Chapter XII: Race in Folklore and Myth (4)

[124] Rudvyw Rys would be in Modern Welsh Rhudfyw Rys, and probably means Rhudfyw the Champion or Fighter, as Rhys is likely to have been synonymous with rhyswr. The corresponding Irish name was Russ or Ross, genitive Rossa, and it appears to come from the same origin as Irish ross, 'a headland, a forest,' Welsh rhos, 'moorland, uncultivated ground.' The original meaning was presumably 'exposed or open and untilled land'; and Stokes supposes the word to stand for an early (p)ro-sto- with sto of the same origin as Latin sto, 'I stand,' and as the English word stand itself. In that case Ros, genitive Rossa, Welsh Rhys, would mean one who stands out to fight, a prostatês, so to say. But not only are these words of a different declension implying a nominative Ro-stus, but the Welsh one must have been once accented Ro-stús on the ending which is now lost, otherwise there is no accounting for the change of the remaining vowel into y. Other instances postulating an early Welsh accentuation of the same kind are very probably llyg, 'a fieldmouse,' Irish luch, 'a mouse'; pryd, 'form,' Irish cruth; pryf, 'a worm,' Irish cruim; so also with ych, 'an ox,' and nyth, 'a nest,' Irish nett, genitive nitt, derived by Stokes from nizdo-, which, however, must have been oxytone, like the corresponding Sanskrit nidhá. There is one very interesting compound of rhys, namely the saint's name Rhwydrys, as it were Redo-rostus to be compared with Gaulish Eporedo-rix, which is found in Irish analysed into rí Eochraidhi, designating the fairy king who was father to Étáin: see Windisch's Irische Texte, p. 119. Bledrws, Bledrus, as contrasted with Bledrys, Bledris, postulate Goidelic accentuation, while one has to treat Bledruis as a compromise between Bledrws and Bledris, unless it be due to misreading a Bledruif (Book of Llan Dâv, pp. 185, 221-2, and Arch. Camb. for 1875, p. 370). The Goidelic accent at an early date moved to first syllables, hence cruth (with its vowel influenced by the u of a stem qurt) under the stress accent, became, when unstressed, cridh (from a simplified stem crt) as in Noicride (also Nóicrothach, Windisch, ibid., pp. 259, 261, 266) and Luicridh (Four Masters, A.D. 748), Luccraid, genitive Luccraide (Book of Leinster, 359f), Luguqurit- in Ogam.

[125] These operations cannot have been the first of the kind in the district, as a writer in the Archæologia Cambrensis for 1862, pp. 159-60, in extracting a note from the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries (series II, vol. i. p. 10) relative to the discovery of the canoe, adds a statement based on the same volume, p. 161, to the effect that 'within half a mile of Llyn Llydaw there are the remains of a British town, not marked in the ordnance map, comprising the foundations of numerous circular dwellings. In some of them quantities of the refuse of copper smeltings were found. This town should be visited and examined with care by some of the members of our Association.' This was written not far short of forty years ago; but I am not aware that the Association has done anything positive as yet in this matter.

[126] According to Jenkins' Bed Gelert, p. 300, the canoe was subsequently sold for a substantial price, and nobody seems to know what has eventually become of it. It is to be hoped this is not correct.

[127] See Holder's Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz, s. v. Litavia.

[128] For these notes I am indebted to Williams' Dictionary of Eminent Welshmen, and to Rees' Welsh Saints, pp. 187, 191; for our Paulinus is not yet recognized in the Dictionary of Christian Biography. His day was Nov. 22.

[129] There are two other inscriptions in South Wales which contain the name Paulinus, one on a stone found in the neighbourhood of Port Talbot in Glamorgan, reading Hic iacit Cantusus Pater Paulinus, which seems to imply that Paulinus set up the stone to the memory of a son of his named Cantusus. The other, found on the site of the extinct church of Llanwrthwl, near Dolau Cothi in Carmarthenshire, is a remarkable one in a kind of hexameter to the following effect:--

Servatur fidæi patrieque semper amator
Hic Paulinus iacit cultor pientisimus æqui.

