The name, however, presents points of difficulty which require some

notice: the Welsh translators of Article IX in the Prayer Book were

probably wrong in making Pelagians into Morganiaid, as the Welsh

for Pelagius seems to have been rather Morien [164], which in its

oldest recorded form was Morgen, and meant sea-born, or offspring of

the sea. In a still earlier form it must have been Morigenos, with

a feminine Morigena, but when the endings came to be dropped both

vocables would become Morgen, later Morien. I do not remember coming

across a feminine Morgen in Welsh, but the presumption is that it

did exist. For, among other things, I may mention that we have it

in Irish as Muirgen, one of the names of the lake lady Liban, who,

when the waters of the neglected well rushed forth to form Lough

Neagh, lived beneath that lake until she desired to be changed into

a salmon. The same conclusion may be drawn from the name Morgain or

Morgan, given in the French romances to one or more water ladies;

for those names are easiest to explain as the Brythonic Morgen

borrowed from a Welsh or Breton source, unless one found it possible

to trace it direct to the Goidels of Wales. No sooner, however, had

the confusion taken place between Morgen and the name which is so

common in Wales as exclusively a man's name, than the aquatic figure

must also become male. That is why the Glasfryn Morgan is now a male,

and not a female like the other characters whose rôle he plays. But

while the name was in Welsh successively Morgen and Morien, the man's

name was Morcant, Morgant, or Morgan [165], so that, phonologically

speaking, no confusion could be regarded as possible between the

two series. Here, therefore, one detects the influence, doubtless,

of the French romances which spoke of a lake lady Morgain, Morgan,

or Morgue. The character varied: Morgain le Fay was a designing

and wicked person; but Morgan was also the name of a well disposed

lady of the same fairy kind, who took Arthur away to be healed at

her home in the Isle of Avallon. We seem to be on the track of the

same confusing influence of the name, when it occurs in the story of

Geraint and Enid; for there the chief physician of Arthur's court is

called Morgan Tut or Morgant Tut, and the word tut has been shown

by M. Loth to have meant the same sort of non-human being whom an

eleventh-century Life of St. Maudez mentions as quidam dæmon quem

Britones Tuthe appellant. Thus the name Morgan Tut is meant as the

Welsh equivalent of the French Morgain le Fay or Morgan la Fée [166];

but so long as the compiler of the story of Geraint and Enid employed

in his Welsh the form Morgan, he had practically no choice but to treat

the person called Morgan as a man, whether that was or was not the sex

in the original texts on which he was drawing. Of course he could have

avoided the difficulty in case he was aware of it, if he had found

some available formula in use like Mary-Morgant, said to be a common

name for a fairy on the island of Ouessant, off the coast of Brittany.

Summarizing the foregoing notes, we seem to be right in drawing the

following conclusions:--(1) The well was left in the charge of a woman

who forgot to shut it, and when she saw the water bursting forth,

she bewailed her negligence, as in the case of her counterpart in

the legend of Cantre'r Gwaelod. (2) The original name of the Glasfryn

'Morgan' was Morgen, later Morien. (3) The person changed into a swan

on the occasion of the Glasfryn well erupting was not Grassi, but most

probably Morgen. And (4) the character was originally feminine, like

that of the mermaid or the fairies, whose rôle the Glasfryn Morgan

plays; and more especially may one compare the Irish Muirgen, the

Morgen more usually called Líban. For it is to be noticed that when

the neglected well burst forth she, Muirgen or Líban, was not drowned

like the others involved in the calamity, but lived in her chamber at

the bottom of the lake formed by the overflowing well, until she was

changed into a salmon. In that form she lived on some three centuries,

until in fact she was caught in the net of a fisherman, and obtained

the boon of a Christian burial. However, the change into a swan is also

known on Irish ground: take for instance the story of the Children of

Lir, who were converted into swans by their stepmother, and lived in

that form on Loch Dairbhreach, in Westmeath, for three hundred years,

and twice as long on the open sea, until their destiny closed with

the advent of St. Patrick and the first ringing of a Christian bell

in Erin [167].

The next legend was kindly communicated to me by Mr. Wm. Davies already

mentioned at p. 147 above: he found it in Cyfaill yr Aelwyd [168],

"The Friend of the Hearth," where it is stated that it belonged to

David Jones' Storehouse of Curiosities, a collection which does

not seem to have ever assumed the form of a printed book. David

Jones, of Trefriw, in the Conwy Valley, was a publisher and poet

who wrote between 1750 and 1780. This is his story: 'In 1735 I had a

conversation with a man concerning Tegid Lake. He had heard from old

people that near the middle of it there was a well opposite Llangower,

and the well was called Ffynnon Gywer, "Cower's Well," and at that

time the town was round about the well. It was obligatory to place a

lid on the well every night. (It seems that in those days somebody

was aware that unless this was done it would prove the destruction

of the town.) But one night it was forgotten, and by the morning,

behold the town had subsided and the lake became three miles long

and one mile wide. They say, moreover, that on clear days some

people see the chimneys of the houses. It is since then that the

town was built at the lower end of the lake. It is called Y Bala

[169], and the man told me that he had talked with an old Bala man

who had, when he was a youth, had two days' mowing of hay [170]

between the road and the lake; but by this time the lake had spread

over that land and the road also, which necessitated the purchase of

land further away for the road; and some say that the town will yet

sink as far as the place called Llanfor--others call it Llanfawd,

"Drown-church," or Llanfawr, "Great-church," in Penllyn.... Further,

when the weather is stormy water appears oozing through every floor

within Bala, and at other times anybody can get water enough for the

use of his house, provided he dig a little into the floor of it.'

In reference to the idea that the town is to sink, together with

the neighbouring village of Llanfor, the writer quotes in a note the

couplet known still to everybody in the neighbourhood as follows:--

Y Bala aeth, a'r Bala aiff,

A Llanfor aiff yn Llyn.

Bala old the lake has had, and Bala new

The lake will have, and Llanfor too.

This probably implies that old Bala is beneath the lake, and that the

present Bala is to meet the like fate at some time to come. This kind

of prophecy is not very uncommon: thus there has been one current

as to the Montgomeryshire town of Pool, called, in Welsh, Trallwng

or Trallwm, and in English, Welshpool, to distinguish it from the

English town of Pool. As to Welshpool, a very deep water called Llyn

Du, lying between the town and the Castell Coch or Powys Castle,

and right in the domain of the castle, is suddenly to spread itself,

and one fine market day to engulf the whole place [171]. Further, when

I was a boy in North Cardiganshire, the following couplet was quite

familiar to me, and supposed to have been one of Merlin's prophecies:--

Caer Fyrdin, cei oer fore;

Daear a'th lwnc, dw'r i'th le.

Carmarthen, a cold morn awaits thee;

Earth gapes, and water in thy place will be.

In regard to the earlier half of the line, concerning Bala gone,

the story of Ffynnon Gywer might be said to explain it, but there is

another which is later and far better known. It is of the same kind

as the stories related in Welsh concerning Llynclys and Syfadon; but

I reserve it with these and others of the same sort for chapter vii.

For the next legend belonging here I have to thank the Rev. J. Fisher,

a native of the parish of Llandybïe, who, in spite of his name, is a

genuine Welshman, and--what is more--a Welsh scholar. The following are

his words:--'Llyn Llech Owen (the last word is locally sounded w-en,

like oo-en in English, as is also the personal name Owen) is on Mynyd

Mawr, in the ecclesiastical parish of Gors Lâs, and the civil parish of

Llanarthney, Carmarthenshire. It is a small lake, forming the source of

the Gwendraeth Fawr. I have heard the tradition about its origin told

by several persons, and by all, until quite recently, pretty much in

the same form. In 1884 I took it down from my grandfather, Rees Thomas

(b. 1809, d. 1892), of Cil Coll Llandebïe--a very intelligent man,

with a good fund of old-world Welsh lore--who had lived all his life

in the neighbouring parishes of Llandeilo Fawr and Llandybïe.

'The following is the version of the story (translated) as I had

it from him:--There was once a man of the name of Owen living on

Mynyd Mawr, and he had a well, "ffynnon." Over this well he kept a

large flag ("fflagen neu lech fawr": "fflagen" is the word in common

use now in these parts for a large flat stone), which he was always

careful to replace over its mouth after he had satisfied himself or

his beast with water. It happened, however, that one day he went on

horseback to the well to water his horse, and forgot to put the flag

back in its place. He rode off leisurely in the direction of his home;

but, after he had gone some distance, he casually looked back, and,

to his great astonishment, he saw that the well had burst out and

was overflowing the whole place. He suddenly bethought him that he

should ride back and encompass the overflow of the water as fast as

he could; and it was the horse's track in galloping round the water

that put a stop to its further overflow. It is fully believed that,

had he not galloped round the flood in the way he did, the well would

have been sure to inundate the whole district and drown all. Hence

the lake was called the Lake of Owen's Flag, "Llyn Llech Owen."

'I have always felt interested in this story, as it resembled that

about the formation of Lough Neagh, &c.; and, happening to meet the

Rev. D. Harwood Hughes, B.A., the vicar of Gors Lâs (St. Lleian's),

last August (1892), I asked him to tell me the legend as he had

heard it in his parish. He said that he had been told it, but in

a form different from mine, where the "Owen" was said to have been

Owen Glyndwr. This is the substance of the legend as he had heard

it:--Owen Glyndwr, when once passing through these parts, arrived here

of an evening. He came across a well, and, having watered his horse,

placed a stone over it in order to find it again next morning. He then

went to lodge for the night at Dyllgoed Farm, close by. In the morning,

before proceeding on his journey, he took his horse to the well to give

him water, but found to his surprise that the well had become a lake.'

Mr. Fisher goes on to mention the later history of the lake: how,

some eighty years ago, its banks were the resort on Sunday afternoons

of the young people of the neighbourhood, and how a Baptist preacher

put an end to their amusements and various kinds of games by preaching

at them. However, the lake-side appears to be still a favourite spot

for picnics and Sunday-school gatherings. Mr. Fisher was quite right in

appending to his own version that of his friend; but, from the point of

view of folklore, I must confess that I can make nothing of the latter:

it differs from the older one as much as chalk does from cheese. It

would be naturally gratifying to the pride of local topography to be

able to connect with the pool the name of Owen Glyndwr; but it is

worthy of note that this highly respectable attempt to rationalize

the legend wholly fails, as it does not explain why there is now a

lake where there was once but a well. In other words, the euhemerized

story is itself evidence corroborative of Mr. Fisher's older version,

which is furthermore kept in countenance by Howells' account, p. 104,

where we are told who the Owen in question was, namely, Owen Lawgoch,

a personage dear, as we shall see later, to the Welsh legend of the

district. He and his men had their abode in a cave on the northern

side of Mynyd Mawr, and while there Owen used, we are informed, to

water his steed at a fine spring covered with a large stone, which it

required the strength of a giant to lift. But one day he forgot to

replace it, and when he next sought the well he found the lake. He

returned to his cave and told his men what had happened. Thereupon

both he and they fell into a sleep, which is to last till it is

broken by the sound of a trumpet and the clang of arms on Rhiw Goch:

then they are to sally forth to conquer.

Now the story as told by Howells and Fisher provokes comparison,

as the latter suggests, with the Irish legend of the formation of

Lough Ree and of Lough Neagh in the story of the Death of Eochaid

McMaireda [172]. In both of these legends also there is a horse, a

kind of water-horse, who forms the well which eventually overflows and

becomes Lough Ree, and so with the still larger body of water known

as Lough Neagh. In the latter case the fairy well was placed in the

charge of a woman; but she one day left the cover of the well open,

and the catastrophe took place--the water issued forth and overflowed

the country. One of Eochaid's daughters, named Líban, however, was

not drowned, but only changed into a salmon as already mentioned at

p. 376 above. In my Arthurian Legend, p. 361, I have attempted to show

that the name Líban may have its Welsh equivalent in that of Llïon,

occurring in the name of Llyn Llïon, or Llïon's Lake, the bursting

of which is described in the latest series of Triads, iii. 13, 97,

as causing a sort of deluge. I am not certain as to the nature of

the relationship between those names, but it seems evident that the

stories have a common substratum, though it is to be noticed that

no well, fairy or otherwise, figures in the Llyn Llïon legend, which

makes the presence of the monster called the afanc the cause of the

waters bursting forth. So Hu the Mighty, with his team of famous oxen,

is made to drag the afanc out of the lake.

There is, however, another Welsh legend concerning a great overflow in

which a well does figure: I allude to that of Cantre'r Gwaelod, or the

Bottom Hundred, a fine spacious country supposed to be submerged in

Cardigan Bay. Modern euhemerism treats it as defended by embankments

and sluices, which, we are told, were in the charge of the prince

of the country, named Seithennin, who, being one day in his cups,

forgot to shut the sluices, and thus brought about the inundation,

which was the end of his fertile realm. This, however, is not the

old legend: that speaks of a well, and lays the blame on a woman--a

pretty sure sign of antiquity, as the reader may judge from other old

stories which will readily occur to him. The Welsh legend to which I

allude is embodied in a short poem in the Black Book of Carmarthen

[173]: it consists of eight triplets, to which is added a triplet

from the Englynion of the Graves. The following is the original with

a tentative translation:--

Seithenhin sawde allan.

ac edrychuirde varanres mor.

maes guitnev rytoes.

