Chapter XII: Race in Folklore and Myth (3)

P. 560. Two answers to the query as to the Llech Las are now to be found in the Scottish Antiquary, xv. 41-3.

P. 566. Caer Gai is called also Caer Gynyr, after Cai's father Cynyr, to wit in a poem by William Lleyn, who died in 1587. This I owe to Professor J. Morris Jones, who has copied it from a collection of that poet's works in the possession of Myrdin Fard, fo. 119.

P. 569. Here it would, perhaps, not be irrelevant to mention Caer Dwrgynt, given s. v. Dwr in Morris' Celtic Remains, as a name of Caergybi, or Holyhead. His authority is given in parenthesis thus: (Th. Williams, Catal.). I should be disposed to think the name based on some such an earlier form as Kair D6bgint, 'the Fortress of the Danes,' who were called in old Welsh Dub-gint (Annales Cambriæ, A. D. 866, in the Cymmrodor, ix. 165), that is to say 'Gentes Nigræ or Black Pagans,' and more simply Gint or Gynt, 'Gentes or Heathens.'

Pp. 579-80. The word banna6c, whence the later bannog, seems to be the origin of the name bonoec given to the famous horn in the Lai du Corn, from which M. Paris in his Romania article, xxviii. 229, cites Cest cor qui bonoec a non, 'this horn which is called bonoec.' The Welsh name would have to be Corn (yr) ych banna6c, 'the horn of (the) bannog ox,' with or without the article.

P. 580, note 1. One of the Liverpool Eistedfod competitors cites W. O. Pughe to the following effect in Welsh:--Llyn dau Ychain, 'the Lake of Two Oxen,' is on Hiraethog Mountain; and near it is the footmark of one of them in a stone or rock (carreg), where he rested when seeking his partner, as the local legend has it. Another cites a still wilder story, to the effect that there was once a wonderful cow called Y Fuwch Fraith, 'the Parti-coloured Cow.' 'To that cow there came a witch to get milk, just after the cow had supplied the whole neighbourhood. So the witch could not get any milk, and to avenge her disappointment she made the cow mad. The result was that the cow ran wild over the mountains, inflicting immense harm on the country; but at last she was killed by Hu near Hiraethog, in the county of Denbigh.'

P. 592. With trwtan, Trwtyn-Tratyn, and Trit-a-trot should doubtless be compared the English use of trot as applied contemptuously to a woman, as when Grumio, in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, Act i, sc. 2, speaks of 'an old trot with ne'er a tooth in her head': the word was similarly used by Thomas Heywood and others.

P. 649. With regard to note 1, I find that Professor Zimmer is of opinion--in fact he is quite positive--that tyngu and tynghed are in no way related: see the Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen for 1900 (No. 5), pp. 371-2.

P. 673. I am tempted to rank with the man-eating fairies the Atecotti, who are known to have been cannibals, and whose name seems to mean the ancient race. Should this prove tenable, one would have to admit that the little people, or at any rate peoples with an admixture of the blood of that race, could be trained to fight. Further, one would probably have to class with them also such non-cannibal tribes as those of the Fir Bolg and the Galiúin of Irish story. Information about both will be found in my Hibbert Lectures, in reading which, however, the mythological speculations should be brushed aside. Lastly, I anticipate that most of the peoples figuring in the oldest class of Irish story will prove to have belonged either (1) to the dwarf race, or (2) to the Picts; and that careful reading will multiply the means of distinguishing between them. Looking comprehensively at the question of the early races of the British Isles, the reader should weigh again the concluding words of Professor Haddon's theory, quoted on p. 684 above.

NOTES

[1] For most of my information on this subject I have to thank Mr. David Davies, editor of the South Wales Daily Post, published at Swansea.

[2] I am indebted for this information to Mr. J. Herbert James of Vaynor, who visited Kenfig lately and has called my attention to an article headed 'The Borough of Kenfig,' in the Archæologia Cambrensis for 1898: see more especially the maps at pp. 138-42.

[3] Here the Welsh has a word edafwr, the exact meaning of which escapes me, and I gather from the remarks of local etymologers that no such word is now in use in Glamorgan.

[4] See the Book of Aberpergwm, printed as Brut y Tywysogion, in the Myvyrian Archaiology, ii. 524; also Morgan's Antiquarian Survey of East Gower, p. 66, where the incident is given from 'Brut y Tywysogion, A. D. 1088.' It is, however, not in what usually passes by the name of Brut y Tywysogion, but comes, as the author kindly informs me, from a volume entitled 'Brut y Tywysogion, the Gwentian Chronicle of Caradoc of Llancarvan, with a translation by the late Aneurin Owen, and printed for the Cambrian Archæological Association, 1863': see pp. 70-1.

[5] For this also I have to thank Mr. Herbert James, who recently inspected the spot with Mr. Glascodine of Swansea.

[6] I do not know whether anybody has identified the spot which the writer had in view, or whether the coast of the Severn still offers any feature which corresponds in any way to the description.

[7] Supposed to be so called after a certain Tegid Foel, or 'Tegid the Bald,' of Penllyn: the name Tegid is the phonetic spelling of what might be expected in writing as Tegyd--it is the Latin Tacitus borrowed, and comes with other Latin names in Pedigree I. of the Cuneda dynasty; see the Cymmrodor, xi. 170. In point of spelling one may compare Idris for what might be expected written Idrys, of the same pronunciation, for an earlier Iudrys or Iudris.

[8] The translation was made by Thomas Twyne, and published in 1573 under the title of The Breuiary of Britayne, where the passage here given occurs, on fol. 69b. The original was entitled Commentarioli Britannicæ Descriptionis Fragmentum, published at Cologne in 1572. The original of our passage, fol. 57a, has Guynedhia and Llunclis. The stem llwnc of llyncaf, 'I swallow,' answers, according to Welsh idiom, to the use of what would be in English or Latin a participle. Similarly, when a compound is not used, the verbal noun (in the genitive) is used: thus 'a feigned illness,' in Welsh 'a made illness,' is saldra gwneyd, literally 'an indisposition or illness of making.' So 'the deuouryng of the Palace' is incorrect, and based on Llwyd's vorago Palatij instead of Palatium voratum.