Whether we have one or two or three Paulini in these inscriptions I cannot say. Welsh writers, however, have made the name sometimes into Pawl Hên, 'Paul the Aged,' but, so far as I can see, without rhyme or reason.

[130] Since I chanced on this inscription my friend Professor Lindsay of St. Andrews has called my attention to Plautus' Asinaria, 499 (II. iv. 92), where one reads, Periphanes Rhodo mercator dives, 'Periphanes a wealthy merchant of Rhodes'; he finds also Æsculapius Epidauro (Arnobius, 278. 18), and elsewhere Nepos Philippis and Priscus Vienna.

[131] See Stokes' Patrick, pp. 16, 412.

[132] This will give the reader some idea of the pre-Norman orthography of Welsh, with l for the sound of ll and b for that of v.

[133] The softening of Cafall to Gafall could not take place after the masculine corn, 'a horn'; but it was just right after the feminine carn, 'a cairn.' So here corn is doubtless a colloquial corruption; and so is probably the t at the end, for as llt has frequently been reduced to ll, as in cyfaill, 'a friend,' from the older cyfaillt, in Medieval Irish comalta, 'a foster brother or sister,' the language has sometimes reversed the process, as when one hears hollt for holl, 'all,' or reads fferyllt, 'alchemist, chemist,' for fferyll from Vergilius. The Nennian orthography does not much trouble itself to distinguish between l and ll, and even when Carn Cabal was written the pronunciation was probably Carn Gavall, the mutation being ignored in the spelling, which frequently happens in the case even of Welsh people who never fail to mutate their consonants in speaking. Lastly, though it was a dog that was called Cafall, it is remarkable that the word has exactly the form taken by caballus in Welsh: for cafall, as meaning some sort of a horse, see Silvan Evans' Geiriadur.

[134] An instance or two of Trwyd will be found in a note by Silvan Evans in Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales, ii. 393.

[135] For more about these names and kindred ones, see a note of mine in the Arch. Cambrensis, 1898, pp. 61-3.

[136] See my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 398-401.

[137] See the Black Book of Carmarthen in Evans' facsimile, p. 47b; Thomas Stephens' Gododin, p. 146; Dent's Malory, preface, p. xxvi; and Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales, ii. 51, 63, 155.

[138] See the Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen for 1890, p. 512.

[139] See De Courson's Cartulaire de l'abbaye de Redon, pp. 163, 186.

[140] See Reeves' note to the passage just cited in his edition of Adamnan's Vita, pp. 6, 7.

[141] Here possibly one might mention likewise Gilmin Troetu or Troeddu, 'Gilmin of the Black Foot,' the legendary ancestor (p. 444) of the Wynns of Glyn Llifon, in Carnarvonshire. So the name might be a shortening of some such a combination as Gilla-min, 'the attendant of Min or Men,' a name we have also in Mocu-Min, 'Min's Kin,' a family or sept so called more than once by Adamnan. Perhaps one would also be right in regarding as of similar origin the name of Gilberd or Gilbert, son of Cadgyffro, who is mentioned in the Kulhwch, and in the Black Book, fo. 14b: at any rate I am not convinced that the name is to be identified with the Gillebert of the Normans, unless that was itself derived from Celtic. But there is a discrepancy between Gilmin, Gilbert, with unmutated m and b, and Gilvaethwy with its mutation consonant v. In all three, however, Gil, had it been Welsh, would probably have appeared as Gill, as indicated by the name Gilla in the Kulhwch (Oxford Mabinogion, p. 110), in which we seem to have the later form of the old name Gildas. Compare such Irish instances as Fiachna and Cera, which seem to imply stems originally ending in -asa-s (masculine) and -asa (feminine); and see the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 1899, P. 402.

