question:--1. anman;
2. anaman; 3. naman; 4. naman.
[228] See Clodd's Tom Tit Tot, p. 97.
[229] Tom Tit Tot, p. 89.
[230] The Oxford Mabinogion, p. 100.
[231] The Oxford Mabinogion, p. 35.
[232] As to Irish, I would not lay much stress on the question
'What is your name?' being put, in a fourteenth or fifteenth century
version of the French story of Fierabras, as ca hainm tú?--literally,
'what name art thou?' see the Revue Celtique, xix. 28. It may be
mentioned here that the Irish writers of glossaries had a remarkable
way of appearing to identify words and things. Thus, for instance,
Cormac has Cruimther .i. Gædelg indi as presbyter, which O'Donovan
(edited by Stokes) has translated, p. 30, as 'Cruimther, i. e. the
Gaelic of presbyter': literally it would be rather 'of the thing
which is presbyter.' Similarly, Cormac's explanation of the Irish
aiminn, now aoibhinn, 'delightful,' runs thus in Latin, Aimind ab
eo quod est amoenum, 'from the word amoenus,' literally, 'from that
which is amoenus.' But this construction is a favourite one of Latin
grammarians, and instances will be found in Professor Lindsay's
Latin Language (Oxford, 1894), pp. 26, 28, 42, 53. On calling his
attention to it, he kindly informed me that it can be traced as far
back as Varro, from whose Lingua Latina, vi. 4, he cites Meridies ab
eo quod medius dies. So in this matter, Irish writers have merely
imitated their Latin models; and one detects a trace of the same
imitation in some of the Old Welsh glosses, for instance in the
Juvencus Codex, where we have XPS explained as irhinn issid crist,
'that which is Christ,' evidently meaning, 'the word Christos or
Christus.' So with regia, rendered by gulat, 'a state or country,'
in celsi thronus est cui regia caeli; which is glossed issit padiu
itau gulat, 'that is the word gulat for him' = 'he means his country':
see Kuhn's Beiträge, iv. 396, 411.
[233] Some instances in point, accompanied with comments on certain
eminently instructive practices and theories of the Church, will be
found in Clodd's Tom Tit Tot, pp. 100-5.
[234] For some instances of name-giving by the druid, the reader
may consult The Welsh People, pp. 66-70; and druidic baptism will be
found alluded to in Stokes' edition of Coir Anmann, and in Stokes and
Windisch's Irische Texte, iii. 392, 423. See also the Revue Celtique,
xix. 90.
[235] See The Welsh People, more especially pp. 71-4, where it has
been attempted to discuss this question more at length.
[236] See Stokes' Cormac's Glossary, translated by O'Donovan, p. 87,
and O'Curry's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, ii. 218-9.
[237] See Mind for 1893, p. 390: the review is by Mr. A. T. Myers,
and the title of the book noticed is La Pathologie des Émotions,
Études physiologiques et cliniques, par Charles Féré, médecin de
Bicêtre (Paris, 1892).
[238] See Frazer's Golden Bough, i. 9, where a few most instructive
instances are given.
[239] See Guest's Mabinogion, iii. 255, where, however, Dôn is wrongly
treated as a male.
[240] One has, however, to admit that the same agency may also mar
the picture. Since the above was written I have read in Stokes'
Festschrift, pp. 7-19, a very interesting article by L. Chr. Stern,
in which he discusses some of the difficulties attaching to the term
Tuatha Dé Danann. Among other things he suggests that there was a
certain amount of confusion between Danann and dána, genitive of dán,
'art or profession'--the word meant also 'lot or destiny,' being
probably of the same origin as the Latin donum, in Welsh dawn, which
means a gift, and especially 'the gift of the gab.' But it would invert
the natural sequence to suppose any such a formula as Tuatha Dé Dána
to have preceded Tuatha Dé Danann; for why should anybody substitute
an obscure vocable Danann for dána of well-known meaning? Dr. Stern
has some doubts as to the Welsh Dôn being a female; but it would have
been more satisfactory if he had proved his surmise, or at any rate
shown that Dôn has nothing to do with Danann or Donann. I am satisfied
with such a passage in the Mabinogi of Math as that where Gwydion,
addressing Math, describes Arianrhod, daughter of Dôn, in the words,
dy nith uerch dy ch6aer, 'thy niece daughter of thy sister': see the
Mabinogion, p. 68, and, for similar references to other children of
Dôn, consult pp. 59 and 65. Arianrhod is in the older Triads, i. 40,
ii. 15, called daughter of Beli, whom one can only have regarded as
her father. So for the present I continue to accept Stokes' rendering
of Tuatha Dé Danann as 'the Folks of the Goddess Danu.'