Boed emendiceid y morvin

aehellygaut guydi cvin.

finaun wenestir [174] mor terruin.

Boed emendiceid y vachteith.

ae . golligaut guydi gueith.

finaun wenestir mor diffeith.

Diaspad mererid y ar vann caer.

hid ar duu y dodir.

gnaud guydi traha trangc hir.

Diaspad mererid . y ar van kaer hetiv.

hid ar duu y dadoluch.

gnaud guydi traha attreguch.

Diaspad mererid am gorchuit heno.

ac nimhaut gorlluit.

gnaud guydi traha tramguit.

Diaspad mererid y ar gwinev kadir

kedaul duv ae gorev.

gnaud guydi gormot eissev.

Diaspad mererid . am kymhell heno

y urth uyistauell.

gnaud guydi traha trangc pell.

Bet seithenhin synhuir vann

rug kaer kenedir a glan.

mor maurhidic a kinran.

Seithennin, stand thou forth

And see the vanguard of the main:

Gwydno's plain has it covered.

Accursed be the maiden

Who let it loose after supping,

Well cup-bearer of the mighty main.

Accursed be the damsel

Who let it loose after battle,

Well minister of the high sea.

Mererid's cry from a city's height,

Even to God is it directed:

After pride comes a long pause.

Mererid's cry from a city's height to-day,

Even to God her expiation:

After pride comes reflection.

Mererid's cry o'ercomes me to-night,

Nor can I readily prosper:

After pride comes a fall.

Mererid's cry over strong wines,

Bounteous God has wrought it:

After excess comes privation.

Mererid's cry drives me to-night

From my chamber away:

After insolence comes long death.

Weak-witted Seithennin's grave is it

Between Kenedyr's Fort and the shore,

With majestic Mor's and Kynran's.

The names in these lines present great difficulties: first comes

that of Mererid, which is no other word than Margarita, 'a pearl,'

borrowed; but what does it here mean? Margarita, besides meaning

a pearl, was used in Welsh, e.g. under the form Marereda [175], as

the proper name written in English Margaret. That is probably how

it is to be taken here, namely, as the name given to the negligent

guardian of the fairy well. It cannot very well be, however, the

name belonging to the original form of the legend; and we have the

somewhat parallel case of Ffynnon Grassi, or Grace's Well; but what

old Celtic name that of Mererid has replaced in the story, I cannot

say. In the next place, nobody has been able to identify Caer Kenedyr,

and I have nothing to say as to Mor Maurhidic, except that a person of

that name is mentioned in another of the Englynion of the Graves. It

runs thus in the Black Book, fol. 33a:--

Bet mor maurhidic diessic unben.

post kinhen kinteic.

mab peredur penwetic.

The grave of Mor the Grand, ... prince,

Pillar of the ... conflict,

Son of Peredur of Penwedig.

The last name in the final triplet of the poem which I have attempted

to translate is Kinran, which is otherwise unknown as a Welsh name;

but I am inclined to identify it with that of one of the three

who escaped the catastrophe in the Irish legend. The name there is

Curnán, which was borne by the idiot of the family, who, like many

later idiots, was at the same time a prophet. For he is represented

as always prophesying that the waters were going to burst forth,

and as advising his friends to prepare boats. So he may be set,

after a fashion, over against our Seithenhin synhuir vann, 'S. of

the feeble mind.' But one might perhaps ask why I do not point out

an equivalent in Irish for the Welsh Seithennin, as his name is now

pronounced. The fact is that no such equivalent occurs in the Irish

story in question, nor exactly, so far as I know, in any other.

That is what I wrote when penning these notes; but it has occurred to

me since then, that there is an Irish name, an important Irish name,

which looks as if related to Seithenhin, and that is Setanta Beg, 'the

little Setantian,' the first name of the Irish hero Cúchulainn. The nt,

I may point out, makes one suspect that Setanta is a name of Brythonic

origin in Irish; and I have been in the habit of associating it with

that of the people of the Setantii [176], placed by Ptolemy on the

coast of what is now Lancashire. Whether any legend has ever been

current about a country submerged on the coast of Lancashire I cannot

say, but the soundings would make such a legend quite comprehensible. I

remember, however, reading somewhere as to the Plain of Muirthemhne,

of which Cúchulainn, our Setanta Beg, had special charge, that it

was so called because it had once been submarine and become since the

converse, so to say, of Seithennin's country. The latter is beneath

Cardigan Bay, while the other fringed the opposite side of the sea,

consisting as it did of the level portion of County Louth. On the

whole, I am not altogether indisposed to believe that we have here

traces of an ancient legend of a wider scope than is represented by

the Black Book triplets, which I have essayed to translate. I think

that I am right in recognizing that legend in the Mabinogi of Branwen,

daughter of Llyr. There we read that, when Brân and his men crossed

from Wales to Ireland, the intervening sea consisted merely of two

navigable rivers, called Lli and Archan. The story-teller adds words

to the effect, that it is only since then the sea has multiplied its

realms [177] between Ireland and Ynys y Kedyrn, or the Isle of the

Keiri, a name which has already been discussed: see pp. 279-83.

These are not all the questions which such stories suggest; for

Seithennin is represented in later Welsh literature as the son of

one Seithyn, associated with Dyfed; and the name Seithyn leads off

to the coast of Brittany. For I learn from a paper by the late M. le

Men, in the Revue Archéologique for 1872 (xxiii. 52), that the Île

de Sein is called in Breton Enez-Sun, in which Sun is a dialectic

shortening of Sizun, which is also met with as Seidhun. That being so,

one would seem to be right in regarding Sizun as nearly related to

our Seithyn. That is not all--the tradition reminds one of the Welsh

legend: M. le Men refers to the Vie du P. Maunoir by Boschet (Paris,

1697) p. 126, and adds that, in his own time, the road ending on

the Pointe du Raz opposite the Île de Sein passed 'pour être l'ancien

chemin qui conduisait à la ville d'Is (Kaer-a-Is, la ville de la partie

basse).' It is my own experience, that nobody can go about much in

Brittany without hearing over and over again about the submerged city

of Is. There is no doubt that we have in these names distant echoes of

an inundation story, once widely current in both Britains and perhaps

also in Ireland. With regard to Wales we have an indication to that

effect in the fact, that Gwydno, to whom the inundated region is

treated as having belonged, is associated not only with Cardigan Bay,

but also with the coast of North Wales, especially the part of it

situated between Bangor and Llandudno [178]. Adjoining it is supposed

to lie submerged a once fertile district called Tyno Helig, a legend

about which will come under notice later. This brings the inundation

story nearer to the coast where Ptolemy in the second century located

the Harbour of the Setantii, about the mouth of the river Ribble,

and in their name we seem to have some sort of a historical basis for

that of the drunken Seithennin [179]. I cannot close these remarks

better than by appending what Professor Boyd Dawkins has recently

said with regard to the sea between Britain and Ireland:--

'It may be interesting to remark further that during the time of

the Iberian dominion in Wales, the geography of the seaboard was

different to what it is now. A forest, containing the remains of their

domestic oxen that had run wild, and of the indigenous wild animals

such as the bear and the red deer, united Anglesey with the mainland,

and occupied the shallows of Cardigan Bay, known in legend as "the

lost lands of Wales." It extended southwards from the present sea

margin across the estuary of the Severn, to Somerset, Devon, and

Cornwall. It passed northwards across the Irish Sea off the coast

of Cheshire and Lancashire, and occupied Morecambe Bay with a dense

growth of oak, Scotch fir, alder, birch, and hazel. It ranged seawards

beyond the ten-fathom line, and is to be found on most shores beneath

the sand-banks and mud-banks, as for example at Rhyl and Cardiff. In

Cardigan Bay it excited the wonder of Giraldus de Barri [180].'

To return to fairy wells, I have to confess that I cannot decide what

may be precisely the meaning of the notion of a well with a woman set

carefully to see that the door or cover of the well is kept shut. It

will occur, however, to everybody to compare the well which Undine

wished to have kept shut, on account of its affording a ready access

from her subterranean country to the residence of her refractory knight

in his castle above ground. And in the case of the Glasfryn Lake, the

walling and cover that were to keep the spring from overflowing were,

according to the story, not water-tight, seeing that there were holes

made in one of the stones. This suggests the idea that the cover was

to prevent the passage of some such full-grown fairies as those with

which legend seems to have once peopled all the pools and tarns of

Wales. But, in the next place, is the maiden in charge of the well

to be regarded as priestess of the well? The idea of a priesthood in

connexion with wells in Wales is not wholly unknown.

I wish, however, before discussing these instances, to call attention

to one or two Irish ones which point in another direction. Foremost

may be mentioned the source of the river Boyne, which is now

called Trinity Well, situated in the Barony of Carbury, in County

Kildare. The following is the Rennes Dindsenchas concerning it, as

translated by Dr. Stokes, in the Revue Celtique, xv. 315-6:--'Bóand,

wife of Nechtán son of Labraid, went to the secret well which was

in the green of Síd Nechtáin. Whoever went to it would not come from

it without his two eyes bursting, unless it were Nechtán himself and

his three cup-bearers, whose names were Flesc and Lám and Luam. Once

upon a time Bóand went through pride to test the well's power,

and declared that it had no secret force which could shatter her

form, and thrice she walked withershins round the well. (Whereupon)

three waves from the well break over her and deprive her of a thigh

[? wounded her thigh] and one of her hands and one of her eyes. Then

she, fleeing her shame, turns seaward, with the water behind her as

far as Boyne-mouth, (where she was drowned).' This is to explain why

the river is called Bóand, 'Boyne.' A version to the same effect in

the Book of Leinster, fol. 191a, makes the general statement that no

one who gazed right into the well could avoid the instant ruin of

his two eyes or otherwise escape with impunity. A similar story is

related to show how the Shannon, in Irish Sinann, Sinand, or Sinend,

is called after a woman of that name. It occurs in the same Rennes

manuscript, and the following is Stokes' translation in the Revue

Celtique, xv. 457:--'Sinend, daughter of Lodan Lucharglan son of Ler

out of Tir Tairngire (Land of Promise, Fairyland), went to Connla's

Well, which is under sea, to behold it. That is a well at which are

the hazels and inspirations (?) of wisdom, that is, the hazels of the

science of poetry, and in the same hour their fruit and their blossom

and their foliage break forth, and these fall on the well in the same

shower, which raises on the water a royal surge of purple. Then the

salmon chew the fruit, and the juice of the nuts is apparent on their

purple bellies. And seven streams of wisdom spring forth and turn there

again. Now Sinend went to seek the inspiration, for she wanted nothing

save only wisdom. She went with the stream till she reached Linn Mna

Feile, "the Pool of the Modest Woman," that is Bri Ele--and she went

ahead on her journey; but the well left its place, and she followed it

[181] to the banks of the river Tarr-cáin, "Fair-back." After this

it overwhelmed her, so that her back (tarr) went upwards, and when

she had come to the land on this side (of the Shannon) she tasted

death. Whence Sinann and Linn Mna Feile and Tarr-cain.'

In these stories the reader will have noticed that the foremost

punishment on any intruder who looked into the forbidden well was

the instant ruin of his two eyes. One naturally asks why the eyes

are made the special objects of the punishment, and I am inclined to

think the meaning to have originally been that the well or spring was

regarded as the eye of the divinity of the water. Should this prove

well founded it looks natural that the eyes, which transgressed by

gazing into the eye of the divinity, should be the first objects of

that divinity's vengeance. This is suggested to me by the fact that

the regular Welsh word for the source of a river is llygad, Old Welsh

licat, 'eye,' as for instance in the case of Licat Amir mentioned by

Nennius, § 73; of Llygad Llychwr, 'the source of the Loughor river'

in the hills behind Carreg Cennen Castle; and of the weird lake in

which the Rheidol [182] rises near the top of Plinlimmon: it is called

Llyn Llygad y Rheidol, 'the Lake of the Rheidol's Eye.' By the way,

the Rheidol is not wholly without its folklore, for I used to be told

in my childhood, that she and the Wye and the Severn sallied forth

simultaneously from Plinlimmon one fine morning to run a race to the

sea. The result was, one was told, that the Rheidol won great honour

by reaching the sea three weeks before her bigger sisters. Somebody

has alluded to the legend in the following lines:--

Tair afon gynt a rifwyd

Ar dwyfron Pumlumon lwyd,

Hafren a Gwy'n hyfryd ei gwed,

A'r Rheidol fawr ei hanrhyded.

Three rivers of yore were seen

On grey Plinlimmon's breast,

Severn, and Wye of pleasant mien,

And Rheidol rich in great renown.