[9] For other occurrences of the name, see the Black Book, fol. 35a, 52a, and Morris' Celtic Remains, where, s. v. Benlli, the Welsh name of Bardsey, to wit, Ynys Enlli, is treated by somebody, doubtless rightly, as a shortening of Ynys Fenlli.

[10] The meaning of this name is not certain, but it seems to equate with the Irish Fochard, anglicized Faughard, in County Louth: see O'Donovan's Four Masters, A. D. 1595; also the Book of the Dun Cow, where it is Focherd, genitive Focherda, dative Focheird, fo. 70b, 73b, 75a, 75b, 76a, 77a.

[11] This is sometimes given as Glannach, which looks like the Goidelic form of the name: witness Giraldus' Enislannach in his Itin. Kambriæ, ii. 7 (p. 131).

[12] See Choice Notes, p. 92, and Gerald Griffin's Poetical and Dramatic Works, p. 106.

[13] Failing to see this, various writers have tried to claim the honour of owning the bells for Aberteifi, 'Cardigan,' or for Abertawe, 'Swansea'; but no arguments worthy of consideration have been urged on behalf of either place: see Cyfaill yr Aelwyd for 1892, p. 184.

[14] For some of the data as to the reckoning of the pedigrees and branching of a family, see the first volume of Aneurin Owen's Ancient Laws--Gwyned, III. i. 12-5 (pp. 222-7); Dyfed, II. i. 17-29 (pp. 408-11); Gwent, II. viii. 1-7 (pp. 700-3); also The Welsh People, pp. 230-1.

[15] See the Book of the Dun Cow, fol. 99a & seq.

[16] For instances, the reader may turn back to pp. 154 or 191, but there are plenty more in the foregoing chapters; and he may also consult Howells' Cambrian Superstitions, pp. 123-8, 141-2, 146. In one case, p. 123, he gives an instance of the contrary kind of imagination: the shepherd who joined a fairy party on Frenni Fach was convinced, when his senses and his memory returned, that, 'although he thought he had been absent so many years, he had been only so many minutes.' The story has the ordinary setting; but can it be of popular origin? The Frenni Fach is a part of the mountain known as the Frenni Fawr, in the north-east of Pembrokeshire; the names mean respectively the Little Breni, and the Great Breni. The obsolete word breni meant, in Old Welsh, the prow of a ship; local habit tends, however, to the solecism of Brenin Fawr, with brenin, 'king,' qualified by an adjective mutated feminine; but people at a distance who call it Frenni Fawr, pronounce the former vocable with nn. Lastly, Y Vrevi Va6r occurs in Maxen's Dream in the Red Book (Oxford Mab. p. 89); but in the White Book (in the Peniarth collection), col. 187, the proper name is written Freni: for this information I have to thank Mr. Gwenogvryn Evans.

[17] It is right to say that another account is given in the Rennes Dindsenchas, published by Stokes in the Revue Celtique, xvi. 164, namely, that Laiglinne with fifty warriors 'came to the well of Dera son of Scera. A wave burst over them and drowned Laiglinne with his fifty warriors, and thereof a lake was made. Hence we say Loch Laiglinni, Laiglinne's Lake.'

[18] The Oxford Mabinogion, p. 224, and Guest's, i. 343.

[19] See Afanc in the Geiriadur of Silvan Evans, who cites instances in point.

[20] See the Revue Celtique, i. 257, and my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 92-3.

[21] The Four Masters, A.M. 3520.

[22] In another version Campbell had found it to be sand and nothing else.

[23] As to this incident of a girl and a supernatural, Campbell says that he had heard it in the Isle of Man also, and elsewhere.

[24] See the Revue Celtique, ii. 197. He was also called Labraid Longsech, and Labraid Longsech Lorc. The explanation of Labraid Lorc is possibly that it was originally Labraid Morc, and that the fondness for alliteration brought it into line as Labraid Lorc: compare Llûd Llaweraint in Welsh for Nûd Llaweraint. This is not disproved by the fact that Labraid Lorc's grandfather is said to have been called Loegaire Lorc: Loegaire Lorc and Labraid Lorc are rather to be regarded perhaps as duplicates of the same original.

[25] See my Arthurian Legend, p. 70; also Hibbert Lectures, p. 590.

[26] The original has in these passages respectively siblais a fual corbo thipra, 'minxit urinam suam so that it was a spring'; ar na siblad a fúal ar na bad fochond báis doib, 'ne mingat urinam suam lest it should be the cause of death to them'; and silis, 'minxit,' fo. 39b. For a translation of the whole story see Dr. O'Grady's Silva Gadelica, pp. 265-9; also Joyce's Old Celtic Romances, pp. 97-105.

[27] See the story in Dr. O'Grady's Silva Gadelica, pp. 292-311.

[28] See Stengel's edition of li Romans de Durmart le Galois (Tübingen, 1873), lines 4185-340, and my Arthurian Legend, pp. 68-9.

[29] See Williams' Scint Greal, pp. 60-1, 474-5; Nutt's Holy Grail, p. 44; and my Arthurian Legend, pp. 69-70.

[30] Bardoniaeth D. ab Gwilym, poem 183. A similar descent of Blodeuwed's appears implied in the following englyn--one of two--by Anthony Powel, who died in 1618: it is given by Taliesin ab Iolo in his essay on the Neath Valley, entitled Traethawd ar Gywreined, Hynafiaeth, a hen Bendefigion Glynn Ned (Aberdare, 1886), p. 15:--

Crug ael, carn gadarn a godwyd yn fryn,
Yn hen fraenwaith bochlwyd;
Main a'i llud man y lladwyd,
Merch hoewen loer Meirchion lwyd.

It refers, with six other englynion by other authors, to a remarkable rock called Craig y Dinas, with which Taliesin associated a cave where Arthur or Owen Lawgoch and his men are supposed, according to him, to enjoy a secular sleep, and it implies that Blodeuwed, whose end in the Mabinogi of Mâth was to be converted into an owl, was, according to another account, overwhelmed by Craig y Dinas. It may be Englished somewhat as follows:

Heaped on a brow, a mighty cairn built like a hill,
Like ancient work rough with age, grey-cheeked;
Stones that confine her where she was slain,
Grey Meirchion's daughter quick and bright as the moon.