[142] An article in the Rennes Dindsenchas is devoted to Liath: see the Rev. Celtique, xvi. 78-9. As to Celtchar, genitive Celtchair, the name would seem to have meant 'him who is fond of concealment.' The Mabinogi form of the Welsh name is Llwyt uab kil coet, which literally meant 'Ll. son of (him of) the Retreat of the Wood.' But in the Twrch Trwyth story, under a slightly different form of designation, we appear to have the same person as Llwydeu mab kelcoet and Llwydeu mab kel coet, which would seem to mean 'Ll. son of (him of) the Hidden Wood.' It looks as if the bilingual story-teller of the language transition had not been able to give up the cel of Celtchar at the same time that he rendered celt by coet, 'wood or trees,' as if identifying it with cailt: witness the Medieval Irish caill, 'a wood or forest,' dative plural cailtib, derivative adjective caillteamhuil, 'silvester'; and see Windisch's Irische Texte, p. 410, s. v. caill.

[143] Windisch's Irische Texte, p. 217, and the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 47b.

[144] There has been a good deal of confusion as to the name Llyr: thus for instance, the Welsh translations of Geoffrey of Monmouth make the Leir of his Latin into Llyr, and the personage intended is represented as the father of three daughters named Gonerilla, Regan, and Cordeilla or Cordelia. But Cordelia is probably the Creurdilad of the Black Book, p. 49b, and the Creidylat of the Kulhwch story (the Oxford Mabinogion, pp. 113, 134), and her father was Llûd Llawereint (= Irish Nuada Airgetlám) and not Llyr. Then as to the Leir of Geoffrey's Latin, that name looks as if given its form on the strength of the legr- of Legraceaster, the Anglo-Saxon name of the town now called Leicester, of which William of Malmesbury (Gesta Pontificum, § 176) says, Legrecestra est civitas antiqua in Mediterraneis Anglis, a Legra fluvio præterfluente sic vocata. Mr. Stevenson regards Legra as an old name of the Soar, and as surviving in that of the village of Leire, spelled Legre in Domesday. It seems to point back to a Legere or Ligere, which recalls Liger, 'the Loire.'

[145] I say in that case, as this is not quite conclusive; for Welsh has an appellative llyr, 'mare, æquor,' which may be a generalizing of Llyr; or else it may represent an early lerio-s from lero-s (see p. 549 below), and our Llyr may possibly be this and not the Irish genitive Lir retained as Llyr. That, however, seems to me improbable on the whole.

[146] Here it is relevant to direct the reader's attention to Nutt's Legend of the Holy Grail, p. 28, where, in giving an abstract of the Petit saint Graal, he speaks of the Brân of that romance, in French Bron, nominative Brons, as having the keeping of the Grail and dwelling 'in these isles of Ireland.'

[147] The Dôn and Llyr groups are not brought into conflict or even placed in contact with one another; and the reason seems to be that the story-teller wanted to introduce the sons of Beli as supreme in Britain after the death of Brân. Beli and his sons are also represented in Maxen's Dream as ruling over Britain when the Roman conqueror arrives. What is to be made of Beli may be learnt from The Welsh People, pp. 41-3.

[148] These things one learns about Lir from the story mentioned in the text as the 'Fate of the Children of Lir,' as to which it is right, however, to say that no ancient manuscript version is known: see M. d'Arbois dc Jubainville's Essai d'un Catalogue de la Litérature épique de l'Irlande, p. 8.

[149] See Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales, ii. 303, also 108-9, where the fragment of the poem as given in the Book of Taliessin is printed. The line here quoted has been rendered in vol. i. 286, 'With Matheu and Govannon,' which places the old pagan Gofannon in rather unexpected company. A few lines later in the poem mention is made of a Kaer Gofannon: where was that? Skene, in a note on it (ii. 452), says that 'In an old list of the churches of Linlithgow, printed by Theiner, appears Vicaria de Gumanyn. The place meant is probably Dalmeny, on the Firth of Forth, formerly called Dumanyn.' This is interesting only as showing that Gumanyn is probably to be construed Dumanyn, and that Dalmeny represents an ancient Dún Manann in a neighbourhood where one already has Clach Manann, 'the stone of Manau,' and Sliabh Manann, 'Mountain of Manau' now respectively Clackmannan and Slamannan, in what Nennius calls Manau Guotodin.