To return to the Irish legends, I may mention that Eugene O'Curry

has a good deal to say of the mysterious nuts and 'the salmon of

knowledge,' the partaking of which was synonymous with the acquisition

of knowledge and wisdom: see his Manners and Customs of the Ancient

Irish, ii. 142-4. He gives it as his opinion that Connla's Well was

situated somewhere in Lower Ormond; but the locality of this Helicon,

with the seven streams of wisdom circulating out of it and back again

into it, is more intelligible when regarded as a matter of fairy

geography. A portion of the note appended to the foregoing legend by

Stokes is in point here: he traces the earliest mention of the nine

hazels of wisdom, growing at the heads of the chief rivers of Ireland,

to the Dialogue of the Two Sages in the Book of Leinster, fol. 186b,

whence he cites the poet Néde mac Adnai saying whence he had come,

as follows:--a caillib .i. a nói collaib na Segsa ... a caillib

didiu assa mbenaiter clessa na súad tanacsa, 'from hazels, to wit,

from the nine hazels of the Segais ... from hazels out of which are

obtained the feats of the sages, I have come.' The relevancy of this

passage will be seen when I add, that Segais was one of the names

of the mound in which the Boyne rises; so it may be safely inferred

that Bóand's transgression was of the same nature as that of Sinand,

to wit, that of intruding on sacred ground in quest of wisdom and

inspiration which was not permitted their sex: certain sources of

knowledge, certain quellen, were reserved for men alone.

Before I have done with the Irish instances I must append one in the

form it was told me in the summer of 1894: I was in Meath and went

to see the remarkable chambered cairns on the hill known as Sliabh na

Caillighe, 'the Hag's Mountain,' near Oldcastle and Lough Crew. I had

as my guide a young shepherd whom I picked up on the way. He knew all

about the hag after whom the hill was called except her name: she was,

he said, a giantess, and so she brought there, in three apronfuls,

the stones forming the three principal cairns. As to the cairn on

the hill point known as Belrath, that is called the Chair Cairn from

a big stone placed there by the hag to serve as her seat when she

wished to have a quiet look on the country round. But usually she

was to be seen riding on a wonderful pony she had: that creature was

so nimble and strong that it used to take the hag at a leap from one

hill-top to another. However, the end of it all was that the hag rode

so hard that the pony fell down, and that both horse and rider were

killed. The hag appears to have been Cailleach Bhéara, or Caillech

Bérre, 'the Old Woman of Beare,' that is, Bearhaven, in County Cork

[183]. Now the view from the Hag's Mountain is very extensive, and

I asked the shepherd to point out some places in the distance. Among

other things we could see Lough Ramor, which he called the Virginia

Water, and more to the west he identified Lough Sheelin, about which

he had the following legend to tell:--A long, long time ago there

was no lake there, but only a well with a flagstone kept over it,

and everybody would put the flag back after taking water out of the

well. But one day a woman who fetched water from it forgot to replace

the stone, and the water burst forth in pursuit of the luckless woman,

who fled as hard as she could before the angry flood. She continued

until she had run about seven miles--the estimated length of the

lake at the present day. Now at this point a man, who was busily

mowing hay in the field through which she was running, saw what

was happening and mowed the woman down with his scythe, whereupon

the water advanced no further. Such was the shepherd's yarn, which

partly agrees with the Boyne and Shannon stories in that the woman

was pursued by the water, which only stopped where she died. On

the other hand, it resembles the Llyn Llech Owen legend and that

of Lough Neagh in placing to the woman's charge only the neglect to

cover the well. It looks as if we had in these stories a confusion

of two different institutions, one being a well of wisdom which no

woman durst visit without fatal vengeance overtaking her, and the

other a fairy well which was attended to by a woman who was to keep

it covered, and who may, perhaps, be regarded as priestess of the

spring. If we try to interpret the Cantre'r Gwaelod story from these

two points of view we have to note the following matters:--Though it is

not said that the moruin, or damsel, had a lid or cover on the well,

the word golligaut or helligaut, 'did let run,' implies some such an

idea as that of a lid or door; for opening the sluices, in the sense

of the later version, seems to me out of the question. In two of the

Englynion she is cursed for the action implied, and if she was the

well minister or well servant, as I take finaun wenestir to mean,

we might perhaps regard her as the priestess of that spring. On the

other hand, the prevailing note in the other Englynion is the traha,

'presumption, arrogance, insolence, pride,' which forms the burden

of four out of five of them. This would seem to point to an attitude

on the part of the damsel resembling that of Bóand or Sinand when

prying into the secrets of wells which were tabu to them. The seventh

Englyn alludes to wines, and its burden is gormod, 'too much, excess,

extravagance,' whereby the poet seems to lend countenance to some

such a later story as that of Seithennin's intemperance.

Lastly, the question of priest or priestess of a sacred well has

been alluded to once or twice, and it may be perhaps illustrated on

Welsh ground by the history of Ffynnon Eilian, or St. Elian's Well,

which has been mentioned in another context, p. 357 above. Of that

well we read as follows, s. v. Llandrillo, in the third edition of

Lewis' Topographical Dictionary of Wales:--'Fynnon Elian, ... even in

the present age, is frequently visited by the superstitious, for the

purpose of invoking curses upon the heads of those who have grievously

offended them, and also of supplicating prosperity to themselves;

but the numbers are evidently decreasing. The ceremony is performed by

the applicant standing upon a certain spot near the well, whilst the

owner of it reads a few passages of the sacred Scriptures, and then,

taking a small quantity of water, gives it to the former to drink,

and throws the residue over his head, which is repeated three times,

the party continuing to mutter imprecations in whatever terms his

vengeance may dictate.' Rice Rees, in his Essay on the Welsh Saints

(London, 1836), p. 267, speaks of St. Elian as follows: 'Miraculous

cures were lately supposed to be performed at his shrine at Llanelian,

Anglesey; and near to the church of Llanelian, Denbighshire, is a

well called Ffynnon Elian, which is thought by the peasantry of the

neighbourhood to be endued with miraculous powers even at present.'

Foulkes, s. v. Elian, in his Enwogion Cymru, published in Liverpool

in 1870, expresses the opinion that the visits of the superstitious

to the well had ceased for some time. The last person supposed to have

had charge of the well was a certain John Evans, but some of the most

amusing stories of the shrewdness of the caretaker refer to a woman

who had charge of the well before Evans' time. A series of articles on

Ffynnon Eilian appeared in 1861 in a Welsh periodical called Y Nofelyd,

printed by Mr. Aubrey at Llanerch y Med, in Anglesey. The articles

in question were afterwards published, I am told, as a shilling book,

which I have not seen, and they dealt with the superstition, with the

history of John Evans, and with his confessions and conversion. I

have searched in vain for any account in Welsh of the ritual

followed at the well. When Mrs. Silvan Evans visited the place,

the person in charge of the well was a woman, and Peter Roberts,

in his Cambrian Popular Antiquities, published in London in 1815,

alludes to her or a predecessor of hers in the following terms,

p. 246:--'Near the Well resided some worthless and infamous wretch,

who officiated as priestess.' He furthermore gives one to understand

that she kept a book in which she registered the name of each evil

wisher for a trifling sum of money. When this had been done, a pin was

dropped into the well in the name of the victim. This proceeding looks

adequate from the magical point of view, though less complicated than

the ritual indicated by Lewis. This latter writer calls the person who

took charge of the well the owner; and I have always understood that,

whether owner or not, he or she used to receive gifts, not only for

placing in the well the names of men who were to be cursed, but also

from those men for taking their names out again, so as to relieve them

from the malediction. In fact, the trade in curses seems to have been

a very thriving one: its influence was powerful and widespread.

Here there is, I think, very little doubt that the owner or guardian of

the well was, so to say, the representative of an ancient priesthood

of the well. That priesthood dated its origin probably many centuries

before a Christian church was built near the well, and coming down

to later times we have unfortunately no sufficient data to show how

the right to such priesthood was acquired, whether by inheritance or

otherwise; but we know that a woman might have charge of St. Elian's

Well.

Let me cite another instance, which I unexpectedly discovered

some years ago in the course of a ramble in quest of

early inscriptions. Among other places which I visited was

Llandeilo Llwydarth, near Maen Clochog, in the northern part of

Pembrokeshire. This is one of the many churches bearing the name of

St. Teilo in South Wales: the building is in ruins, but the churchyard

is still used, and contains two of the most ancient post-Roman

inscriptions in the Principality. If you ask now for 'Llandeilo'

in this district, you will be understood to be inquiring after the

farm house of that name, close to the old church; and I learnt from

the landlady that her family had been there for many generations,

though they have not very long been the proprietors of the land. She

also told me of St. Teilo's Well, a little above the house: she

added that it was considered to have the property of curing the

whooping-cough. I asked if there was any rite or ceremony necessary

to be performed in order to derive benefit from the water. Certainly,

I was told: the water must be lifted out of the well and given to the

patient to drink by some member of the family. To be more accurate, I

ought to say that this must be done by somebody born in the house. Her

eldest son, however, had told me previously, when I was busy with the

inscriptions, that the water must be given to the patient by the heir,

not by anybody else. Then came my question how the water was lifted,

or out of what the patient had to drink, to which I was answered

that it was out of the skull. 'What skull?' said I. 'St. Teilo's

skull,' was the answer. 'Where do you get the saint's skull?' I

asked. 'Here it is,' was the answer, and I was given it to handle

and examine. I know next to nothing about skulls; but it struck me

that it was the upper portion of a thick, strong skull, and it called

to my mind the story of the three churches which contended for the

saint's corpse. That story will be found in the Book of Llan Dâv,

pp. 116-7, and according to it the contest became so keen that it

had to be settled by prayer and fasting. So, in the morning, lo and

behold! there were three corpses of St. Teilo--not simply one--and so

like were they in features and stature that nobody could tell which

were the corpses made to order and which the old one. I should have

guessed that the skull which I saw belonged to the former description,

as not having been much thinned by the owner's use of it; but this I

am forbidden to do by the fact that, according to the legend, this

particular Llandeilo was not one of the three contending churches

which bore away in triumph a dead Teilo each. The reader, perhaps,

would like to take another view, namely, that the story has been

edited in such a way as to reduce a larger number of Teilos to three,

in order to gratify the Welsh weakness for triads.

Since my visit to the neighbourhood I have been favoured with an

account of the well as it is now current there. My informant is

Mr. Benjamin Gibby of Llangolman Mill, who writes mentioning, among

other things, that the people around call the well Ffynnon yr Ychen,

or the Oxen's Well, and that the family owning and occupying the

farm house of Llandeilo have been there for centuries. Their name,

which is Melchior (pronounced Melshor), is by no means a common one in

the Principality, so far as I know; but, whatever may be its history

in Wales, the bearers of it are excellent Kymry. Mr. Gibby informs

me that the current story solves the difficulty as to the saint's

skull as follows:--The saint had a favourite maid servant from the

Pembrokeshire Llandeilo: she was a beautiful woman, and had the

privilege of attending on the saint when he was on his death-bed. As

his end was approaching he gave his maid a strict and solemn command

that in a year's time from the day of his burial at Llandeilo Fawr,

in Carmarthenshire, she was to take his skull to the other Llandeilo,

and to leave it there to be a blessing to coming generations of men,

who, when ailing, would have their health restored by drinking water

out of it. So the belief prevailed that to drink out of the skull

some of the water of Teilo's Well ensured health, especially against

the whooping-cough. The faith of some of those who used to visit

the well was so great in its efficacy, that they were wont to leave

it, he says, with their constitutions wonderfully improved; and he

mentions a story related to him by an old neighbour, Stifyn Ifan,

who has been dead for some years, to the effect that a carriage,

drawn by four horses, came once, more than half a century ago, to

Llandeilo. It was full of invalids coming from Pen Clawd, in Gower,

Glamorganshire, to try the water of the well. They returned, however,

no better than they came; for though they had drunk of the well, they

had neglected to do so out of the skull. This was afterwards pointed

out to them by somebody, and they resolved to make the long journey

to the well again. This time they did the right thing, we are told,

and departed in excellent health.

Such are the contents of Mr. Gibby's Welsh letter; and I would now

only point out that we have here an instance of a well which was

probably sacred before the time of St. Teilo: in fact, one would

possibly be right in supposing that the sanctity of the well and its

immediate surroundings was one of the causes why the site was chosen by

a Christian missionary. But consider for a moment what has happened:

the well paganism has annexed the saint, and established a belief

ascribing to him the skull used in the well ritual. The landlady and

her family, it is true, neither believe in the efficacy of the well,

nor take gifts from those who visit the well; but they continue, out

of kindness, as they put it, to hand the skull full of water to any

one who perseveres in believing in it. In other words, the faith in

the well continues in a measure intact, while the walls of the church

have long fallen into utter decay. Such is the great persistence of

some primitive beliefs; and in this particular instance we have a

succession which seems to point unmistakably to an ancient priesthood

of a sacred spring.

NOTES

[1] As to the spelling of Welsh names, it may be pointed out for the

benefit of English readers that Welsh f has the sound of English v,

while the sound of English f is written ff (and ph) in Welsh, and

however strange it may seem to them that the written f should be

sounded v, it is borrowed from an old English alphabet which did

so likewise more or less systematically. Th in such English words

as thin and breath is written th, but the soft sound as in this and

breathe is usually printed in Welsh dd and written in modern Welsh

manuscript sometimes like a small Greek delta: this will be found

represented by d in the Welsh extracts edited by me in this

volume.--J. R.