[241] See the Oxford Mabinogion, p. 102; Guest's trans., ii. 252. The
combination occurs also in the Book of Aneurin: see Stephens' Gododin
(London, 1888), p. 322.
[242] It will be noticed that there is a discrepancy between the
gutturals of these two words: tyngu, 'to swear' (O. Ir. tongu,
'I swear'), has ng--the Kulhwch spelling, tynghaf, should probably
be tyngaf--while tynghed and its Irish equivalent imply an nc. I
do not know how to explain this, though I cannot doubt the fact of
the words being treated as cognate. A somewhat similar difference,
however, occurs in Welsh dwyn, 'to bear, carry, steal,' and dwg,
'carries, bears': see the Revue Celtique, vi. 18-9.
[243] See the Oxford Mabinogion, p. 100, and Guest's trans., ii. 249,
where it is rendered 'a wife as a helpmate,' which is more commonplace
than suggestive.
[244] La Cité antique (Paris, 1864), p. 50; see also Joachim
Marquardt's Privatleben der Römer (Leipsic, 1886), pp. 49-51, and among
the references there given may be mentioned Dionysius of Halicarnassus,
ii. 25.
[245] See Vigfusson and Powell's Corpus Poeticum Boreale, i. 126,
181-3, 197; the Prose Edda in Edda Snorronis Sturlæi (Copenhagen,
1848), i. 90-2, 102, 104, 172-86; and Simrock's Edda (Stuttgart,
1855), pp. 292-3, 295-6, 299, 316-20.
[246] Two versions of a story to account for the Ultonian couvade have
been published with a translation into German, by Prof. Windisch,
in the Berichte der k. sächs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften
(phil.-hist. Classe) for 1884, pp. 338 et seq. Sundry references to
the couvade will also be found in my Hibbert Lectures, where certain
mythological suggestions made with reference to it require to be
reconsidered. But when touching on this point it occurred to me that
the wholesale couvade of the Ultonian braves, at one and the same time
of the year, implied that the birth of Ultonian children, or at any
rate those of them that were to be reared, took place (in some period
or other of the history of their race) at a particular season of the
year, namely, about the beginning of the winter, that is when food
would be most abundant. I have since been confirmed in this view by
perusing Westermarck's work on the History of Human Marriage, and by
reading especially his second chapter entitled 'A Human Pairing Season
in Primitive Times.' For there I find a considerable body of instances
in point, together with a summary treatment of the whole question. But
in the case of promiscuity, such as originally prevailed doubtless
at the Ultonian Court, the question what men were to go into couvade
could only be settled by the confinement of them all, wherein we have
an alternative if not an additional reason for a simultaneous couvade.
[247] See Strabo, iii. 165, and Diodorus, v. 14.
[248] For some more detailed remarks on the reckoning of descent by
birth, see The Welsh People, pp. 36 et seq.
[249] In Welsh eli means 'ointment,' probably so called from spells
pronounced over it when used as a remedy. In the Twrch Trwyth story
(Oxford Mabinogion, p. 138) one of Arthur's men bears the curious
designation of Reid6n uab Eli Atuer, which might be Englished
'R. son of the Restoring Ointment,' unless one should rather say
'of the Restoring Enchantment.'