[150] This occurred unrecognized and, therefore, unaltered by the scribe of the Nennian Pedigree no. xvi in the Cymmrodor, ix. 176, as he found it written in an old spelling, Louhen. map. Guid gen. map. Caratauc. map. Cinbelin, where Caradog is made father of Gwydion; for in Guid-gen we seem to have the compound name which suggested Gwydion. This agrees with the fact that the Mabinogi of Math treats Gwydion as the father of Llew Llawgyffes; but the pedigree itself seems to have been strangely put together.

[151] See Bertrand's Religion des Gaulois, pp. 314-9, 343-5, and especially the plates.

[152] The Oxford Mabinogion, pp. 40-3; Guest's Mabinogion, iii. 124-8.

[153] See Louis Leger's Cyrille et Méthode (Paris, 1868), p. 22.

[154] See Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ Historia Scriptorum, xii. 794. The whole passage is worth quoting; it runs thus: Erat autem simulacrum triceps, quod in uno corpore tria capita habens Triglaus vocabatur; quod solum accipiens, ipsa capitella sibi cohærentia, corpore comminuto, secum inde quasi pro tropheo asportavit, et postea Romam pro argumento conversionis illorum transmisit.

[155] See The Welsh People, pp. 56-7.

[156] The Oxford Mabinogion, p. 147; Guest's Mabinogion, ii. 398.

[157] This may have meant the 'Blue Slate or Flagstone'; but there is no telling so long as the place is not identified. It may have been in the Pictish district of Galloway, or else somewhere beyond the Forth. Query whether it was the same place as Llech Gelydon in Prydyn, mentioned in Boned y Saint: see the Myvyrian Archaiology, ii. 49.

[158] The story of Kulhwch and Olwen has a different legend which represents Nynio and Peibio changed by the Almighty into two oxen called Ychen Banna6c: see the Oxford Mabinogion, p. 121, also my Arthurian Legend, p. 304, and the remarks which are to follow in this chapter with respect to those oxen.

[159] For the story in Welsh see the Iolo MSS., pp. 193-4, where a footnote tells the reader that it was copied from the book of 'Iaco ab Dewi.' From his father's manuscript, Taliesin Williams printed an abstract in English in his notes to his poem entitled the Doom of Colyn Dolphyn (London, 1837), pp. 119-20, from which it will be found translated into German in the notes to San-Marte's Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniæ, pp. 402-3.

[160] Oxford Bruts, p. 213: compare p. 146, together with Geoffrey's Latin, vii. 3, x. 3.

[161] See Kölbing's Altenglische Bibliothek, the fifth volume of which consists of Libeaus Desconus, edited by Max Kaluza (Leipsic, 1890), lines 163, 591, and Introduction, p. cxxxxiv. For calling my attention to this, I have to thank my friend, Mr. Henry Bradley.

[162] Malory's Morte Darthur, i. 27: see also i. 17-8, 28; ii. 6, 8-9.

[163] See Evans' Autotype Facsimile, fo. 33a: could the spot so called (in the Welsh text argel Ardudwy) be somewhere in the neighbourhood of Llyn Irdyn (p. 148), a district said to be rich in the remains of a prehistoric antiquity? J. Evans, author of the North Wales volume of the Beauties of England and Wales, says, after hurriedly enumerating such antiquities, p. 909: 'Perhaps in no part of Britain is there still remaining such an assemblage of relicks belonging to druidical rites and customs as are found in this place, and the adjacent parts.'