[2] 'Blaensawde, or the upper end of the river Sawde, is situate about

three-quarters of a mile south-east from the village of Llandeusant. It

gives its name to one of the hamlets of that parish. The Sawde has

its source in Llyn y Fan Fach, which is nearly two miles distant from

Blaensawde House.'

[3] The rendering might be more correctly given thus: 'O thou of the

crimped bread, it is not easy to catch me.'--J. R.

[4] 'Mydfai parish was, in former times, celebrated for its fair

maidens, but whether they were descendants of the Lady of the Lake

or otherwise cannot be determined. An old pennill records the fact

of their beauty thus:--

Mae eira gwyn

Ar ben y bryn,

A'r glasgoed yn y Ferdre,

Mae bedw mân

Ynghoed Cwm-brân,

A merched glân yn Mydfe.

Which may be translated,

There is white snow

On the mountain's brow,

And greenwood at the Verdre,

Young birch so good

In Cwm-brân wood,

And lovely girls in Mydfe.'

[5] Similarly this should be rendered: 'O thou of the moist bread,

I will not have thee.'--J. R.

[6] In the best Demetian Welsh this word would be hwedel, and in the

Gwentian of Glamorgan it is gwedel, mutated wedel, as may be heard

in the neighbourhood of Bridgend.--J. R.

[7] This is not generally accepted, as some Welsh antiquarians

find reasons to believe that Dafyd ap Gwilym was buried at Strata

Florida.--J. R.

[8] This is not quite correct, as I believe that Dr. C. Rice Williams,

who lives at Aberystwyth, is one of the Medygon. That means the year

1881, when this chapter was written, excepting the portions concerning

which the reader is apprised of a later date.--J. R.

[9] Later it will be seen that the triban in the above form was meant

for neither of the two lakes, though it would seem to have adapted

itself to several. In the case of the Fan Fach Lake the town meant

must have been Carmarthen, and the couplet probably ran thus:

Os na cha'i lonyd yn ym lle,

Fi foda dre' Garfyrdin.

[10] Llwch is the Goidelic word loch borrowed, and Llyn Cwm y Llwch

literally means the Lake of the Loch Dingle.

[11] I make no attempt to translate these lines, but I find that

Mr. Llewellyn Williams has found a still more obscure version of them,

as follows:--

Prw med, prw med, prw'r gwartheg i dre',

Prw milfach a malfach, pedair llualfach,

Llualfach ac Acli, pedair lafi,

Lafi a chromwen, pedair nepwen,

Nepwen drwynog, brech yn llyn a gwaun dodyn,

Tair bryncethin, tair cyffredin,

Tair caseg du, draw yn yr eithin;

Dewch i gyd i lys y brenin.

[12] The Ty-fry is a house said to be some 200 years old, and situated

about two miles from Rhonda Fechan: more exactly it is about one-fourth

of a mile from the station of Ystrad Rhonda, and stands at the foot

of Mynyd yr Eglwys on the Treorky side. It is now surrounded by the

cottages of colliers, one of whom occupies it. For this information

I have to thank Mr. Probert Evans.

[13] It is to be borne in mind that the sound of h is uncertain

in Glamorgan pronunciation, whether the language used is Welsh or

English. The pronunciation indicated, however, by Mr. Evans comes

near enough to the authentic form written Elfarch.

[14] In the Snowdon district of Gwyned the call is drwi, drwi, drw-i

bach, while in North Cardiganshire it is trwi, trwi, trw-e fach, also

pronounced sometimes with a surd r, produced by making the breath cause

both lips to vibrate--tR'wi, tR'wi, which can hardly be distinguished

from pR'wi, pR'wi. For the more forcibly the lips are vibrated the

more difficult it becomes to start by closing them to pronounce p:

so the tendency with R' is to make the preceding consonant into some

kind of a t.

[15] This is the Welsh form of the borrowed name Jane, and its

pronunciation in North Cardiganshire is Siân, with si pronounced

approximately like the ti of such French words as nation and the

like; but of late years I find the si made into English sh under

the influence, probably, to some extent of the English taught at

school. This happens in North Wales, even in districts where there

are still plenty of people who cannot approach the English words

fish and shilling nearer than fiss and silling. Siôn and Siân

represent an old importation of English John and Jane, but they are

now considered old-fashioned and superseded by John and Jane, which

I learned to pronounce Dsiòn and Dsiên, except that Siôn survives

as a family name, written Shone, in the neighbourhood of Wrexham.

[16] This term dafad (or dafaden), 'a sheep,' also used for 'a wart,'

and dafad (or dafaden) wyllt, literally 'a wild sheep,' for cancer

or epithelioma, raises a question which I am quite unable to answer:

why should a wart have been likened to a sheep?

[17] The name is probably a shortening of Cawellyn, and that perhaps

of Cawell-lyn, 'Creel or Basket Lake.' Its old name is said to have

been Llyn Tardenni.

[18] Tyn is a shortening of tydyn, which is not quite forgotten in

the case of Tyn Gadlas or Tyn Siarlas (for Tydyn Siarlys), 'Charles'

Tenement,' in the immediate neighbourhood. Similarly the Anglesey

Farm of Tyn yr Onnen used at one time to be Tydyn yr Onnen in the

books of Jesus College, Oxford, to which it belongs.

[19] That is the pronunciation which I have learnt at Llanberis,

but there is another, which I have also heard, namely Derwenyd.

[20] Ystrad is the Welsh corresponding to Scotch strath, and it is

nearly related to the English word strand. It means the flat land

near a river.

[21] Betws (or Bettws) Garmon seems to mean Germanus's Bede-hus or

House of Prayer, but Garmon can hardly have come down in Welsh from

the time of the famous saint in the fifth century, as it would then

have probably yielded Gerfon and not Garmon: it looks as if it had

come through the Goidelic of this country.

[22] One of the rare merits of our Welsh bards is their habit of

assuming permanent noms de plume, by means of which they prevent a

number of excellent native names from falling into utter oblivion

in the general chaos of Anglo-Hebrew ones, such as Jones, Davies,

and Williams, which cover the Principality. Welsh place-names have

similarly been threatened by Hebrew names of chapels, such as Bethesda,

Rehoboth, and Jerusalem, but in this direction the Jewish mania has

only here and there effected permanent mischief.

[23] The Brython was a valuable Welsh periodical published by

Mr. Robert Isaac Jones, at Tremadoc, in the years 1858-1863, and

edited by the Rev. Chancellor Silvan Evans, who was then the curate

of Llangïan in Lleyn: in fact he was curate for fourteen years! His

excellent work in editing the Brython earned for him his diocesan's

displeasure, but it is easier to imagine than to describe how hard it

was for him to resign the honorarium of £24 derived from the Brython

when his stipend as a clergyman was only £92, at the same time that

he had dependent on him a wife and six children. However much some

people affect to laugh at the revival of the national spirit in Wales,

we have, I think, got so far as to make it, for some time to come,

impossible for a Welsh clergyman to be snubbed on account of his

literary tastes or his delight in the archæology of his country.

[24] This parish is called after a saint named Tegái or Tygái, like

Tyfaelog and Tysilio, and though the accent rests on the final syllable

nothing could prevent the grammarian Huw Tegai and his friends from

making it into Tégai in Huw's name.

[25] For can they now usually put Ann, and Mr. Hughes remembers

hearing it so many years ago.

[26] I remember seeing a similar mound at Llanfyrnach, in

Pembrokeshire; and the last use made of the hollow on the top of this

also is supposed to have been for cock-fights.

[27] My attention has also been called to freit, frete, freet,

fret, 'news, inquiry, augury,' corresponding to Anglo-Saxon freht,

'divination.' But the disparity of meaning seems to stand in the way

of our ffrit being referred to this origin.

[28] The Oxford Mabinogion, p. 63; Guest, iii. 223.

[29] See the Itinerarium Kambriæ, i. 2 (pp. 33-5), and Celtic Britain,

p. 64.

[30] As for example in the Archæologia Cambrensis for 1870, pp. 192-8;

see also 1872, pp. 146-8.

[31] Howells has also an account of Llyn Savadhan, as he writes it:

see his Cambrian Superstitions, pp. 100-2, where he quaintly says that

the story of the wickedness of the ancient lord of Syfadon is assigned

as the reason why 'the superstitious little river Lewenny will not mix

its water with that of the lake.' Lewenny is a reckless improvement

of Mapes' Leueni (printed Lenem); and Giraldus' Clamosum implies

an old spelling Llefni, pronounced the same as the later spelling

Llyfni, which is now made into Llynfi or Llynvi: the river so called

flows through the lake and into the Wye at Glasbury. As to Safadan

or Syfadon, it is probably of Goidelic origin, and to be identified

with such an Irish name as the feminine Samthann: see Dec. 19 in the

Martyrologies. To keep within our data, we are at liberty to suppose

that this was the name of the wicked princess in the story, and that

she was the ancestress of a clan once powerful on and around the lake,

which lies within a Goidelic area indicated by its Ogam inscriptions.

[32] These were held, so far as I can gather from the descriptions

usually given of them, exactly as I have seen a kermess or kirchmesse

celebrated at Heidelberg, or rather the village over the Neckar

opposite that town. It was in 1869, but I forget what saint it was with

whose name the kermess was supposed to be connected: the chief features

of it were dancing and beer drinking. It was by no means unusual for

a Welsh Gwyl Fabsant to bring together to a rural neighbourhood far

more people than could readily be accommodated; and in Carnarvonshire

a hurriedly improvised bed is to this day called gwely g'l'absant,

as it were 'a bed (for the time) of a saint's festival.' Rightly

or wrongly the belief lingers that these merry gatherings were

characterized by no little immorality, which made the better class

of people set their faces against them.

[33] Since the editing of this volume was begun I have heard that it

is intended to publish the Welsh collection which Mr. Jones has made:

so I shall only give a translation of the Edward Llwyd version of

the afanc story: see section v. of this chapter.

[34] This word is not in Welsh dictionaries, but it is Scotch and

Manx Gaelic, and is possibly a remnant of the Goidelic once spoken

in Gwyned.

[35] Our charlatans never leave off trying to make this into Tryfaen so

as to extract maen, 'stone,' from it. They do not trouble themselves

to find out whether it ever was Tryfaen or not: in fact they rather

like altering everything as much as they can.

[36] Ystrádllyn, with the accent on the penult, is commonly pronounced

Strállyn, and means 'the strand of the lake,' and the hollow is

named after it Cwm Strállyn, and the lake in it Llyn Cwm Strállyn,

which literally means 'the Lake of the Combe of the Strand of the

Lake'--all seemingly for the luxury of forgetting the original name

of the lake, which I have never been able to ascertain.

[37] So Mr. Jones puts it: I have never heard of any other part of

the Principality where the children are usually baptized before they

are eight days old.

[38] I cannot account for this spelling, but the ll in Bellis is

English ll, not the Welsh ll, which represents a sound very different

from that of l.

[39] Where not stated otherwise, as in this instance, the reader is

to regard this chapter as written in the latter part of the year 1881.

[40] See Giraldus' Itinerarium Kambriæ, i. 8 (pp. 75-8); some

discussion of the whole story will be found in chapter iii of this

volume.

[41] Dr. Moore explains this to be cabbages and potatoes, pounded

and mixed with butter or lard.

[42] It would be interesting to know what has become of this letter

and others of Llwyd's once in the possession of the canon, for it is

not to be supposed that the latter ever took the trouble to make an

accurate copy of them any more than he did of any other MSS.

[43] There is also a Sarn yr Afanc, 'the Afanc's Stepping Stones,'

on the Ogwen river in Nant Ffrancon: see Pennant's Tours in Wales,

iii. 101.

[44] The oxen should accordingly have been called Ychain Pannog;

but the explanation is not to be taken seriously. These oxen will

come under the reader's notice again, to wit in chapter x.

[45] The lines are copied exactly as given at p. 189 (I. vi. 25-30)

of The Poetical Works of Lewis Glyn Cothi, edited for the Cymmrodorion

by Gwallter Mechain and Tegid, and printed at Oxford in the year 1837.

[46] This, I should say, must be a mistake, as it contradicts all

the folklore which makes the rowan an object of dread to the fairies.

[47] See Choice Notes from 'Notes and Queries' (London, 1859), p. 147.

[48] It is more likely that it is a shortening of Llyn y Barfog,

meaning the Lake of the Bearded One, Lacus Barbati as it were, the

Bearded One being somebody like the hairy monster of another lake

mentioned at p. 18 above, or him of the white beard pictured at p. 127.

[49] So far from afanc meaning a crocodile, an afanc is represented in

the story of Peredur as a creature that would cast at every comer a

poisoned spear from behind a pillar standing at the mouth of the cave

inhabited by it; see the Oxford Mabinogion, p. 224. The corresponding

Irish word is abhac, which according to O'Reilly means 'a dwarf,

pigmy, manikin; a sprite.'

[50] I should not like to vouch for the accuracy of Mr. Pughe's

rendering of this and the other Welsh names which he has introduced:

that involves difficult questions.

[51] The writer meant the river known as Dyfi or Dovey; but he would

seem to have had a water etymology on the brain.

[52] This involves the name of the river called Disynni, and Diswnwy

embodies a popular etymology which is not worth discussing.