[250] See the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 128b, and Windisch's Irische
Texte, pp. 138-9. The rebirth of Lug as Cúchulainn has been touched
upon in my Hibbert Lectures, p. 431; but since then the whole question
of rebirth has been discussed at length in Nutt and Meyer's volumes
entitled The Voyage of Bran (London, 1895).
[251] Tylor's Primitive Culture, ii. 4, where he gives a reference
to Gustav Klemm's Culturgeschichte, iii. 77, and Klemm's authority
proves to be Jessen, whose notes are given in a 'tractatus' bound
with Knud Leem De Lapponibus Finmarchiæ (Copenhagen, 1767): Jessen's
words in point read as follows, p. 33:--Et baptismum quidem, quem
ipsi Laugo, i. e. lavacrum appellabant, quod attinet, observandum
occurrit, foeminam Lapponicam, jam partui vicinam, atque in eo
statu Sarakkæ impensius commendatam, de nomine, nascituro infanti
imponendo, per insomnia plerumque a Jabmekio quodam admonitam
fuisse et simul de Jabmekio illo, qui, ut ipsi quidem loqui amarunt,
in hoc puero resuscitandus foret, edoctam. Hujusmodi per insomnia
factas admonitiones niëgost nuncuparunt Lappones. Si gravida mulier
a Jabmekio hac ratione edocta non fuerit, recens nati infantis vel
parenti vel cognatis incubuit, per to Myran, in tympano, securi
vel balteo susceptum, vel etiam Noaaidum consulendo, explorare, quo
potissimum nomine infans appellandus esset. In the body of Leem's work,
p. 497, one reads, that if the child sickens or cries after baptism,
this is taken to prove that the right ancestor has not been found;
but as he must be discovered and his name imposed on the child, resort
is had to a fresh baptism to correct the effects of the previous one.
[252] See Holder's Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz, s. v. Lugus; also
the index to my Hibbert Lectures, s. v. Lleu, Lug, Lugoves.
[253] For more on this subject see the chapter on the Pictish question
in The Welsh People, pp. 36-74.
[254] It is right to say that the story represents the fairies as
living under the rule of a rí, a title usually rendered by 'king';
but rí (genitive rig) was probably at one time applicable to either
sex, just as we find Gaulish names like Biturix and Visurix borne by
women. The wonder, however, is that such a line as that just quoted
has not been edited out of the verses long ago, just as one misses
any equivalent for it in Joyce's English expansion of the story in
his Old Celtic Romances, pp. 106-11. Compare, however, the Land of
the Women in the Voyage of Maildun (Joyce, pp. 152-6), and in Meyer
and Nutt's Voyage of Bran, i. 30-3.
[255] This conclusion has been given in a note at the foot of p. 37
of The Welsh People; but for a variety of instances to illustrate it
see Hartland's chapters on Supernatural Birth in his Legend of Perseus.
[256] See Frazer's article on 'The Origin of Totemism' in the
Fortnightly Review for April, 1899, p. 649. The passage to which it
refers will be found at p. 265 of Spencer and Gillen's volume, where
one reads as follows:--'Added to this we have amongst the Arunta,
Luritcha, and Ilpirra tribes, and probably also amongst others such as
the Warramunga, the idea firmly held that the child is not the direct
result of intercourse, that it may come without this, which merely,
as it were, prepares the mother for the reception and birth also of
an already-formed spirit child who inhabits one of the local totem
centres. Time after time we have questioned them on this point, and
always received the reply that the child was not the direct result
of intercourse.' It is curious to note how readily the Australian
notion here presented would develop into that of the Lapps, as given
at p. 658 from Jessen's notes.
[257] This feature of Welsh has escaped M. de Charencey, in his
instructive letter on 'Numération basque et celtique,' in No. 48 of the
Bulletin de la Soc. de Linguistique de Paris, pp. cxv-cxix. In passing,
I may be allowed to mention a numerical curiosity which occurs in
Old Irish: it has probably an important historical significance. I
refer to the word for 'seven men' occurring sometimes as morfeser,
which means, as it were, a magnus seviratus or 'big sixer.'