[164] As to Rion, see Gaston Paris and Ulrich's Merlin (Paris, 1886), i. 202, 239-46. Other instances will readily occur to the reader, such as the Domesday Roelend or Roelent for Rothelan, in Modern Welsh Rhudlan; but for more instances of this elision by French and Anglo-Norman scribes of vowel-flanked d and th, see Notes and Queries for Oct. 28, 1899, pp. 351-2, and Nov. 18, p. 415; also Vising's Étude sur le Dialecte anglo-normand du xije Siècle (Upsala, 1882), p. 88; and F. Hildebrand's article on Domesday, in the Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 1884, p. 360. According to Suchier in Gröber's Grundriss der rom. Philologie, i. 581, this process of elision became complete in the twelfth century: see also Schwan's Grammatik des Altfranzösischen (Leipsic, 1888), p. 65. For most of these references, I have to thank my friend and neighbour, Mr. Stevenson of Exeter College.

[165] It comes from the same Llwyd MS. which has already been cited at pp. 233-4: see the Cambrian Journal for 1859, pp. 209-10.

[166] I notice in the maps a spot called Panylau, which is nearer to Llyn Gwynain than to Llyn y Dinas.

[167] See Morris' Celtic Remains, s. v. Serigi, and the Iolo MSS., p. 81.

[168] The Iolo MSS., p. 81, have Syrigi Wydel son of Mwrchan son of Eurnach Hen.

[169] See Triads, ii. 12, and the Mabinogion, p. 301: in Triads, i. 72, iii. 86, instead of Solor we have Doler and Dolor.

[170] See the Oxford Mabinogion, pp. 125-8.

[171] Evans' Autotype Facsimile, fo. 48a; see also my preface to Dent's Malory, p. xxvii; likewise p. 457 above.

[172] See my Lectures on Welsh Philology, pp. 377-9; and, as to the Caer Gai tradition, the Arch. Camb. for 1850, p. 204, and Morris' Celtic Remains, p. 63. I may add as to Llanuwchllyn, that the oldest inhabitants pronounce that name Llanuwllyn.

[173] I cannot discover that it has ever been investigated by the Cambrian Archæological Association or any other antiquaries. Compare the case of the neighbouring site with the traces of the copper smeltings mentioned in the note on p. 532 above. To my knowledge the Cambrians have twice failed to make their way nearer to the ruins than Llanberis, or at most Llanberis Pass, significantly called in Welsh Pen Gorffwysfa for the older name Gorffwysfa Beris, 'Peris' Resting-place': thus we loyally follow the example of resting set by the saint, and leave alone the archæology of the district.

[174] The subject has been discussed at length by Mr. Jacobs, in a note to the legend, in his Celtic Fairy Tales, pp. 259-64; and quite recently by Mr. D. E. Jenkins in his Bed Gelert (Portmadoc, 1899), pp. 56-74.

[175] Professor J. Morris Jones, to whom I am indebted for the particulars connected with these names, informs me that the local pronunciation is Drónwy; but Mrs. Rhys remembers that, years ago, at Amlwch, it was always sounded Darónwy. The Professor also tells me that Dernog is never made into Dyrnog: the Kuwgh of the Record is doubtless to be corrected into Knwgh, and probably also Dornok into Dernok, which is the reading in the margin. Cornewe is doubtless the district name which we have still in Llanfair y'Nghornwy, 'St. Mary's in Cornwy': the mill is supposed to be that of Bodronyn.

[176] The Book of Llan Dáv has an old form Cinust for an earlier Cingust or Congust. The early Brythonic nominative must have been Cunogústu-s and the early Goidelic Cúnagusu-s, and from the difference of accentuation come the o of Conghus, Connws, and the y of the Welsh Cynwst: compare Irish Fergus and Welsh Gurgúst, later Gurúst (one syllable), whence Grwst, finally the accented rwst of Llanrwst, the name of a small town on the river Conwy. Moreover the accentuation Cúnogusi is the reason why it was not written Cunogussi: compare Bárrivendi and Véndubari in one and the same inscription from Carmarthenshire.