[31] This comes from the late series of Triads, iii. 10, where Merlin's nine companions are called naw beird cylfeird: cylfeird should be the plural of cylfard, which must be the same word as the Irish culbard, name of one of the bardic grades in Ireland.

[32] For some more remarks on this subject generally, see my Arthurian Legend, chapter xv, on the 'Isles of the Dead.'

[33] See his Itinerarium Kambriæ, ii. 11 (p. 139); also my Celtic Britain, p. 68, and Arthurian Legend, p. 364.

[34] From the Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, i. 302.

[35] I regard nid kywiw as a corruption of ni chywiw from cyf-yw, an instance of the verb corresponding to cymod (= cym-bod), 'peace, conciliation.' The preterite has, in the Oxford Bruts, A.D. 1217 (p. 358), been printed kynni for what one may read kymu: the words would then be y kymu reinald y bre6ys ar brenhin, 'that Reginald de Breos was reconciled with the king, or settled matters with him.'

[36] See the Book of Taliessin, poem xxx, in Skene's Four Ancient Books, ii. 181; also Guest's Mabinogion, ii. 354, and the Brython for 1860, p. 372b, where more than one article of similar capacity of distinguishing brave men from cowards is mentioned.

[37] See Dugdale's Monasticon, v. 672, where they are printed Dwynech and Dwynaur respectively.

[38] See my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 649-50.

[39] A full account of them will be found in a volume devoted to them, and entitled Roman Antiquities at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, being a posthumous work of the Rev. W. Hiley Bathurst, with Notes by C. W. King, London, 1879. See also an article entitled 'Das Heiligtum des Nodon,' by Dr. Hübner in the Jahrbücher des Vereins von Alterthumsfreunden im Rheinlande, lxvii. pp. 29-46, where several things in Mr. King's book are criticized.

[40] See my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 122, 125.

[41] On this subject, see The Welsh People, especially pp. 54-61.

[42] Why our dictionary makers have taken into their heads to treat it as Tamesis I know not. The Welsh is Tafwys with a diphthong regularly representing an earlier long e or ei in the second syllable. There is, as far as I know, no reason to suppose Tafwys an invention, rather than a genuine vocable of the same origin as the name of the Glamorganshire river Taff, in Welsh Taf, which is also the name of the river emptying itself at Laugharne, in Carmarthenshire. Tafwys, however, does not appear to occur in any old Welsh document; but no such weakness attaches to the testimony of the French Tamise, which could hardly come from Tamesis: compare also the place-name Tamise near the Scheldt in East Flanders; this, however, may be of a wholly different origin.

[43] A more difficult version has been sent me by Dewi Glan Ffrydlas, of Bethesda: Caffed y wrach, 'Let him seize the hag'; Methu'r cryfaglach, 'You have failed, urchin.' But he has not been able to get any explanation of the words at the Penrhyn Quarries. Cryfaglach is also the form in Mur y Cryfaglach, 'the Urchin's Wall,' in Jenkins' Bed Gelert, p. 249. He informs me that this is the name of an old ruin on an elevated spot some twenty or thirty yards from a swift brook, and not far in a south-south-easterly direction from Sir Edward Watkin's chalet.

[44] For this I am indebted to Mr. Wm. Davies (p. 147 above), who tells me that he copied the original from Chwedlau a Thradodiadau Gwyned, 'Gwyned Tales and Traditions,' published in a periodical, which I have not been able to consult, called Y Gordofigion, for the year 1873.

[45] The meaning of the word mwthlach is doubtful, as it is now current in Gwyned only in the sense of a soft, doughy, or puffy person who is all of a heap, so to say. Pughe gives mwythlan and mwythlen with similar significations. But mwthlach would seem to have had some such a meaning in the doggerel as that of rough ground or a place covered with a scrubby, tangled growth. It is possibly the same word as the Irish mothlach, 'rough, bushy, ragged, shaggy'; see the Vision of Laisrén, edited by Professor K. Meyer, in the Otia Merseiana, pp. 114, 117.

[46] The account here given of the Cyhiraeth is taken partly from Choice Notes, pp. 31-2, and partly from Howells, pp. 31-4, 56-7, who appears to have got uncertain in his narrative as to the sex of the Cyhiraeth; but there is no reason whatsoever for regarding it as either male or female--the latter alone is warranted, as he might have gathered from her being called y Gyhiraeth, 'the Cyhiraeth,' never y Cyhiraeth as far as I know. In North Cardiganshire the spectre intended is known only by another name, that of Gwrach y Rhibyn, but y Gyhiraeth or yr hen Gyhiraeth is a common term of abuse applied to a lanky, cadaverous person, both there and in Gwyned; in books, however, it is found sometimes meaning a phantom funeral. The word cyhiraeth would seem to have originally meant a skeleton with cyhyrau, 'sinews,' but no flesh. However, cyhyrau, singular cyhyr, would be more correctly written with an i; for the words are pronounced--even in Gwyned--cyhir, cyhirau. The spelling cyhyraeth corresponds to no pronunciation I have ever heard of the word; but there is a third spelling, cyheuraeth, which corresponds to an actual cyhoereth or cyhoyreth, the colloquial pronunciation to be heard in parts of South Wales: I cannot account for this variant. Gwrach y Rhibyn means the Hag of the Rhibyn, and rhibyn usually means a row, streak, a line--ma' nhw'n mynd yn un rhibyn, 'they are going in a line.' But what exactly Gwrach y Rhibyn should connote I am unable to say. I may mention, however, on the authority of Mr. Gwenogvryn Evans, that in Mid-Cardiganshire the term Gwrach y Rhibyn means a long roll or bustle of fern tied with ropes of straw and placed along the middle of the top of a hayrick. This is to form a ridge over which and on which the thatch is worked and supported: gwrach unqualified is, I am told, used in this sense in Glamorganshire. Something about the Gwrach sprite will be found in the Brython for 1860, p. 23a, while a different account is given in Jenkins' Bed Gelert, pp. 80-1.