[53] It would, I think, be a little nearer the mark as follows:--

Come thou, Einion's Yellow One,

Stray-horns, the Particoloured Lake Cow,

And the Hornless Dodin:

Arise, come home.

But one would like to know whether Dodin ought not rather to be

written Dodyn, to rhyme with Llyn.

[54] Hywel's real name is William Davies, Tal y Bont, Cardiganshire. As

adjudicator I became acquainted with several stories which Mr. Davies

has since given me permission to use, and I have to thank him for

clues to several others.

[55] Or Llech y Deri, as Mr. Williams tells me in a letter, where

he adds that he does not know the place, but that he took it to be

in the Hundred of Cemmes, in North-west Pembrokeshire. I take Llech

y Derwyd to be fictitious; but I have not succeeded in finding any

place called by the other name either.

[56] Perhaps the more usual thing is for the man returning from Faery

to fall into dust on the spot: see later in this chapter the Curse of

Pantannas, which ends with an instance in point, and compare Howells,

pp. 142, 146.

[57] B. Davies, that is, Benjamin Davies, who gives this tale, was,

as I learn from Gwynionyd, a native of Cenarth. He was a schoolmaster

for about twelve years, and died in October, 1859, at Merthyr, near

Carmarthen: he describes him as a good and intelligent man.

[58] This is ordinarily written Cenarth, the name of a parish on

the Teifi, where the three counties of Cardigan, Pembroke, and

Carmarthen meet.

[59] The name Llan Dydoch occurs in the Bruts, A.D. 987 and 1089,

and is the one still in use in Welsh; but the English St. Dogmael's

shows that it is derived from that of Dogfael's name when the mutation

consonant f or v was still written m. In Welsh the name of the saint

has been worn down to Dogwel, as in St. Dogwell's near Fishguard, and

Llandogwel in Llanrhudlad parish in Anglesey: see Reece's Welsh Saints,

p. 211. It points back to an early Brythonic form Doco-maglos, with

doco of the same origin as Latin dux, ducis, 'a leader,' and maglo-s =

Irish mal, 'a lord or prince.' Dogfael's name assumes in Llan Dydoch a

Goidelic form, for Dog-fael would have to become in Irish Doch-mhal,

which, cut down to Doch with the honorific prefix to, has yielded

Ty-doch; but I am not clear why it is not Ty-doch. Another instance of

a Goidelic form of a name having the local preference in Wales to this

day offers itself in Cyfelach and Llan Gyfelach in Glamorganshire. The

Welsh was formerly Cimeliauc (Reece, p. 274). Here may also be

mentioned St. Cyngar, otherwise called Docwinnus (Reece, p. 183),

but the name occurs in the Liber Landavensis in the genitive both as

Docunn-i and Docguinni, the former of which seems easily explained as

Goidelic for an early form of Cyngar, namely Cuno-caros, from which

would be formed To-chun or Do-chun. This is what seems to underlie the

Latin Docunnus, while Docguinni is possibly a Goidelic modification

of the written Docunni, unless some such a name as Doco-vindo-s has

been confounded with Docunnus. In one instance the Book of Llan Dâv

has instead of Abbas Docunni or Docguinni, the shorter designation,

Abbas Dochou (p. 145), which one must not unhesitatingly treat as

Dochon, seeing that Dochou would be in later book Welsh Dochau,

and in the dialect of the district Docha; and that this occurs in

the name of the church of Llandough near Cardiff, and Llandough near

Cowbridge. The connexion of a certain saint Dochdwy with these churches

does not appear at all satisfactorily established, but more light is

required to help one to understand these and similar church names.

[60] This name which may have come from Little England below Wales,

was once not uncommon in South Cardiganshire, as Mr. Williams

informs me, but it is now mostly changed as a surname into Davies and

Jones! Compare the similar fortunes of the name Mason mentioned above,

p. 68.

[61] I have not succeeded in discovering who the writer was, who used

this name.

[62] This name as it is now written should mean 'the Gold's Foot,'

but in the Demetian dialect aur is pronounced oer, and I learn from

the rector, the Rev. Rhys Jones Lloyd, that the name has sometimes

been written Tref Deyrn, which I regard as some etymologist's futile

attempt to explain it. More importance is to be attached to the name

on the communion cup, dating 1828, and reading, as Mr. Lloyd kindly

informs me, Poculum Eclyseye de Tre-droyre. Beneath Droyre some

personal name possibly lies concealed.

[63] Y Ferch o Gefn Ydfa ('The Maid of Cefn Ydfa'), by Isaac Craigfryn

Hughes, published by Messrs. Daniel Owen, Howell & Co., Cardiff, 1881.

[64] In a letter dated February 9, 1899, he states, however, that as

regards folklore the death of his father at the age of seventy-six,

in the year 1889, had been a great loss to him; for he adds that he

was perfectly familiar with the traditions of the neighbourhood and

had associated with older men. Among the latter he had been used to

talk with an old man whose father remembered Cromwell passing on his

way to destroy the Iron Works of Pant y Gwaith, where the Cavaliers

had had a cannon cast, which was afterwards used in the engagement

at St. Fagan's.

[65] This term is sometimes represented as being Bendith eu Mamau,

'their Mother's Blessing,' as if each fairy were such a delightful

offspring as to constitute himself or herself a blessing to his or her

mother; but I have not found satisfactory evidence to the currency

of Bendith eu Mamau, or, as it would be pronounced in Glamorgan,

Béndith i Máma. On the whole, therefore, perhaps one may regard the

name as pointing back to the Celtic goddesses known in Gaul in Roman

times as the Mothers.

[66] On Pen Craig Daf Mr. Hughes gives the following note:--It

was the residence of Dafyd Morgan or 'Counsellor Morgan,' who, he

says, was executed on Kennington Common for taking the side of the

Pretender. He had retreated to Pen y Graig, where his abode was,

in order to conceal himself; but he was discovered and carried away

at night. Here follows a verse from an old ballad about him:--

Dafyd Morgan ffel a ffol, Taffy Morgan, sly and daft,

Fe aeth yn ol ei hyder: He did his bent go after:

Fe neidod naid at rebel haid He leaped a leap to a rebel swarm,

Pan drod o blaid Pretender. To arm for a Pretender.

[67] A tòn is any green field that is used for grazing and not meant to

be mown, land which has, as it were, its skin of grassy turf unbroken

for years by the plough.

[68] On this Mr. Hughes has a note to the effect that the whole of

one milking used to be given in Glamorgan to workmen for assistance

at the harvest or other work, and that it was not unfrequently enough

for the making of two cheeses.

[69] Since this was first printed I have learnt from Mr. Hughes that

the first cry issued from the Black Cauldron in the Taff (o'r Gerwyn

Du ar Daf), which I take to be a pool in that river.

[70] The Fan is the highest mountain in the parish of Merthyr Tydfil,

Mr. Hughes tells me: he adds that there was on its side once a chapel

with a burial ground. Its history seems to be lost, but human bones

have, as he states, been frequently found there.

[71] The above, I am sorry to say, is not the only instance of this

nasty trick associating itself with Gwent, as will be seen from the

story of Bwca'r Trwyn in chapter x.

[72] This chapter, except where a later date is suggested, may be

regarded as written in the summer of 1883.

[73] Trefriw means the town of the slope or hillside, and stands for

Tref y Riw, not tref y Rhiw, which would have yielded Treffriw, for

there is a tendency in Gwyned to make the mutation after the definite

article conform to the general rule, and to say y law, 'the hand,'

and y raw, 'the spade,' instead of what would be in books y llaw and

y rhaw from yr llaw and yr rhaw.

[74] Why the writer spells the name Criccieth in this way I cannot

tell, except that he was more or less under the influence of the more

intelligible spelling Crugcaith, as where Lewis Glyn Cothi. I. xxiv,

sang

Rhys ab Sion â'r hysbys iaith,

Gwr yw acw o Grugcaith.

This spelling postulates the interpretation Crug-Caith, earlier Crug

y Ceith, 'the mound or barrow of the captives,' in reference to some

forgotten interment; but when the accent receded to the first syllable

the second was slurred almost out of recognition, so that Crug-ceith,

or Cruc-ceith, became Crúceth, whence Crúcieth and Cricieth. The Bruts

have Crugyeith the only time it occurs, and the Record of Carnarvon

(several times) Krukyth.

[75] Out of excessive fondness for our Arthur English people translate

this name into Arthur's Seat instead of Idris' Seat; but Idris was

also somebody: he was a giant with a liking for the study of the

stars. But let that be: I wish to say a word concerning his name:

Idris may be explained as meaning 'War-champion,' or the like;

and, phonologically speaking, it comes from Iud-rys, which was made

successively into Id-rys, Idris. The syllable iud meant battle or

fight, and it undergoes a variety of forms in Welsh names. Thus before

n, r, l, and w, it becomes id, as in Idnerth, Idloes, and Idwal, while

Iud-hael yields Ithel, whence Ab Ithel, anglicized Bethel. At the end,

however, it is yd or ud, as in Gruffud or Gruffyd, from Old Welsh

Grippiud, and Maredud or Meredyd for an older Marget-iud. By itself

it is possibly the word which the poets write ud, and understand to

mean lord; but if these forms are related, it must have originally

meant rather a fighter, soldier, or champion.

[76] There is a special similarity between this and an Anglesey story

given by Howells, p. 138: it consists in the sequence of seeing the

fairies dance and finding money left by them. Why was the money left?

[77] It was so called by the poet D. ab Gwilym, cxcii. 12, when

he sang:

I odi ac i luchio To bring snow and drifting flakes

Odiar lechwed Moel Eilio. From off Moel Eilio's slope.

[78] This is commonly pronounced 'Y Gath Dorwen,' but the people of the

neighbourhood wish to explain away a farm name which could, strangely

enough, only mean 'the white-bellied cat'; but y Garth Dorwen,

'the white-bellied garth or hill,' is not a very likely name either.

[79] The hiring time in Wales is the beginning of winter and of

summer; or, as one would say in Welsh, at the Calends of Winter and

the Calends of May respectively. In North Cardiganshire the great

hiring fair was held at the former date when I was a boy, and so,

as I learn from my wife, it was in Carnarvonshire.

[80] In a Cornish story mentioned in Choice Notes, p. 77, we have,

instead of ointment, simply soap. See also Mrs. Bray's Banks of

the Tamar, pp. 174-7, where she alludes to H. Cornelius Agrippa's

statement how such ointment used to be made--the reference must,

I think, be to his book De Occulta Philosophia Libri III (Paris,

1567), i. 45 (pp. 81-2).

[81] See the Mabinogion, pp. 1-2; Evans' Facsimile of the Black Book

of Carmarthen, fol. 49b-50a; Rhys' Arthurian Legend, pp. 155-8; Edmund

Jones' Spirits in the County of Monmouth, pp. 39, 71, 82; and in this

volume, pp. 143, 203, above. I may mention that the Cornish also have

had their Cwn Annwn, though the name is a different one, to wit in the

phrase, 'the Devil and his Dandy-dogs': see Choice Notes, pp. 78-80.

[82] As it stands now this would be unmutated Césel Gýfarch, 'Cyfarch's

Nook,' but there never was such a name. There was, however, Elgýfarch

or Aelgýfarch and Rhygýfarch, and in such a combination as Césel

Elgýfarch there would be every temptation to drop one unaccented el.

[83] Owing to some oversight he has 'a clean or a dirty cow' instead

of cow-yard or cow-house, as I understand it.

[84] Cwta makes cota in the feminine in North Cardiganshire; the

word is nevertheless only the English cutty borrowed. Du, 'black,'

has corresponding to it in Irish, dubh. So the Welsh word seems to

have passed through the stages dyv, dyw, before yw was contracted

into û, which was formerly pronounced like French û, as proved by

the grammar already mentioned (p. 22) of J. D. Rhys, published in

London in 1592; see p. 33, to which my attention has been called

by Prof. J. Morris Jones. In Old or pre-Norman Welsh m did duty

for m and v, so one detects dyv as dim in a woman's name Penardim,

'she of the very black head'; there was also a Penarwen, 'she of the

very blonde head.' The look of Penardim having baffled the redactor

of the Branwen, he left the spelling unchanged: see the (Oxford)

Mabinogion, p. 26. The same sort of change which produced du has

produced cnu, 'a fleece,' as compared with cneifio, 'to fleece';

lluarth, 'a kitchen garden,' as compared with its Irish equivalent

lubhghort. Compare also Rhiwabon, locally pronounced Rhuabon, and

Rhiwallon, occurring sometimes as Rhuallon. But the most notable rôle

of this phonetic process is exemplified by the verbal nouns ending in

u, such as caru, 'to love,' credu, 'to believe,' tyngu, 'to swear,'

in which the u corresponds to an m termination in Old Irish, as in

sechem, 'to follow,' cretem, 'belief,' sessam or sessom, 'to stand.'