[177] Such as that of a holding called Wele Dauid ap Gwelsantfrait, the latter part of which is perversely written or wrongly read so for Gwas Sant Freit, a rendering into Welsh of the very Goidelic name, Mael-Brigte, 'Servant of St. Bridget.' This Wele, with Wele Conus and Wele More, is contained in the Extent marginally headed Darronwy cum Hameletta de Kuwghdernok.

[178] This comes in Triad i. 49 = ii. 40; as to which it is to be noted that the name is Catwallawn in i and ii, but Caswallawn in iii. 27, as in the Oxford Mabinogion.

[179] Serrigi, Serigi, or Syrigi looks like a Latin genitive torn out of its context, but derived in the last resort from the Norse name Sigtrygg-r, which the Four Masters give as Sitriucc or Sitriug: see their entries from 891 to 1091. The Scandinavians of Dublin and its neighbourhood were addicted to descents on the shores of North Wales; and we have possibly a trace of occupation by them in Gauell Seirith, 'Seirith's holding,' in the Record of Carnarvon, p. 63, where the place in question is represented as being in the manor of Cemmaes, in Anglesey. The name Seirith was probably that written by the Four Masters as Sichfraith Sichraidh (also Serridh, A. D. 971), that is to say the Norse Sigræd-r before it lost the f retained in its German equivalent Siegfried. We seem to detect Seirith later as Seri in place-names in Anglesey--as for example in the name of the farms called Seri Fawr and Seri Bach between Llandrygarn and Llannerch y Med, also in a Pen Seri, 'Seri's Knoll or Hill,' at Bryn Du, near Ty Croes station, and in another Pen Seri on Holyhead Island, between Holyhead and Llain Goch, on the way to the South Stack. Lastly Dugdale, v. 672b mentions a Claud Seri, 'Seri's Dyke or Ditch,' as being somewhere in the neighbourhood of Llanwnda, in Carnarvonshire--not very far perhaps from the Gwyrfai and the spot where the Iolo MSS. (pp. 81-2) represent Serrigi repulsed by Caswallon and driven back to Anglesey, previous to his being crushed at Cerrig y Gwydyl. The reader must, however, be warned that the modern Seri is sometimes pronounced Sieri or Sheri, which suggests the possibility of some of the instances involving rather a form of the English word sheriff.

[180] See my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 546-8.

[181] The case with regard to the extreme south of the Principality is somewhat similar; for inscriptions in Glamorgan seem to bring the last echoes there of Goidelic speech down to the seventh century: see the Archæologia Cambrensis for 1899, pp. 160-6.

[182] See Evans' Report on MSS. in the Welsh Language, p. 837, where the Welsh is quoted from p. 131 of the Peniarth MS. 134.

[183] See my Arthurian Legend, p. 70.

[184] See the Revue Celtique, ii. 197-9, where Dr. Stokes has published the original with a translation and notes; also p. 435 above.

[185] The gentlemen to whom I am chiefly indebted for the information embodied in the foregoing notes are the following four: the Rev. John Jones of Ystad Meurig, Professor Robert Williams of St. David's College, the Vicar of Llandewi Brefi, Mr. J. H. Davies of Cwrt Mawr and Lincoln's Inn (p. 354); and as to the 'wild cattle' story of Llyn Eidwen, Mr. J. E. Rogers of Aber Meurig is my authority.

[186] So I had it many years ago from an old woman from Llangeitho, and so Mr. J. G. Evans remembers his mother repeating it; but now it is made into Llan Dewi Brefi braith, with the mutations disregarded.

[187] See the Archæologia Cambrensis for 1868, p. 88.

[188] See ib. p. 87. I have ascertained on the best authority the identity of the present owner of the horn, though I have not succeeded in eliciting from him any reply to my inquiries. I conclude that there is something wrong with the postal service in my native county.