[47] This statement I give from Choice Notes, p. 32; but I must confess that I am sceptical as to the 'wings of a leathery and bat-like substance,' or of any other substance whatsoever.

[48] For more about her and similar ancestral personages, see The Welsh People, pp. 54-61.

[49] This seems to be the Goidelic word borrowed, which in Mod. Irish is written cnocc or cnoc, 'a hill': the native Welsh form is cnwch, as in Cnwch Coch in Cardiganshire, Cnwch Dernog (corrupted into Clwch Dernog) in Anglesey, printed Kuwgh Dernok in the Record of Carnarvon, p. 59, where it is associated with other interesting names to be noticed later.

[50] All said by natives of Anglesey about rivers and mountains in their island must be taken relatively, for though the country has a very uneven surface it has no real mountain: they are apt to call a brook a river and a hillock a mountain, though the majestic heights of Arfon are within sight.

[51] See pp. 13-16 of his essay on the Neath Valley, referred to in a note at p. 439 above, where Craig y Dinas is also mentioned.

[52] This is an interesting word of obscure origin, to which I should like our ingenious etymologists to direct their attention.

[53] See the Poetical Works of John Leyden (Edinburgh, 1875), p. 36 (Scenes of Infancy, part ii); also my Arthurian Legend, p. 18.

[54] I am indebted for the English story to an article entitled 'The Two Pedlar Legends of Lambeth and Swaffham,' contributed by Mr. Gomme to the pages of the Antiquary, x. 202-5, in which he gives local details and makes valuable comparisons. I have to thank Mr. Gomme also for a cutting from the weekly issue of the Leeds Mercury for Jan. 3, 1885, devoted to 'Local Notes and Queries' (No. cccxii), where practically the same story is given at greater length as located at Upsall Castle in Yorkshire.

[55] I have never been to the spot, and I owe these particulars partly to Mr. J. P. Owen, of 72 Comeragh Road, Kensington, and partly to the Rev. John Fisher, already quoted at p. 379. This is the parish where some would locate the story of the sin-eater, which others stoutly deny, as certain periodical outbursts of polemics in the pages of the Academy and elsewhere have shown. Mr. Owen, writing to me in 1893, states, that, when he last visited the dinas some thirty years previously, he found the mouth of the cave stopped up in order to prevent cattle and sheep straying into it.

[56] Mr. Fisher refers me to an account of the discovery published in the Cambrian newspaper for Aug. 14, 1813, a complete file of which exists, as he informs me, in the library of the Royal Institution of South Wales at Swansea. Further, at the Cambrians' meeting in 1892 that account was discussed and corrected by Mr. Stepney-Gulston: see the Archæologia Cambrensis for 1893, pp. 163-7. He also 'pointed out that on the opposite side of the gap in the ridge the noted cave of Owain Law Goch was to be found. Near the Pant-y-llyn bone caves is a place called Craig Derwydon, and close by is the scene of the exploits of Owain Law Goch, a character who appears to have absorbed some of the features of Arthurian romance. A cave in the locality bears Owain's name.'

[57] As in Llewelyn's charter to the Monks of Aberconwy, where we have, according to Dugdale's Monasticon, v. 673a, a Scubordynemreis, that is Scubor Dyn Emreis, 'Din-Emreis Barn,' supposed to be Hafod y Borth, near Bedgelert: see Jenkins' Bed Gelert, p. 198. In the Myvyrian, i. 195a, it has been printed Din Emrais.

[58] See Somer's Malory's Morte Darthur, xxi. v (= vol. i. p. 849), and as to the Marchlyn story see p. 236 above. Lastly some details concerning Llyn Llydaw will be found in the next chapter.

[59] The oldest spellings known of this name occur in manuscript A of the Annales Cambriæ and in the Book of Llan Dâv as Elized and Elised, doubtless pronounced Elissed until it became, by dropping the final dental, Elisse. This in time lost its identity by assimilation with the English name Ellis. Thus, for example, in Wynne's edition of Powell's Caradog of Llancarfan's History of Wales (London, 1774), pp. 22, 24, Elised is reduced to Elis. In the matter of dropping the d compare our Dewi, 'St. David,' for Dewid, for an instance of which see Duffus Hardy's Descriptive Catalogue, i. 119. The form Eliseg with a final g has no foundation in fact. Can the English name Ellis be itself derived from Elised?

[60] Boncyn is derived from bonc of nearly the same meaning, and bonc is merely the English word bank borrowed: in South Wales it is pronounced banc and used in North Cardiganshire in the sense of hill or mountain.

[61] The name occurs twice in the story of Kulhwch and Olwen: see the Mabinogion, p. 107, where the editors have read Ricca both times in 'Gormant, son of Ricca.' This is, however, more than balanced by Rita in the Book of Llan Dâv, namely in Tref Rita, 'Rita's town or stead,' which occurs five times as the name of a place in the diocese of Llandaff; see pp. 32, 43, 90, 272. The uncertainty is confined to the spelling, and it has arisen from the difficulty of deciding in medieval manuscripts between t and c: there is no reason to suppose the name was ever pronounced Ricca.

[62] This can hardly be the real name of the place, as it is pronounced Gwybrnant (and even Gwybrant), which reminds me of the Gwybr fynyd on which Gwyn ab Nûd wanders about with his hounds: see Evans' facsimile of the Black Book of Carmarthen, p. 50a, where the words are, dy gruidir ar wibir winit.

[63] Dugdale has printed this (v. 673a) Carrecerereryr with one er too much, and the other name forms part of the phrase ad capud Weddua-Vaur, 'to the top of the Great Gwydfa'; but I learn from Mr. Edward Owen, of Gray's Inn, that the reading of the manuscript is Wedua vawr and Carrecereryr.

[64] The MSS. except B have y 6ylva, which is clearly not the right word, as it could only mean 'his place of watching.'