[85] In medieval Welsh poetry this name was still a dissyllable;

but now it is pronounced Llyn, in conformity with the habit of

the Gwyndodeg, which makes into porfyd what is written porfeyd,

'pastures,' and pronounced porféid in North Cardiganshire. So in the

Lleyn name Sarn Fyllteyrn the second vocable represents Maelteyrn,

in the Record of Carnarvon (p. 38) Mayltern: it is now sounded

Mylltyrn with the second y short and accented. Lleyn is a plural of

the people (genitive Llaën in Porth Dinllaën), used as a singular of

their country, like Cymru = Cymry, and Prydyn. The singular is llain,

'a spear,' in the Book of Aneurin: see Skene, ii. 64, 88, 92.

[86] It is also called dolur byr, or the 'short disease'; I believe

I have been told that it is the disease known to 'the vet.' as anthrax.

[87] Here the writer seems to have been puzzled by the mh of

Amheirchion, and to have argued back to a radical form Parch;

but he was on the wrong tack--Amheirchion comes from Ap-Meirchion,

where the p helped to make the m a surd, which, with the syllabic

accent on the succeeding vowel, became fixed as mh, while the p

disappeared by assimilation. We have, later on, a similar instance

in Owen y Mhaxen for Owen Amhacsen = O. ap Macsen. Another instance

will be found at the opening of the Mabinogi of Branwen, to wit,

in the word prynhawngweith, 'once on an afternoon,' from prynhawn,

'afternoon,' for which our dictionaries substitute prydnawn,

with the accent on the ultima, though D. ab Gwilym used pyrnhawn,

as in poem xl. 30. But the ordinary pronunciation continues to be

prynháwn or pyrnháwn, sometimes reduced in Gwyned to pnawn. Let me

add an instance which has reached me since writing the above: In the

Archæologia Cambrensis for 1899, pp. 325-6, we have the pedigree of

the Ameridiths from the Visitation of Devonshire in 1620: in the course

of it one finds that Iuan ap Merydeth has a son Thomas Amerideth, who,

knowing probably no Welsh, took to writing his patronymic more nearly

as it was pronounced. The line is brought down to Ames Amerideth,

who was created baronet in 1639. Amerideth of course = Ap Meredyd,

and the present member of the family who writes to the Archæologia

Cambrensis spells his patronymic more correctly, Ameridith; but if

it had survived in Wales it might have been Amheredyd. For an older

instance than any of these see the Book of Taliessin, poem xlix (=

Skene, ii. 204), where one reads of Beli Amhanogan, 'B. ab Mynogan.'

[88] This is pronounced Rhiwan, though probably made up of Rhiw-wen,

for it is the tendency of the Gwyndodeg to convert e and ai of

the unaccented ultima into a, and so with e in Glamorgan; see such

instances as Cornwan and casag, p. 29 above. It is possibly a tendency

inherited from Goidelic, as Irish is found to proceed in the same way.

[89] I may mention that some of the Francises of Anglesey are supposed

to be descendants of Frazers, who changed their name on finding

refuge in the island in the time of the troubles which brought there

the ancestor of the Frazer who, from time to time, claims to be the

rightful head of the Lovat family.

[90] According to old Welsh orthography this would be written Moudin,

and in the book Welsh of the present day it would have to become

Meudin. Restored, however, to the level of Gallo-Roman names, it would

be Mogodunum or Magodunum. The place is known as Castell Moedin, and

includes within it the end of a hill about halfway between Llannarth

and Lampeter.

[91] For other mentions of the colours of fairy dress see pp. 44,

139 above, where red prevails, and contrast the Lake Lady of Llyn

Barfog clad in green, p. 145.

[92] This name means the Bridge of the Blessed Ford, but how the

ford came to be so called I know not. The word bendigaid, 'blessed,'

comes from the Latin verb benedico, 'I bless,' and should, but for

the objection to nd in book Welsh, be bendigaid, which, in fact,

it is approximately in the northern part of the county, where it is

colloquially sounded Pont Rhyd Fyndiged, Fydiged, or even Fdiged, also

Pont Rhyd mdiged, which represents the result of the unmutated form

Bdiged coming directly after the d of rhyd. Somewhat the same is

the case with the name of the herb Dail y Fendigaid, literally 'the

Leaves of the Blessed' (in the feminine singular without any further

indication of the noun to be supplied). This name means, I find,

'hypericum androsæmum, tutsan,' and in North Cardiganshire we call

it Dail y Fyndiged or Fdiged, but in Carnarvonshire the adjective

is made to qualify dail, so that it sounds Dail Bydigad or Bdigad,

'Blessed Leaves.'

[93] I am far from certain what y nos, 'the night,' may mean in

such names as this and Craig y Nos, 'the Rock of the Night' (p. 254

above), to which perhaps might be added such an instance as Blaen Nos,

'the Point of (the?) Night,' in the neighbourhood of Llandovery, in

Carmarthenshire. Can the allusion be merely to thickly overshadowed

spots where the darkness of night might be said to lurk in defiance

of the light of day? I have never visited the places in point,

and leading questions addressed to local authorities are too apt to

elicit misleading answers: the poetic faculty is dangerously rampant

in the Principality.

[94] Dâr is a Glamorgan pronunciation, metri gratiâ of what is written

daear, 'earth': compare d'ar-fochyn in Glamorgan for a badger,

literally 'an earth pig.' The dwarf's answer was probably in some

sort of verse, with dâr and iâr to rhyme.

[95] Applied in Glamorgan to a child that looks poorly and does

not grow.

[96] In Cardiganshire a conjurer is called dyn hysbys, where hysbys

(or, in older orthography, hyspys) means 'informed': it is the

man who is informed on matters which are dark to others; but the

word is also used of facts--Y mae 'r peth yn hysbys, 'the thing

is known or manifest.' The word is divisible into hy-spys, which

would be in Irish, had it existed in the language, so-scese for an

early su-squestia-s, the related Irish words being ad-chiu, 'I see,'

pass. preterite ad-chess, 'was seen,' and the like, in which ci and ces

have been equated by Zimmer with the Sanskrit verb caksh, 'to see,'

from a root quas. The adjective cynnil applied to the dyn hyspys in

Glamorgan means now, as a rule, 'economical' or 'thrifty,' but in

this instance it would seem to have signified 'shrewd,' 'cunning,' or

'clever,' though it would probably come nearer the original meaning of

the word to render it by 'smart,' for it is in Irish conduail, which

is found applied to ingenious work, such as the ornamentation on the

hilt of a sword. Another term for a wizard or conjurer is gwr cyfarwyd,

with which the reader is already familiar. Here cyfarwyd forms a link

with the kyvarwyd of the Mabinogion, where it usually means a

professional man, especially one skilled in story and history; and what

constituted his knowledge was called kyvarwydyt, which included,

among other things, acquaintance with boundaries and pedigrees, but

it meant most frequently perhaps story; see the (Oxford) Mabinogion,

pp. 5, 61, 72, 93. All these terms should, strictly speaking, have

gwr--gwr hyspys, gwr cynnil, and gwr cyfarwyd--but for the fact

that modern Welsh tends to restrict gwr to signify 'a husband' or

'a married man,' while dyn, which only signifies a mortal, is made

to mean man, and provided with a feminine dynes, 'woman,' unknown

to good Welsh literature. Thus the spoken language is in this matter

nearly on a level with English and French, which have quite lost the

word for vir and anêr.

[97] Rhyd y Gloch means 'the Ford of the Bell,' in allusion, as

the story goes, to a silver bell that used in former ages to be

at Llanwonno Church. The people of Llanfabon took a liking to it,

and one night a band of them stole it; but as they were carrying it

across the Taff the moon happened to make her appearance suddenly,

and they, in their fright, taking it to be sunrise, dropped the bell

in the bed of the river, so that nothing has ever been heard of it

since. But for ages afterwards, and even at the present day indeed,

nothing could rouse the natives of Llanfabon to greater fury than to

hear the moon spoken of as haul Llanfabon, 'the sun of Llanfabon.'

[98] It was peat fires that were usual in those days even in Glamorgan.

[99] See Hartland's Science of Fairy Tales, pp. 112-6.

[100] In no other version has Mr. Reynolds heard cwcwll wy iâr,

but either plisgyn or cibyn wy iâr, to which I may add masgal from

Mr. Craigfryn Hughes' versions. The word cwcwll usually means a cowl,

but perhaps it is best here to treat cwcwll as a distinct word derived

somehow from conchylium or the French coquille, 'a shell.'

[101] The whole passage will be found in the Itinerarium Kambriæ,

i. 8 (pp. 75-8), and Giraldus fixes the story a little before his time

somewhere in the district around Swansea and Neath. With this agrees

closely enough the fact that a second David, Dafyd ab Geralld or David

Fitzgerald, appears to have been consecrated Bishop of St. David's

in 1147, and to have died in 1176.

[102] The words in the original are: Nec carne vescebantur, nec pisce;

lacteis plerumque cibariis utentes, et in pultis modum quasi croco

confectis.

[103] Perhaps it is this also that suggested the name Eliodorus, as

it were Hêliodôros; for the original name was probably the medieval

Welsh one of Elidyr = Irish Ailithir, ailither, 'a pilgrim': compare

the Pembrokeshire name Pergrin and the like. It is curious that Elidyr

did not occur to Glasynys and prevent him from substituting Elfod,

which is quite another name, and more correctly written Elfod for

the earlier El-fodw, found not only as Elbodu but also Elbodug-o,

Elbodg, Elbot and Elfod: see p. 117 above.

[104] For one or two more instances from Wales see Howells,

pp. 54-7. Brittany also is a great country for death portents: see

A. Le Braz, Légende de la Mort en Basse-Bretagne (Paris, 1893), also

Sébillot's Traditions et Superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne (Paris,

1882), i. pp. 270-1. For Scotland see The Ghost Lights of the West

Highlands by Dr. R. C. Maclagan in Folk-Lore for 1897, pp. 203-256,

and for the cognate subject of second sight see Dalyell's Darker

Superstitions of Scotland, pp. 466-88.

[105] Another word for the toeli is given by Silvan Evans as used

in certain parts of South Wales, namely, tolaeth or dolath, as to

which he mentions the opinion that it is a corruption of tylwyth,

a view corroborated by Howells using, p. 31, the plural tyloethod;

but it could not be easily explained except as a corruption through

the medium of English. Elias Owen, p. 303, uses the word in reference

to the hammering and rapping noise attending the joinering of a

phantom coffin for a man about to die, a sort of rehearsal well known

throughout the Principality to every one who has ears spiritually

tuned. Unfortunately I have not yet succeeded in locating the use

of the word tolaeth, except that I have been assured by a Carmarthen

man that it is current in Welsh there as toleth, and by a native of

Pumsant that it is in use from Abergwili up to Llanbumsant.

[106] See, for instance, pp. 200, 221, 228.

[107] Mrs. Williams-Ellis of Glasfryn writes to me that the place is

now called Bwlch Trwyn Swncwl, that it is a gap on the highest part

of the road crossing from Llanaelhaearn to Pistyll, and that it is

quite a little mountain pass between bleak heather-covered hillsides,

in fact a very lonely spot in the outskirts of the Eifl, and with

Carnguwch blocking the horizon in the direction of Cardigan Bay.

[108] For this I am indebted to Mr. Gwenogvryn Evans' Report on

MSS. in the Welsh Language, i. 585 k. The words were written by

Williams about the beginning of the seventeenth century, and his û

does not mean w. He was, however, probably thinking of cawr, cewri,

and such instances as tawaf, 'taceo,' and tau, 'tacet.' At all events

there is no trace of u in the local pronunciation of the name Tre'r

Ceiri. I have heard it also as Tre' Ceiri without the definite article;

but had this been ancient one would expect it softened into Tre' Geiri.

[109] See the Oxford Mabinogion, pp. 110, 113, and 27-9, 36-41, 44,

also 309, where a Triad explains that the outposts were Anglesey, Man,

and Lundy. But the other Triads, i. 3 = iii. 67, make them Orkney,

Man, and Wight, for which we have the older authority of Nennius. §

8. The designation Tair Ynys Brydain, 'The Three Isles of Prydain,'

was known to the fourteenth-century poet, Iolo Goch: see his works

edited by Ashton, p. 669.

[110] For Prydyn in the plural see Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales,

ii. 209, also 92, where Pryden is the form used. In modern Welsh the

two senses of Cymry are distinguished in writing as Cymry and Cymru,

but the difference is merely one of spelling and not very ancient.

[111] So Geoffrey (i. 12-15) brings his Trojans on their way to

Britain into Aquitania, where they fight with the Pictavienses,

whose king he calls Goffarius Pictus.

[112] Cadarn and cadr postulate respectively some such early forms

as catrno-s and cadro-s, which according to analogy should become

cadarn and cadr. Welsh, however, is not fond of dr; so here begins a

bifurcation: (1) retaining the d unchanged cadro-s yields cadr, or (2)

dr is made into dr, and other changes set in resulting in the ceir

of ceiri, as in Welsh aneirif, 'numberless,' from eirif, 'number,'

of the same origin as Irish áram from *ad-rim = *ad-rima, and Welsh

eiliw, 'species, colour,' for ad-liw, in both of which i follows d

combinations; but that is not essential, as shown by cader, cadair,

for Old Welsh cateir, 'a chair,' from Latin cat[h]edra. The word that

serves as our singular, namely cawr, is far harder to explain; but on

the whole I am inclined to regard it as of a different origin, to wit,

the Goidelic word caur, 'a giant or hero,' borrowed. The plural cewri

or cawri is formed from the singular cawr, which means a giant, though,

associated in the plural with ceiri, it has sometimes to follow suit

with that vocable in connoting dress.