[189] Several passages bearing on the word bannog have been brought together in Silvan Evans' Geiriadur. He gives the meaning as 'high, lofty, prominent, conspicuous.' The word is derived from ban, 'a summit or peak,' plural bannau, so common in the names of hills and mountains in South Wales--as in y Fan in Carmarthenshire, Bannwchdeni (p. 22) in Breconshire, Pen y Bannau near Pont Rhyd Fendigaid in Cardiganshire, Bannau Brycheiniog and Bannau Sir Gaer, the mountains called in English the Beacons of Breconshire and Carmarthenshire respectively. In North Wales we have it possibly in the compound Tryfan, which the mapsters will have us call Tryfaen; and the corresponding word in Scotch Gaelic appears in such names as Ben Nevis and the like, while in Irish the word benn meant a horn or peak. I am, nevertheless, not at all sure that Ychen Bannog meant horned oxen or even tall and conspicuous oxen; for there is a Welsh word man, meaning a spot or mark (Latin menda), and the adjective was mannawc, mannog, 'spotted, marked, particoloured.' Now in the soft mutation all four words--ban, bannog, and man, mannog--would begin with f = v, which might help to confusion between them. This may be illustrated in a way from Williams' Seint Greal (pp. 88-92), where Gwalchmai has a dream in which he sees 150 bulls with spots or patches of colour on them, except three only which were 'without any spot in the world' (neb ryw vann or byt), or as it is also put 'without spot' (heb vann). This word vann, applied to the colour of the bulls, comes from the radical form mann; and the adjective was mannawc or mannog, which would mean spotted, particoloured, or having patches of colour. Now the oxen of Welsh legends are also sometimes called Ychen Mannog (pp. 131-2), and it is possible, that, whichever way the term is written, it should be interpreted to mean spotted, marked, or particoloured oxen. I take it also that Llan Dewi Frefi fraith was meant as synonymous with Llan Dewi Frefi fannog, which did not fit the rhyme. Lastly, the Dyfed use of the saying Fel dau ych bannog, 'Like two Bannog oxen,' in the sense of 'equal and inseparable companions' (as instanced in the Geiriadur), sounds like the antithesis of the passage in the Kulhwch (Mabinogion, p. 121). For there we have words to the following effect: 'Though thou shouldst get that, there is something which thou wilt not get, namely the two oxen of Bannog, the one on the other side of the Bannog mountain and the other on this side, and to bring them together to draw the same plough. They are, to wit, Nynio and Peibio, whom God fashioned into oxen for their sins.' Here the difficulty contemplated was not to separate the two, but to bring them together to work under the same yoke. This is more in harmony with the story of the mad quarrel between the two brother kings bearing those names as mentioned above.

[190] See the Revue Celtique, iii. 310, after Gruter, 570, 6.

[191] An important paper on the Tarvos Trigaranus, from the pen of M. Salomon Reinach, will be found in the Revue Celtique, xviii. 253-66; and M. d'A. de Jubainville's remarkable equations are to be read in the same periodical, xix. 245-50: see also xx. 374-5.

[192] This, we are told, was a stone with a hollow in it for pounding corn, so as to separate the husks from the grain; and such a stone stood formerly somewhere near the door of every farm house in Scotland.

[193] The editor here explains in a note that 'this was a common saying formerly, when people were heard to regret trifles.'

[194] I have heard of this belief in Wales late in the sixties; but the presence was assumed to be that of a witch, not of a fairy.

[195] The word twt, 'tidy,' is another vocable which has found its way into Wales from the western counties of England; and though its meaning is more universally that of 'tidy or natty,' the term gwas twt, which in North Cardiganshire means a youth who is ready to run on all kinds of errands, would seem to bring us to its earlier meaning of the French tout--as if gwas twt might be rendered a 'garçon à tout'--which survives as tote in the counties of Gloucester and Hereford, as I am informed by Professor Wright. Possibly, however, one may prefer to connect twt with the nautical English word taut; but we want more light. In any case one may venture to say that colloquial Welsh swarms with words whose origin is to be sought outside the Principality.