[65] See Derfel Hughes' Llandegai and Llanllechid, p. 53. As to Drystan it is the Pictish name Drostan, but a kindred form occurs in Cornwall on a stone near Fowey, where years ago I guessed the ancient genitive Drustagni; and after examining it recently I am able to confirm my original guess. The name of Drystan recalls that of Essyllt, which offers some difficulty. It first occurs in Welsh in the Nennian Genealogies in the Harleian MS. 3859: see Pedigree I in the Cymmrodor, ix. 169, where we read that Mermin (Merfyn) was son of Etthil daughter of Cinnan (Cynan), who succeeded his father Rhodri Molwynog in the sovereignty of Gwyned in 754. The spelling Etthil is to be regarded like that of the Welsh names in Nennius, for some instances of which see § 73 (quoted in the next chapter) and the Old Welsh words calaur, nouel, patel, so spelt in the Juvencus Codex: see Skene, ii. 2: in all these l does duty for ll. So Etthil is to be treated as pronounced Ethill or Ethyll; but Jesus College MS. 20 gives a more ancient pronunciation (at least as regards the consonants) when it calls Cynan's daughter Ethellt: see the Cymmrodor, viii. 87. Powell, in his History of Wales by Caradog of Llancarfan, as edited by Wynne, writes the name Esylht; and the Medieval Welsh spelling has usually been Essyllt or Esyllt, which agrees in its sibilant with the French Iselt or Iseut; but who made the Breton-looking change from Eth to Es or Is in this name remains a somewhat doubtful point. Professor Zimmer, in the Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Litteratur, xiii. 73-5, points out that the name is an Anglo-Saxon Ethylda borrowed, which he treats as a 'Kurzform für Ethelhild': see also the Revue Celtique, xii. 397, xiii. 495. The adoption of this name in Wales may be regarded as proof of intermarriage or alliance between an English family and the royal house of Gwyned as early as the eighth century.

[66] See the Brython for 1861, pp. 331-2, also Cymru Fu, p. 468, where Glasynys was also inclined to regard the Hairy Fellow as being Owen.

[67] I have never seen a copy, but Mr. Fisher gives me the title as follows: Prophwydoliaeth Myrdin Wyllt yn nghyda ber Hanes o'i Fywyd, wedi eu tynu allan o Lyfr y Daroganau ... Caerfyrdin ... Pris dwy Geiniog. It has no date, but Mr. Fisher once had a copy with the date 1847. Recently he has come across another versified prophecy written in the same style as the printed ones, and referring to an Owain who may have been Owen Lawgoch. The personage meant is compared to the most brilliant of pearls, Owain glain golyaf. The prophecy is to be found at the Swansea Public Library, and occurs in a seventeenth century manuscript manual of Roman Catholic Devotion, Latin and Welsh. It gives 1440 as the year of the deliverance of the Brytaniaid. It forms the first of two poems (fo. 37), the second of which is ascribed to Taliessin. Such is Mr. Fisher's account of it, and the lines which he has copied for me cling to the same theme of the ultimate triumph of the Kymry. Quite recently I have received further information as to these prophecies from Mr. J. H. Davies, of Lincoln's Inn (p. 354), who will, it is to be hoped, soon publish the results of his intimate study of their history in South Wales.

[68] Record of Carnarvon, p. 133, to which attention was called by me in the Report of the Welsh Land Commission, p. 648: see now The Welsh People, pp. 343-4, 593-4.

[69] Nor was Owen the only Welshman in the king of France's service: there was Owen's chaplain, who on one occasion distinguished himself greatly in battle. He is called in Froissart's text David House, but the editor has found from other documents that the name was Honvel Flinc, which is doubtless Howel, whatever the second vocable may have been: see Froissart, viii, pp. xxxviii, 69.

[70] As to the original destination of the flotilla, see Kervyn de Lettenhove's edition of Froissart (Brussels, 1870-7), viii. 435-7, where the editor has brought together several notes, from which it appears that Owen tried unsuccessfully to recruit an army in Spain, but that he readily got together in France a considerable force. For Charles V, on May 8, 1372, ordered the formation of an army, to be placed under Owen's command for the reconquest of his ancestors' lands in Wales, and two days later Owen issued a declaration as to his Welsh claims and his obligations to the French king; but the flotilla stopped short with Guernsey. It is not improbable, however, that the fear in England of a descent on Wales by Owen began at least as early as 1369. In his declaration Owen calls himself Evain de Gales, which approaches the Welsh spelling Ewein, more frequently Ywein, modern Ywain, except that all these forms tended to be supplanted by Owain or Owen. This last is, strictly speaking, the colloquial form, just as Howel is the colloquial form of Hywel, and bowyd of bywyd, 'life.'

[71] For the account of Owen's life see the Chroniques de J. Froissart publiées pour la Société de l'Histoire de France, edited with abstracts and notes by Siméon Luce, more especially vols. viii. pp. 44-9, 64, 66-71, 84, 122, 190, and ix. pp. 74-9, where a summary is given of his life and a complete account of his death. In Lord Berners' translation, published in Henry VIII's time, Owen is called Yuan of Wales, as if anybody could even glance at the romances without finding that Owen ab Urien, for instance, became in French Ywains or Ivains le fils Urien in the nominative, and Ywain or Ivain in régime. Thomas Johnes of Hafod, whose translation was published in 1803-6, betrays still greater ignorance by giving him the modern name Evan; but he had the excuse of being himself a Welshman.

[72] For copies of some of the documents in point see Rymer's Foedera, viii. 356, 365, 382.

[73] I have not been able to find a copy of this work, and for drawing my attention to the passage in Hanes Cymru I have again to thank Mr. Fisher. The pedigree in question will be found printed in Table I in Askew Roberts' edition of Sir John Wynne's History of the Gwydir Family (Oswestry, 1878); and a note, apparently copied from Miss Llwyd, states that it was in a Hengwrt MS. she found the identification of Owen Lawgoch. The editor surmises that to refer to p. 865 of Hengwrt MS. 351, which he represents as being a copy of Hengwrt MS. 96 in the handwriting of Robert Vaughan the Antiquary.