[113] The most important of these are the old Breton kazr, now kaer,

'beautiful or pretty,' and old Cornish caer of the same meaning;

elsewhere we have, as in Greek, the Doric kekadmai and kekadmenos,

to be found used in reference to excelling or distinguishing one's

self; also kosmos, 'good order, ornament,' while in Sanskrit there is

the theme çad, 'to excel or surpass.' The old meaning of 'beautiful,'

'decorated,' or 'loudly dressed,' is not yet lost in the case of ceiri.

[114] For the text see the Oxford Mabinogion, pp. 193-4, and for

comparisons of the incident see Nutt's Holy Grail, p. 154 et seq.;

and Rhys' Arthurian Legend, pp. 75-6. A more exact parallel, however,

is to be mentioned in the next chapter.

[115] This chapter was written mostly in 1891.

[116] The spelling there used is phynnodderee, to the perversity of

which Cregeen calls attention in his Dictionary. In any case the

pronunciation is always approximately fun-ó-dur-i or fun-ód-ri,

with the accent on the second syllable.

[117] I am inclined to think that the first part of the word fenodyree

is not fynney, the Manx word for 'hair,' but the Scandinavian word

which survives in the Swedish fjun, 'down.' Thus fjun-hosur (for the

fjun-hosa suggested by analogy) would explain the word fenodyree,

except its final ee, which is obscure. Compare also the magic

breeks called finn-brækr, as to which see Vigfusson's Icelandic

Dict. s. v. finnar.

[118] Cumming's Isle of Man (London, 1848), p. 30, where he refers his

readers to Waldron's Description of the Isle of Man: see pp. 28, 105.

[119] See Windisch's Irische Grammatik, p. 120.

[120] The Manx word for the rowan tree, incorrectly called a mountain

ash, is cuirn, which is in Mod. Irish caorthann, genitive caorthainn,

Scotch Gaelic caorunn; but in Welsh books it is cerdin, singular

cerdinen, and in the spoken language mostly cerdin, cerding, singular

cerdinen, cerdingen. This variation seems to indicate that these

words have possibly been borrowed by the Welsh from a Goidelic source;

but the berry is known in Wales by the native name of criafol, from

which the wood is frequently called, especially in North Wales, coed

criafol, singular coeden griafol or pren criafol. The sacredness of the

rowan is the key to the proper names Mac-Cáirthinn and Der-Cháirthinn,

with which the student of Irish hagiology is familiar. They mean the

Son and the Daughter of the Rowan respectively, and the former occurs

as Maqui Cairatini on an Ogam inscribed stone recently discovered in

Meath, not very far from the Boyne.

[121] I am sorry to say that it never occurred to me to ask whether

the shooting was done with such modern things as guns. But Mr. Arthur

Moore assures me that it is always understood to be bows and arrows,

not guns.

[122] Edited by Oswald Cockayne for the Master of the Rolls (London,

1864-6): see more especially vol. ii. pp. 156-7, 290-1, 401;

vol. iii. pp. 54-5.

[123] Mr. Moore is not familiar with this term, but I heard it at

Surby, in the south; and I find buidseach and buidseachd given as

Highland Gaelic words for a witch and witchcraft respectively.

[124] See Stokes' Goidelica, p. 151.

[125] This chapter was written in 1891, except the portions of it

which refer to later dates indicated.

[126] See the Stokes-O'Donovan edition of Cormac (Calcutta, 1868),

pp. 19, 23.

[127] Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, xi. 620;

Pennant's Tour in Scotland in 1769 (3rd edition, Warrington, 1774),

i. 97, 186, 291; Thomas Stephens' Gododin, pp. 124-6; and Dr. Murray

in the New English Dictionary, s. v. Beltane.

[128] In my Hibbert Lectures on Celtic Heathendom, pp. 517-21.

[129] As to the Thargelia and Delia, see Preller's Griechische

Mythologie, i. 260-2, and A. Mommsen's Heortologie, pp. 414-25.

[130] See section H of the Report of the Liverpool Meeting of the

British Association in 1896, pp. 626-56.

[131] It is my impression that it is crowned with a small tumulus,

and that it forms the highest ground in Jurby, which was once an

island by itself. The one between Ramsey and Bride is also probably

the highest point of the range. But these are questions which I should

like to see further examined, say by Mr. Arthur Moore or Mr. Kermode.

[132] Cronk yn Irree Laa, despite the gender, is the name as pronounced

by all Manxmen who have not been misled by antiquarians. To convey the

other meaning, referring to the day watch, the name would have to be

Cronk ny Harrey Laa; in fact, a part of the Howe in the south of the

island is called Cronk ny Harrey, 'the Hill of the Watch.' Mr. Moore

tells me that the Jurby cronk was one of the eminences for 'Watch and

Ward'; but he is now of opinion that the high mountain of Cronk yn

Irree Laa in the south was not. As to the duty of the inhabitants to

keep 'Watch and Ward' over the island, see the passage concerning it

extracted from the Manx Statutes (vol. i. p. 65) by Mr. Moore in his

Manx Surnames, pp. 183-3; also my preface to the same work, pp. v-viii.

[133] Quoted from Oliver's Monumenta de Insula Manniæ, vol. i. (Manx

Society, vol. iv) p. 84: see also Cumming's Isle of Man, p. 258.

[134] See the New English Dictionary, s. v. 'Allhallows.'

[135] This comes near the pronunciation usual in Roxburghshire and

the south of Scotland generally, which is, as Dr. Murray informs

me, Hunganay without the m occurring in the other forms to be

mentioned presently. But so far as I have been able to find, the Manx

pronunciation is now Hob dy naa, which I have heard in the north,

while Hob ju naa is the prevalent form in the south.

[136] See my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 514-5; and as to hiring fairs in

Wales see pp. 210-2 above.

[137] See Robert Bell's Early Ballads (London, 1877), pp. 406-7,

where the following is given as sung at Richmond in Yorkshire:--

To-night it is the New-Year's night, to-morrow is the day,

And we are come for our right, and for our ray,

As we used to do in old King Henry's day.

Sing, fellows, sing, Hagman-heigh.

If you go to the bacon-flick, cut me a good bit;

Cut, cut and low, beware of your maw;

Cut, cut and round, beware of your thumb,

That me and my merry men may have some.

Sing, fellows, sing, Hagman-heigh.

If you go to the black-ark bring me X mark;

Ten mark, ten pound, throw it down upon the ground,

That me and my merry men may have some.

Sing, fellows, sing, Hagman-heigh.

[138] The subject is worked out in Nicholson's Golspie, pp. 100-8, also

in the New English Dictionary, where mention is made of a derivation

involving calendæ, which reminds me of the Welsh call for a New-Year's

Gift--Calennig! or C'lennig! in Arfon 'Y Ngh'lennig i! 'My Calends

gift if you please!'

[139] On being asked, after reading this paper to the Folk-Lore

Society, who was supposed to make the footmarks in the ashes, I had

to confess that I had been careless enough never to have asked the

question. I have referred it to Mr. Moore, who informs me that nobody,

as I expected, will venture on any explanation by whom the footmarks

are made.

[140] This seems to imply the application of the same adjective, some

time or other, to clean water and a handsome man, just as we speak

in North Cardiganshire of dwr glân, 'clean water,' and bachgen glân,

'a handsome boy.'

[141] In Phillips' Book of Common Prayer this is called Lá nolick y

biggy, 'Little Nativity Day,' and Lá ghian blieny, 'The Day of the

Year's End,' meaning, of course, the former end of the year, not the

latter: see pp. 55, 62, 66.

[142] See my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 514-5, and the Brython, ii. 20,

120: an instance in point occurs in the next chapter.

[143] This has been touched upon in my Hibbert Lectures, p. 676; but

to the reasons there briefly mentioned should be added a reference to

the position allotted to intercalary months in the Norse calendar,

namely, at the end of the summer half, that is, as I think, at the

end of the ancient Norse year.

[144] My paper was read before the Folk-Lore Society in April or May,

1891, and Miss Peacock's notes appeared in the journal of the Society

in the following December: see pp. 509-13.

[145] See Choice Notes, p. 76.

[146] See the third edition of Wm. Nicholson's Poetical Works

(Castle-Douglas, 1878), pp. 78, 81.

[147] See p. 321 above and the references there given; also Howells'

Cambrian Superstitions, p. 58.

[148] Pomponius Mela De Chorographia, edited by Parthey, iii, chap. 6

(p. 72); see also my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 195-6, where, however,

the identification of the name Sena with that of Sein should be

cancelled. Sein seems to be derived from the Breton Seidhun, otherwise

modified into Sizun and Sun: see chap. vi below.

[149] See my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 195-7; also my Arthurian Legend,

pp. 367-8, where a passage in point is cited at length from Plutarch

De Defectu Oraculorum, xviii. (= the Didot edition of Plutarch's

works, iii. 511); the substance of it will be found given likewise

in chap. viii below.

[150] For an allusion to the traffic in winds in Wales see Howells,

p. 86, where he speaks as follows:--'In Pembrokeshire there was a

person commonly known as the cunning man of Pentregethen, who sold

winds to the sailors, after the manner of the Lapland witches, and

who was reverenced in the neighbourhood in which he dwelt, much more

than the divines.'

[151] This may turn out to be all wrong; for I learn from the

Rev. John Quine, vicar of Malew, in Man, that there is a farm called

Balthane or Bolthane south of Ballasalla, and that in the computus

(of 1540) of the Abbey Tenants it is called Biulthan. This last,

if originally a man's name, would seem to point back to some such a

compound as Beo-Ultán. In his Manx Names, p. 138, Mr. Moore suggests

the possibility of explaining the name as bwoailtyn, 'folds or pens';

but the accentuation places that out of the question. See also the

Lioar Manninagh, iii. 167, where Mr. C. Roeder, referring to the

same computus passage, gives the name as Builthan in the boundary

inter Cross Jvar Builthan. This would be read by Mr. Quine as inter

Cross Ivar et Biulthan, 'between Cross-Ivar and Bolthane.' For the

text of the boundary see Johnstone's edition of the Chronicon Manniæ

(Copenhagen, 1786), p. 48, and Oliver's Monumenta de Insula Manniæ,

vol. i. p. 207; see also Mr. Quine's paper on the Boundary of Abbey

Lands in the Lioar Manninagh, iii. 422-3.

[152] I say 'approximately,' as, more strictly speaking, the ordinary

pronunciation is Sndaen, almost as one syllable, and from this arises

a variant, which is sometimes written Stondane, while the latest

English development, regardless of the accentuation of the Anglo-Manx

form, which is Santon, pronounced Sántn, makes the parish into a

St. Ann's! For the evidence that it was the parish of a St. Sanctán

see Moore's Names, p. 209.

[153] The Athenæum for April 1, 1893, p. 415. I may here remark that

Mr. Borlase's note on do fhagaint is, it seems to me, unnecessary: let

do fhagaint stand, and translate, not 'I leave' but 'to leave.' The

letter should be consulted for curious matter concerning Croagh

Patrick, its pagan stations, cup-markings, &c.

[154] Since this paper was read to the Folk-Lore Society a good deal

of information of one kind or another has appeared in its journal

concerning the first-foot: see more especially Folk-Lore for 1892,

pp. 253-64, and for 1893, pp. 309-21.

[155] This was written at the beginning of the year 1892.

[156] With this compare what Mr. Gomme has to say of a New Year's

Day custom observed in Lanarkshire: see p. 633 of the Ethnographic

Report referred to at p. 103 above, and compare Henderson, p. 74.

[157] Old-fashioned grammarians and dictionary makers are always

delighted to handle Mrs. Partington's broom: so Kelly thinks he has

done a fine thing by printing guee, 'prayer,' and gwee, 'cursing.'

[158] This was written at the end of 1892, and read to a joint meeting

of the Cymmrodorion and Folk-Lore Societies on January 11, 1893.

[159] Some account of them was given by me in Folk-Lore for 1892,

p. 380; but somehow or other my contribution was printed unrevised,

with results more peculiar than edifying.

[160] In Folk-Lore for 1893, pp. 58-9.

[161] In the neighbourhood I find that the word gwaeldyn in this verse

is sometimes explained to mean not a worthless but an ailing person,

on the strength of the fact that the adjective gwael is colloquially

used both for vile and for ailing.