[258] The non-Welsh names of the fairy ancestress ought possibly to
lead one to discover the origin of that settlement; and a careful
study perhaps of the language of the Belsiaid or Bellisians, if their
Welsh has any dialectic peculiarities, might throw further light on
their past.
[259] Our stories frequently delight in giving the fairy women fine
dresses and long trains; but I would rely more on the Ystrad Meurig
smith's account (p. 245), and the case of the Pennant fairy who tears
to shreds the gown offered her (p. 109).
[260] The difference between Mod. Welsh cor and Breton korr is one
of spelling, for the reformed orthography of Welsh words only doubles
the r where it is dwelt on in the accented syllable of a longer word:
in other terms, when that syllable closes with the consonant and
the next syllable begins with it. Thus cor has, as its derivatives,
cór-rach, 'a dwarf,' plural co-ráchod, cór-ryn, 'a male dwarf,'
plural co-rýnnod. Some of these enter into place-names, such as Cwm
Corryn near Llanaelhaearn (p. 217) and Cwm Corryn draining into the
Vale of Neath; so possibly with Corwen for Cor-waen, in the sense of
'the Fairies' Meadow.' Cor and corryn are also used for the spider,
as in gwe'r cor or gwe'r corryn, 'a spider's web,' the spider being so
called on account of its spinning, an occupation in which the fairies
are represented likewise frequently engaged; not to mention that
gossamer (gwawn) is also sometimes regarded as a product of the fairy
loom (p. 103). The derivation of cor is not satisfactorily cleared
up: it has been conjectured to be related to a Med. Irish word cert,
'small, little,' and Latin curtus, 'shortened or mutilated.' To me
this means that the origin of the word still remains to be discovered.
[261] For Edern's dwarf see Foerster's Erec, lines 146-274 and passim,
the Oxford Mabinogion, pp. 248-61, and Guest's trans., ii. 73-92; and
for Peredur's the latter books, pp. 197-9 and i. 304-7 respectively.
[262] The story of Canrig (or Cantrig) Bwt is current at Llanberis,
but I do not recollect seeing it in print: I had it years ago from
my father-in-law. The statement as to Carchar Cynric Rwth comes from
William Williams' Observations on the Snowdon Mountains (London,
1802). The Bwlch y Rhiw Felen legend was read by me to the British
Archæological Association at its meeting at Llangollen, and it was
printed in its Journal for December, 1878. It is right to say that
the Llangollen story calls the woman a giantess, but I attach no
importance to that, as the picture is blurred and treated in part
allegorically. Lastly, the use of the word carchar, 'prison,' in
the term Carchar Cynric Rwth recalls Carchar Oeth ac Anoeth, or 'the
Prison of Oeth and Anoeth,' p. 619 above: the word would appear to
have been selected because in both cases the structure was underground.
[263] See the Acta Sanctorum, April 11, where one finds published the
Latin life written by Felix not long after Guthlac's death. See also
an Anglo-Saxon version, which has been edited with a translation by
Ch. W. Goodwin (London, 1848).
[264] In connexion with them Mr. Bullock Hall reminds me of Icklingham,
in West Suffolk; and there seem to be several Ickletons, and an
Ickleford, most or all of them, I am told, on the Icknield Way. The
name Icel, whose genitive Icles is the form in the original life, has
probably been inferred from the longer word Iclingas, and inserted
in due course in the Mercian pedigree, where it occupies the sixth
place in descent from Woden.
[265] Since the above was written, Dr. Ripley's important work on the
Races of Europe (London, 1900) has reached me, but too late to study. I
notice, however, that he speaks of an island of ancient population
to the north of London and extending over most of the counties of
Hertford, Buckingham, Bedford, Rutland, and Northampton, as far as
those of Cambridge and Lincoln. A considerable portion of this area
must have been within the boundaries of Coritanian territory, and it is
now characterized, according to him, by nigrescence, short stature,
and rarity of suicide, such as remind him of Wales and Cornwall:
see his maps and pp. 322, 328, 521.