[74] This has already been undertaken: on Feb. 7, 1900, a summary of this chapter was read to a meeting of the Hon. Society of Cymmrodorion, and six weeks later Mr. Edward Owen, of Gray's Inn, read an elaborate paper in which he essayed to fix more exactly Yvain de Galles' place in the history of Wales. It would be impossible here to do justice to his reasoning, based as it was on a careful study of the records in point. Let it suffice for the present, however, that the paper will in due course appear in the Society's Transactions. Mr. J. H. Davies also informs me that he is bringing together items of evidence, which tend, as he thinks, to show that Miss Llwyd's information was practically correct. Before, however, the question can be considered satisfactorily answered, some explanation will have to be offered of Froissart's statement, that Yvain's father's name was Aymon.

[75] We seem also to have an instance in point in Carmarthenshire, where legend represents Owen and his men sleeping in Ogof Myrdin, the name of which means Merlin's Cave, and seems to concede priority of tenancy to the great magician: see the extinct periodical Golud yr Oes (for 1863), i. 253, which I find to have been probably drawing on Eliezer Williams' English Works (London, 1840), p. 156.

[76] For the Greek text of the entire passage see the Didot edition of Plutarch, vol. iii. p. 511 (De Defectu Oraculorum, xviii); also my Arthurian Legend, pp. 367-8. It is curious to note that storms have, in a way, been associated in England with the death of her great men as recently as that of the celebrated Duke of Wellington: see Choice Notes, p. 270.

[77] See my Arthurian Legend, p. 335. I am indebted to Professor Morfill for rendering the hexameters into English verse.

[78] They are produced here in their order as printed at the beginning of the second volume of the Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, and the series or versions are indicated as i, ii, iii. Version ii will be found printed in the third volume of the Cymmrodor, pp. 52-61, also in the Oxford Mabinogion, pp. 297-308, from the Red Book of Hergest of the fourteenth century. The letter (a, b, c) added is intended to indicate the order of the three parts of the Triad, for it is not the same in all the series. Let me here remark in a general way that the former fondness of the Welsh for Triads was not peculiar to them. The Irish also must have been at one time addicted to this grouping. Witness the Triad of Cleverest Countings, in the Book of the Dun Cow, fol. 58a, and the Triad of the Blemishes of the Women of Ulster, ib. 43b.

[79] As to the names Drystan (also Trystan) and Essyllt, see the footnote on p. 480 above.

[80] This was meant to explain the unusual term g6rdueichyat, also written g6rdueichat, g6rueichyat, and gwrddfeichiad. This last comes in the modern spelling of iii. 101, where this clause is not put in the middle of the Triad but at the end.

[81] The editor of this version seems to have supposed Pendaran to have been a place in Dyfed! But his ignorance leaves us no evidence that he had a different story before him.

[82] This word is found written in Mod. Welsh Annwfn, but it has been mostly superseded by the curtailed form Annwn, which appears twice in the Mabinogi of Math. These words have been studied by M. Gaidoz in Meyer and Stern's Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie, i. 29-34, where he equates Annwfn with the Breton anauon, which is a plural used collectively for the souls of the departed, the other world. His view, however, of these interesting words has since been mentioned in the same Zeitschrift, iii. 184-5, and opposed in the Annales de Bretagne, xi. 488.

[83] Edited by Professor Kuno Meyer (London, 1892): see for instance pp. 76-8.

[84] See Windisch's Irische Texte, p. 256, and now the Irish Text Society's Fled Bricrend, edited with a translation by George Henderson, pp. 8, 9.

[85] Windisch, ibid. pp. 99-105.

[86] See the Oxford Mabinogion, p. 196, and Guest's trans., i. 302, where the Welsh words a gol6ython o gic meluoch are rendered 'and collops of the flesh of the wild boar,' which can hardly be correct; for the mel in mel-uoch, or mel-foch in the modern spelling, is the equivalent of the Irish melg, 'milk.' So the word must refer either to a pig that had been fed on cows' milk or else a sucking pig. The former is the more probable meaning, but one is not helped to decide by the fact, that the word is still sometimes used in books by writers who imagine that they have here the word mel, 'honey,' and that the compound means pigs whose flesh is as sweet as honey: see Dr. Pughe's Dictionary, where melfoch is rendered 'honey swine,' whatever that may mean.

[87] Windisch's Irische Texte, p. 133, where laith lemnacht = Welsh llaeth llefrith, 'sweet milk.'

[88] Collfrewi was probably, like Gwenfrewi, a woman's name: this is a point of some importance when taken in connexion with what was said at p. 326 above as to Gwydion and Coll's magic.

[89] This reminds one of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Henvinus, whom he makes into dux Cornubiæ and father of Cunedagius or Cuneda: see ii. 12, 15. Probably Geoffrey's connecting such names as those of Cuneda and Dyfnwal Moelmud (ii. 17) with Cornwall is due to the fact, that the name of the Dumnonia of the North had been forgotten long before that of the Dumnonia to be identified with Devon and Cornwall.

[90] See the Oxford Mabinogion, p. 104, and the Oxford Bruts, p. 292.

[91] See the Oxford Bruts, pp. 299, 317, 345-6, 348, 384. I learn from Prof. Anwyl that Castell Penwedig is still remembered at Llanfihangel Genau'r Glyn as the old name of Castell Gwallter in that parish.

[92] See his note in Owen's Pembrokeshire, p. 237, where he also notices Aber Tarogi, and the editor's notes to p. 55.

[93] Mergaed for Mengwaed hardly requires any explanation; and as to Breat or rather Vreat, as it occurs in mutation, we have only to suppose the original carelessly written Vreac for Vreach, and we have the usual error of neglecting the stroke indicating the n, and the very common one of confounding c with t. This first-mentioned name should possibly be analysed into Mengw-aed or Menw-aed for an Irish Menb-aed, with the menb, 'little,' noticed at p. 510 below; in that case one might compare such compounds of Aed as Beo-aed and Lug-aed in the Martyrology of Gorman. Should this prove well founded the Mod. Welsh transcription of Menwaed should be Menwaed. I have had the use of other versions of the Triads from MSS. in the Peniarth collection; but they contribute nothing of any great importance as regards the proper names in the passages here in question.