[162] Since writing the above remarks the following paragraph,

purporting to be copied from the Liverpool Mercury for November 18,

1896, appeared in the Archæologia Cambrensis for 1899, p. 334:--'Two

new fishes have just been put in the "Sacred Well," Ffynnon y Sant,

at Tyn y Ffynnon, in the village of Nant Peris, Llanberis. Invalids

in large numbers came, during the last century and the first half of

the present century, to this well to drink of its "miraculous waters";

and the oak box, where the contributions of those who visited the spot

were kept, is still in its place at the side of the well. There have

always been two "sacred fishes" in this well; and there is a tradition

in the village to the effect that if one of the Tyn y Ffynnon fishes

came out of its hiding-place when an invalid took some of the water

for drinking or for bathing purposes, cure was certain; but if the

fishes remained in their den, the water would do those who took it

no good. Two fishes only are to be put in the well at a time, and

they generally live in its waters for about half a century. If one

dies before the other, it would be of no use to put in a new fish,

for the old fish would not associate with it, and it would die. The

experiment has been tried. The last of the two fishes put in the well

about fifty years ago died last August. It had been blind for some

time previous to its death. When taken out of the water it measured

seventeen inches, and was buried in the garden adjoining the well. It

is stated in a document of the year 1776 that the parish clerk was to

receive the money put in the box of the well by visitors. This money,

together with the amount of 6s. 4d., was his annual stipend.' Tyn y

Ffynnon means 'the Tenement of the Well,' tyn being a shortened form

of tydyn, 'a tenement,'as mentioned at p. 33 above; but the mapsters

make it into ty'n = ty yn, 'a house in,' so that the present instance,

Ty'n y Ffynnon, could only mean 'the House in the Well,' which,

needless to say, it is not. But one would like to know whether the

house and land were once held rent-free on condition that the tenant

took care of the sacred fish.

[163] See Ashton's Iolo Goch, p. 234, and Lewis' Top. Dict.

[164] See my Hibbert Lectures, p. 229, and the Iolo MSS., pp. 42-3,

420-1.

[165] A curious note bearing on this name occurs in the Jesus

College MS. 20 (Cymmrodor, viii. p. 86) in reference to the name

Morgannwg, 'Glamorgan':--O enw Morgant vchot y gelwir Morgannwc.

Ereill a dyweit. Mae o en&wwelsh; Mochteyrn Predein. 'It is from

the name of the above Morgan that Morgannwg is called. Others say

that it is from the name of the mochdeyrn of Pictland.' The

mochteyrn must have been a Pictish king or mórmáer called Morgan.

The name occurs in the charters from the Book of Deer in Stokes'

Goidelica. pp. 109, 111, as Morcunt, Morcunn, and Morgunn undeclined,

also with Morgainn for genitive; and so in Skene's Chronicles of the

Picts and Scots, pp. 77, 317, where it is printed Morgaind; see also

Stokes' Tigernach, in the Revue Celtique, xvii. 198. Compare

Geoffrey's story, ii. 15, which introduces a northern Marganus to

account for the name Margan, now Margam, in Morgannwg.

[166] M. Loth's remarks in point will be found in the Revue Celtique,

xiii. 496-7, where he compares with tut the Breton teuz, 'lutin,

génie malfaisant ou bienfaisant'; and for the successive guesses on

the subject of the name Morgan tut one should also consult Zimmer's

remarks in Foerster's Introduction to his Erec, pp. xxvii-xxxi, and

my Arthurian Legend, p. 391, to which I should add a reference to the

Book of Ballymote, fo. 360a, where we have o na bantuathaib, which

O'Curry has rendered 'on the part of their Witches' in his Manners and

Customs of the Ancient Irish, iii. 526-7. Compare dá bhantuathaigh,

'two female sorcerers,' in Joyce's Keating's History of Ireland,

pp. 122-3.

[167] For all about the Children of Lir, and about Liban and Lough

Neagh, see Joyce's Old Celtic Romances, pp. 4-36, 97-105.

[168] On my appealing to Cadrawd, one of the later editors, he

has found me the exact reference, to wit, volume ix of the Cyfaill

(published in 1889), p. 50; and he has since contributed a translation

of the story to the columns of the South Wales Daily News for February

15, 1899, where he has also given an account of Crymlyn, which is to

be mentioned later.

[169] Judging from the three best-known instances, y bala meant the

outlet of a lake: I allude to this Bala at the outlet of Llyn Tegid;

Pont y Bala, 'the Bridge of the bala,' across the water flowing from

the Upper into the Lower Lake at Llanberis; and Bala Deulyn, 'the bala

of two lakes,' at Nantlle. Two places called Bryn y Bala are mentioned

s. v. Bala in Morris' Celtic Remains, one near Aberystwyth, at a spot

which I have never seen, and the other near the lower end of the Lower

Lake of Llanberis, as to which it has been suggested to me that it is

an error for Bryn y Bela. It is needless to say that bala has nothing

to do with the Anglo-Irish bally, of such names as Ballymurphy or

Ballynahunt: this vocable is in English bailey, and in South Wales

beili, 'a farm yard or enclosure,' all three probably from the late

Latin balium or ballium, 'locus palis munitus et circumseptus.' Our

etymologists never stop short with bally: they go as far as Balaklava

and, probably, Ballarat, to claim cognates for our Bala.

[170] Cadrawd here gives the Welsh as '2 bladur ... 2 dyd o wair,'

and observes that the lacuna consists of an illegible word of three

letters. If that word was either sef, 'that is,' or neu, 'or,' the

sense would be as given above. In North Cardiganshire we speak of a

day's mowing as gwaith gwr, 'a man's work for a day,' and sometimes

of a gwaith gwr bach, 'a man's work for a short day.'

[171] See By-Gones for May 24, 1899. The full name of Welshpool in

Welsh is Trallwng Llywelyn, so called after a Llywelyn descended from

Cuneda, and supposed to have established a religious house there;

for there are other Trallwngs, and at first sight it would seem as if

Trallwng had something to do with a lake or piece of water. But there

is a Trallwng, for instance, near Brecon, where there is no lake to

give it the name; and my attention has been called to Thos. Richards'

Welsh-English Dictionary, where a trallwng is said to be 'such a soft

place on the road (or elsewhere) as travellers may be apt to sink into,

a dirty pool.' So the word seems to be partly of the same derivation

as go-llwng, 'to let go, to give way.' The form of the word in use

now is Trallwm, not Trallwng or Trallwn.

[172] See the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 39a-41b and Joyce's Old Celtic

Romances, pp. 97-105; but the story may now be consulted in O'Grady's

Silva Gadelica, i. 233-7, translated in ii. 265-9. On turning over

the leaves of this great collection of Irish lore, I chanced, i. 174,

ii. 196, on an allusion to a well which, when uncovered, was about to

drown the whole locality but for a miracle performed by St. Patrick to

arrest the flow of its waters. A similar story of a well bursting and

forming Lough Reagh, in County Galway, will be found told in verse in

the Book of Leinster; fo. 202b: see also fo. 170a, and the editor's

notes, pp. 45, 53.

[173] See Evans' autotype edition of the Black Book of Carmarthen,

fos. 53b, 54a, also 32a: the punctuation is that of the MS. In the

seventh triplet kedaul is written keadaul, which seems to mean kadaul

corrected into kedaul; but the a is not deleted, so other readings

are possible.

[174] In the Iolo MSS., p. 89, finaun wenestir is made into

Ffynon-Wenestr and said to be one of the ornamental epithets of the

sea; but I am convinced that it should be rather treated as ffynnon

fenestr with wenestir or fenestr mutated from menestr, which meant

a servant, attendant, cup-bearer: for one or two instances see

Pughe's Dictionary. The word is probably, as suggested by M. Loth

in his Mots Latins, p. 186. the old French menestre, 'cup-bearer,'

borrowed. Compare the mention of Nechtán's men having access to the

secret well in Sid Nechtáin, p. 390 below, and note that they were

his three menestres or cup-bearers.

[175] See the Cymmrodor, viii. 88 (No. xxix), where a Marereda is

mentioned as a daughter of Madog son of Meredyd brother to Rhys Gryg.

[176] There is another reading which would make them into Segantii,

and render it irrelevant--to say the least of it--to mention them here.

[177] See the Mabinogion, p. 35: the passage has been mistranslated

in Lady Charlotte Guest's Mabinogion, iii. 117.

[178] See my Arthurian Legend, pp. 263-4.

[179] I do not profess to see my way through the difficulties which

the probable etymological connexion between the names Setantii,

Setanta, Seithyn, and Seithennin implies. But parts of the following

string of guesses may be found to hold good:--Seithyn is probably

more correct than Seithin, as it rhymes with cristin = Cristyn (in

Cristynogaeth: see Silvan Evans' Geiriadur, s. v., and Skene's Four

Ancient Books, ii. 210); and it might be assumed to be from the same

stem as Seizun; but, supposing it to represent an earlier Seithynt,

it would equate phonologically with Setanta, better Setinte, of which

the genitive Setinti actually occurs, as a river name, in the Book of

the Dun Cow, fo. 125b: see my Hibbert Lectures, p. 455, and see also

the Revue Celtique, xi. 457. It would mean some such an early form

Setntio-s, and Seithenhin, another derivative from the same stem,

Setntino-s. But the retention of n before t in Setinte proves it

not to be unconnected with Seithyn, but borrowed from some Brythonic

dialect when the latter was pronounced Seithntio-s. If this

be anywhere nearly right one has to assume that the manuscripts of

Ptolemy giving the genitive plural as Setantiôn or Segantiôn should

have read Sektantiôn, unless one should rather conjecture Segtantiôn

with cht represented by gt as in Ogams in Pembrokeshire: witness

Ogtene and Maqui Quegte. This conjecture as to the original reading

would suggest that the name was derived from the seventh numeral

sechtn, just as that of the Galloway people of the Novantæ seems to

be from the ninth numeral. Ptolemy's next entry to the Harbour of the

Setantii is the estuary of the Belisama, supposed to be the Mersey;

and next comes the estuary of the Seteia or Segeia, supposed to be

the Dee. Now the country of the Setantii, when they had a country,

may have reached from their harbour near the mouth of the Ribble

to the Seteia or the Dee without the name Seteia or Segeia having

anything to do with their own, except that it may have influenced

the latter in the manuscripts of Ptolemy's text. Then we possibly

have a representative of Seteia or Segeia in the Saidi or Seidi,

sometimes appended to Seithyn's name. In that case Seithyn Saidi,

in the late Triad iii. 37, would mean Seithyn of Seteia, or the

Dee. A Mab Saidi occurs in the Kulhwch story (Mabinogion, p. 106),

also Cas, son of Saidi (ib. 110); and in Rhonabwy's Dream Kadyrieith,

son of Saidi (ib. 160); but the latter vocable is Seidi in Triad ii. 26

(ib. 303). It is to be borne in mind that Ptolemy does not represent

the Setantii as a people in his time: he only mentions a harbour

called after the Setantii. So it looks as if they then belonged to the

past--that in fact they were, as I should put it, a Goidelic people

who had been conquered and partly expelled by Brythonic tribes, to

wit, by the Brigantes, and also by the Cornavii in case the Setantii

had once extended southwards to the Dee. This naturally leads one to

think that some of them escaped to places on the coast, such as Dyfed,

and that some made for the opposite coast of Ireland, and that, by the

time when the Cúchulainn stories came to be edited as we have them,

the people in question were known to the redactors of those stories

only by the Brythonic form of their name, which underlies that of

Setanta Beg, or the Little Setantian. Those of them who found a home

on the coast of Cardigan Bay may have brought with them a version

of the inundation story with Seithennin, son of Seithyn, as the

principal figure in it. So in due time he had to be attached to some

royal family, and in the Iolo MSS., pp. 141-2, he is made to descend

from a certain Plaws Hen, king of Dyfed, while the saints named as

his descendants seem to have belonged chiefly to Gwyned and Powys.

[180] See the Professor's Address on the Place of a University in the

History of Wales, delivered at Bangor at the opening ceremony of the

Session of 1899-1900 (Bangor, 1900), p. 6. The reference to Giraldus

is to his Itin. Kambriæ, i. 13 (p. 100), and the Expugnatio Hibernica,

i. 36 (p. 284).

[181] Instead of 'she followed it' one would have expected 'it followed

her'; but the style is very loose and rough.

[182] As a 'Cardy' I have here two grievances, one against my

Northwalian fellow countrymen, that they insist on writing Rheidiol

out of sheer weakness for the semivowel i; and the other against

the compilers of school books on geography, who give the lake

away to the Wye or the Severn. I am told that this does not matter,

as our geographers are notoriously accurate about Natal and other

distant lands; so I ought to rest satisfied.

[183] Professor Meyer has given a number of extracts concerning

her in his notes to his edition of The Vision of Mac Conglinne

(London, 1892), pp. 131-4, 208-10, and recently he has published

The Song of the Old Woman of Beare in the Otia Merseiana (London,

1899), pp. 119-28, from the Trinity College codex, H. 3, 18, where

we are told, among other things, that her name was Digdi, and that

she belonged to Corcaguiny. The name Béara, or Bérre, would seem to

suggest identification with that of Bera, daughter of Eibhear, king

of Spain, and wife of Eoghan Taidhleach, in the late story of The

Courtship of Moméra, edited by O'Curry in his Battle of Magh Leana

(Dublin, 1855); but the other name Digdi would seem to stand in the

way. However none of the literature in point has yet been discovered

in any really old manuscript, and it may be that the place-name Berre,

in Caillech Bérri, has usurped the place of the personal name Béra,

whose antiquity in some such a form as Béra or Méra is proved by

its honorific form Mo-mera: see O'Curry's volume, p. 166, and his

Introduction, p. xx.