[266] See Fiacc's Hymn in Stokes' Goidelica, p. 127, l. 41.
[267] The Welsh passages unfortunately fail to show whether it was
pronounced sidi or sidi: should it prove the latter, I should regard
it as the Irish word borrowed.
[268] Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales, ii. 153-5, 181-2.
[269] For more about Picts and Pechts see some most instructive papers
recently published by Mr. David MacRitchie, such as 'Memories of the
Picts' in the Scottish Antiquary, last January, 'Underground Dwellings'
in Scottish Notes and Queries, last March, and 'Fairy Mounds' in the
Antiquary, last February and March.
[270] See p. 424 above, where, however, the object of the Ogams
written on four twigs of yew has been misconceived. I think now that
they formed simply so many letters of inquiry addressed by Dalán to
other druids in different parts of Ireland. We seem to have here a
ray of light on the early history of Ogam writing.
[271] See the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 130b.
[272] See the Book of Leinster, fo. 117a.
[273] Corrguinigh occurs in the story of 'The Second Battle of
Moytura,' where Stokes has rendered it 'sorcerers' in the Revue
Celtique, xii. 77; and corrguinacht heads an article in O'Davoren's
Glossary, published in Stokes' Three Irish Glossaries, p. 63, where
it is defined as beth for leth cois 7 for leth laimh 7 for leth suil
ag denam na glaime dicinn, 'to be on one foot and with one hand and
one eye doing the glám dicenn.' The glám dicenn was seemingly the
special elaboration of the art of making pied de nez, which we have
tragically illustrated in the case of Caier.
[274] In Appendix B to The Welsh People, pp. 617-41.
[275] See Rosellini's Monumenti dell' Egitto (Pisa, 1832),
vol. i. plates clvi, clx, and Maspero's Histoire Ancienne (Paris,
1897), ii. 430.
[276] One may now consult Nicholson's paper on 'The Language of the
Continental Picts': see Meyer and Stern's Zeitschrift, iii. 326-8,
331-2, and note especially his reference to Herodian, iii. 14, § 8. For
Chortonicum see Die althochdeutschen Glossen (edited by Steinmeyer
and Sievers), iii. 610; also my paper on 'The Celts and the other
Aryans of the P and Q Groups' read before the Philological Society,
February 20, 1891, p. 11.
[277] I am chiefly indebted to my friend Professor A. C. Haddon for
references to information as to the dwarf races of prehistoric times. I
find also that he, among others, has anticipated me in my theory as
to the origins of the fairies: witness the following extract from the
syllabus of a lecture delivered by him at Cardiff in 1894 on Fairy
Tales:--'What are the fairies?--Legendary origin of the fairies. It
is evident from fairy literature that there is a mixture of the
possible and the impossible, of fact and fancy. Part of fairydom
refers to (1) spirits that never were embodied: other fairies are
(2) spirits of environment, nature or local spirits, and household
or domestic spirits; (3) spirits of the organic world, spirits of
plants, and spirits of animals; (4) spirits of men or ghosts; and (5)
witches and wizards, or men possessed with other spirits. All these and
possibly other elements enter into the fanciful aspect of fairyland,
but there is a large residuum of real occurrences; these point to
a clash of races, and we may regard many of these fairy sagas as
stories told by men of the Iron Age of events which happened to men
of the Bronze Age in their conflicts with men of the Neolithic Age,
and possibly these, too, handed on traditions of the Palæolithic Age.'
[278] See the Berlin Zeitschrift für Ethnologie for 1894,
vol. xxvi. pp. 189-254, which are devoted to an elaborate paper by
Dr. Jul. Kollmann, entitled 'Das Schweitzersbild bei Schaffhausen und
Pygmäen in Europa.' It closes with a long list of books and articles
to be consulted on the subject.