[94] See the Oxford Mabinogion, pp. 41, 98, and Guest's trans., iii. 313.

[95] See Geoffrey's Historia Regum Britanniæ, vi. 19, viii. 1, 2; also Giraldus, Itinerarium Kambriæ, ii. 8 (p. 133).

[96] Itinerarium Kambriæ, ii. 9 (p. 136).

[97] Menw's name is to be equated with the Irish word menb, 'little, small,' and connected with the Welsh derivative di-fenw-i, 'belittling or reviling': it will be seen that he takes the form of a bird, and his designation Menw fab Teirgwaed might perhaps be rendered 'Little, son of Three-Cries.'

[98] Identified by Professor Kuno Meyer in the Transactions of the Cymmrodorion Society, 1895-6, p. 73, with a place in Leinster called Sescenn Uairbeóil, 'the Marsh of Uairbhél,' where Uairbhél may possibly be a man's name, but more likely that of a pass or gap described as Cold-mouth: compare the Slack or Sloc in the Isle of Man, called in Manx 'the big Mouth of the Wind.' The Irish name comes near in part to the Welsh Esgeir Oervel or Oerfel, which means 'the mountain Spur of cold Weather.'

[99] The word used in the text is ystyr, which now means 'meaning or signification'; but it is there used in the sense of 'history,' or of the Latin 'historia,' from which it is probably borrowed.

[100] In the original his designation is Gwrhyr Gwalstawt Ieithoed, and the man so called is in the Kulhwch credited with the mastery of all languages, including those of certain birds and quadrupeds. Gwalstawt, found written also gwalstot, is the Anglo-Saxon word wealhstód, 'an interpreter,' borrowed. The name Gwrhyr is possibly identical with that of Ferghoir, borne by the Stentor of Fionn mac Cumhaill's following. Ferghoir's every shout is said to have been audible over three cantreds. Naturally one who was to parley with a savage host had good reason to cultivate a far-reaching voice, if he wished to be certain of returning to his friends. For more about it see the footnote at p. 489 of my Hibbert Lectures.

[101] The original has Pelumyawc, p. 138, and the name occurs in the (Red Book) Bruts, p. 355, as Pelunyawc, and p. 411, as Pelunea(wc) between the commots of Amgoed and Velfrey. The identification here suggested comes from Mr. Phillimore, who has seen that Peuliniawc must be a derivative from the name Paulinus, that is of the Paulinus, probably, who is mentioned in an ancient inscription at Llandysilio. There are other churches called after Tysilio, so this one used to be distinguished as Llandysilio yn Nyfed, that is, Llandysilio-in-Dyfed; but the pronunciation was much the same as if it had been written Llandysilio yn Yfed, meaning 'Llandysilio a-drinking,' 'whereof arose a merrye jest,' as George Owen tells us in his Pembrokeshire, p. 9. It is now sometimes called Llandysilio'r Gynffon, or 'Llandysilio of the Tail,' from the situation of a part of the parish on a strip, as it were a tail, of Carmarthenshire land running into Pembrokeshire.

[102] This Aber Towy appears to have been a town with a harbour in 1042, for we read in Brut y Tywysogion of a cruel engagement fought there between Gruffyd ab Llewelyn and Howel ab Edwin, who, with Irish auxiliaries, tried to effect a landing. Not long ago a storm, carrying away the accumulation of sand, laid bare a good deal of the site. It is to be hoped that excavations will be made soon on the spot.

[103] See the Transactions of the Cymmrodorion, 1894-5, pp. 146-7. There are a good many clyns about South Wales, but our etymologists are careful to have them in most cases written glyn, 'a glen.' Our story, however, shows that the word came under the influence of glyn long ago, for it should be, when accented, clûn, corresponding to Irish cluain, 'a meadow.' We have it as clun in Clun Kein in the Black Book, p. 34b, where I guess it to mean the place now called Cilcain, 'Kilken' in Flintshire, which is accented on the first syllabic; and we have had it in y Clun Hir, 'the Long Meadow,' mentioned above at p. 22.

[104] Cas Llychwr, 'Loughor Castle,' is supposed to involve in its Llychwr, Llwchwr, or Loughor, the name of the place in the Antoninus Itinerary, 484, 1, to wit Leucarum; but the guttural spirant ch between vowels in Llychwr argues a phonetic process which was Goidelic rather than Brythonic.

[105] Llwydawc Gouynnyat would seem to mean Llwydawc the Asker or Demander, and the epithet occurs also in the Kulhwch in the name Gallcoyt Gouynynat (Mabinogion, 106), to be read doubtless G. Gouynnyat, 'G. who asks or demands': possibly one should rather compare with Go-uynnyat the word tra-mynyat, 'a wild boar': see Williams' Seint Greal, pp. 374, 381. However, the epithets in the Twrch Trwyth story do not count so far as concerns the place-names derived.

[106] Other instances of the like shortening occur in words like cefnder, 'a cousin,' for cefnderw, and ardel, 'to own,' for ardelw. As to Amman, it enters, also, into a group of Glamorganshire place-names: witness Aber Amman and Cwm Amman, near Aberdare.

[107] It should perhaps be looked for near Brechfa, where there is a Hafod Grugyn, and, as I am told, a Garth also which is, however, not further defined. For it appears that both Brechfa and Cayo, though now in Carmarthenshire, once belonged to Keredigion: see Owen's Pembrokeshire, p. 216. But perhaps another spot should be considered: J. D. Rhys, the grammarian (p. 22 above), gives in the Peniarth MS. 118 a list of caers or castles called after giants, and among them is that of Grugyn in the parish, he says, of 'Llan Hilar.' I have, however, not been able to hear of any trace of the name there, though I should guess the spot to have been Pen y Castell, called in English Castle Hill, the residence of Mr. Loxdale in the parish of Llanilar, near Aberystwyth.

[108] I have re-examined the passage, and I have no doubt that the editors were wrong in printing Gregyn: the manuscript has Grugyn, which comes in the last line of column 841. Now besides that the line is in part somewhat faint, the scribe has evidently omitted something from the original story, and I guess that the lacuna occurs in the first line of the next column after the words y llas, 'was killed,' which seem to end the story of Grugyn.

[109] Those who have discovered an independent Welsh appellative wy meaning water are not to be reasoned with. The Welsh wy only means an egg, while the meaning of Gwy as the name of the Wye has still to be discovered.

[110] This name also occurs in a passage quoted in Jones' Brecknock, ii. 501, from a Carte MS. which he treats as relating to the year 1234: the MS. is said to be at the Bodleian, though I have not succeeded in tracing it. But Jones gives Villa de Ystraddewi, and speaks of a chapel of St. John's of Stradtewi, which must have been St. John's Church, at Tretower, one of the ecclesiastical districts of Cwm Du: see also p. 497. The name is probably to be treated as Strad or Strat d'Ewe.

[111] A river may in Welsh be briefly called after anybody or anything. Thus in North Cardiganshire there is a stream called Einon, that is to say 'Einion's river,' and the flat land on both sides of it is called Ystrad Einon, which looks as if one might translate it Einion's Strath, but it means the Strath of Einion's river, or of the stream called Einon, as one will at once see from the upper course of the water being called Blaen Einon, which can only mean the upper course of the Einon river. So here yw is in English 'yew,' but Ystrad Yw and Llygad Yw have to be rendered the Strath of the Yew burn and the Eye of the Yew burn respectively. It is moreover felt by the Welsh-speaking people of the district that yw is the plural of ywen, 'a single yew,' and as there is only one yew at the source somebody had the brilliant idea of making the name right by calling it Ywen, and this has got into the maps as Ewyn, as though it were the Welsh word for foam. Who began it I cannot say, but Theophilus Jones has it in his History of the County of Brecknock, published in 1809. Nevertheless the name is still Yw, not Ywen or Ewyn, in the Welsh of the district, though Lewis gives it as Ywen in his article on Llanvihangel-Cwm-Du.

[112] For exact information as to the Gaer, the Yw, and Llygad Yw, I am indebted chiefly to the courtesy of Lord Glanusk, the owner of that historic strath, and to the Rector of Llansantffread, who made a special visit to Llygad Yw for me; also to Mr. Francis Evans, of the Farmers' Arms at the Bwlch, who would be glad to change the name Llygad Yw into Llygad dan yr Ywen, 'the Source beneath the Yew-tree,' partly on account of the position 'of the spring emanating under the but of the yew tree,' and partly because there is only a single yew there. Theophilus Jones complained a century ago that the Gaer in Ystrad Yw had not attracted the attention it deserved; and I have been greatly disappointed to find that the Cambrian Archæological Association has had nothing to say of it. At any rate, I have tried the Index of its proceedings and found only a single mention of it. The whole district is said to teem with antiquities, Celtic, Roman, and Norman.

[113] Theophilus Jones, in his Brecknockshire, ii. 502, describes Miarth or Myarth as a 'very extensive' camp, and proceeds as follows:--'Another British camp of less extent is seen on a knoll on Pentir hill, westward of the Rhiangoll and the parish church of Cwmdu, above a wood called Coed y Gaer, and nearly opposite to the peak or summit called Cloch y Pibwr, or the piper's call.' This would probably be more accurately rendered the Piper's Rock or Stone, with cloch treated as the Goidelic word for a stone rather than the Brythonic word for a bell: how many more clochs in our place-names are Goidelic?

[114] The Twrch would seem to have crossed somewhere opposite the mouth of the Wye, let us say not very far from Aust; but he escapes to Cornwall without anything happening to him, so we are left without any indication whether the story originally regarded Kernyw as including the Penrhyn Awstin of the Coll story given at p. 503.

[115] For this suggestion I am indebted to the Rev. Dr. Gaster in the Cymmrodorion's Transactions for 1894-5, p. 34, and also for references in point to M. Cosquin's Contes Populaires de la Lorraine, i. 134, 141, 152. Compare also such Gaelic stories as that of the Bodach Glas, translated by Mrs. Mackellar, in the Celtic Magazine, xii. 12-6, 57-64.

[116] In some native Welsh words we have an option between a prefix ym and am, an option arising out of the fact that originally it was neither ym nor am, but m, for an earlier mbi, of the same origin as Latin ambi and Greek amphi, 'around, about.' The article, its meaning in the combination in banbh being forgotten, would fall under the influence of the analogy of the prefix, now am or ym, so far as the pronunciation was concerned.

[117] Possibly the benwic was thrown in to correct the reckoning when the redactor discovered, as he thought, that he had one too many to account for: it has been pointed out that he had forgotten that one had been killed in Ireland.

[118] It is just possible, however, that in an older version it was named, and that the place was no other than the rock just above Ystrad Yw, called Craig Lwyd or, as it is said to be pronounced, Craig Llwyd. If so, Llwyd would seem to have been substituted for the dissyllable Llwydog: compare the same person called Llwyt and Llwydeu in the Mabinogion, pp. 57, 110, 136.

[119] The name is well known in that of Llanrhaiadr yn Mochnant, 'Llanrhaiadr in Mochnant,' in the north of Montgomeryshire.

[120] Between Colwyn Bay and Llandudno Junction, on the Chester and Holyhead line of railway.

[121] I have discussed some of the traces of the Goidels in Wales in the Arch. Camb. for 1895, pp. 18-39, 264-302; 1899, pp. 160-7.

[122] In fact the genitive Grúcind occurs in the Book of Leinster, fo. 359a.

[123] The sort of question one would like to ask in that district is, whether there is a spot there called Bed y Rhyswyr, Carn y Rhyswyr, or the like. The word rhyswr is found applied to Arthur himself in the Life of Gruffyd ab Cynan, as the equivalent probably of the Latin Arthur Miles (p. 538 below): see the Myvyrian Archaiology, ii. 590. Similarly the soldiers or champions of Christ are called rys6yr crist in the Welsh Life of St. David: see the Elucidarium and other Tracts (in the Anecdota Oxoniensia), p. 118.