[196] See Folk-Lore for 1889, pp. 144-52.

[197] Ibid. for 1891, p. 246, where one will find this rhyme the subject of a note--rendered useless by a false reference--by Köhler; see also the same volume, p. 132, where Mr. Kirby gives more lines of the rhyme.

[198] See Choice Notes from 'Notes and Queries,' p. 35.

[199] A number of instructive instances will be found mentioned, and discussed in his wonted and lucid fashion, by Mr. Clodd in his Tom Tit Tot, pp. 80-105.

[200] The Welsh spelling is caws pob, 'baked (or roasted) cheese,' so called in parts of South Wales, such as Carmarthenshire, whereas in North Wales it is caws pobi. It is best known to Englishmen as 'Welsh rabbit,' which superior persons 'ruling the roast' in our kitchens choose to make into rarebit: how they would deal with 'Scotch woodcock' and 'Oxford hare,' I do not know. I should have mentioned that copies of the Hundred Mery Talys are exceedingly scarce, and that the above, which is the seventy-sixth in the collection, has here been copied from the Cymmrodor, iii. 115-6, where we have the following sapient note:--'Cause bobe, it will be observed, is St. Peter's rendering of the phrase Caws wedi ei bobi. The chief of the Apostles apparently had only a rather imperfect knowledge of Welsh, which is not to be wondered at, as we know that even his Hebrew was far from giving satisfaction to the priests of the capital.' From these words one can only say that St. Peter would seem to have known Welsh far better than the author of that note, and that he had acquired it from natives of South Wales, perhaps from the neighbourhood of Kidwelly. I have to thank my friend Mr. James Cotton for a version of the cheese story in the Bodleian Library, namely in Malone MS. 19 (p. 144), where a certain master at Winchester School has put it into elegiacs which make St. Peter cry out with the desired effect: Tostus io Walli, tostus modo caseus.

[201] See Choice Notes from 'Notes and Queries,' pp. 117-8.

[202] For instance, when Cúchulainn had fallen asleep under the effect of fairy music, Fergus warned his friends that he was not to be disturbed, as he seemed to be dreaming and seeing a vision: see Windisch's Irische Texte, p. 208; also the Revue Celtique, v. 231. For parallels to the two stories in this paragraph, see Tylor's first chapter on Animism in his Primitive Culture, and especially the legend of King Gunthram, i. 442.

[203] See Mr. Gomme's presidential address to the Folk-Lore Society, printed in Folk-Lore for 1892, pp. 6-7.

[204] See Sale's preliminary discourse to his translation of the Koran, § iv.

[205] Perhaps we may regard this as the more Goidelic account of Blodeuwed's origin: at any rate, traces of a different one have been noticed in a note at p. 439 above.

[206] One version of it is given in the Myvyrian Archaiology, i. 176-8; and two other versions are to be found in the Cymmrodor, viii. 177-89, where it is suggested that the author was Iolo Goch, who flourished in the fourteenth century. See also my Arthurian Legend, pp. 57-8.

[207] See also the notes on these passages, given in San-Marte's edition of Geoffrey, pp. 219, 463-5, and his Beiträge zur bretonischen und celtisch germanischen Heldensage (Quedlinburg and Leipsic, 1847), p. 81.

[208] See Choice Notes, pp. 69-70.

[209] See Wood-Martin's Pagan Ireland (London, 1895), p. 140.

[210] See Choice Notes, p. 61, where it is also stated that the country people in Yorkshire used to give the name of souls to certain night-flying white moths. See also the Athenæum, No. 1041, Oct. 9, 1847.

[211] For this also I am indebted to Wood-Martin's book, p. 140.

[212] See the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 198, and Windisch's Irische Texte, pp. 136-45. An abstract of the story will be found in the Hibbert Lectures on Celtic Heathendom, p. 502.

[213] See the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 129a-133a; Windisch's Irische Texte, pp. 117-33, more especially pp. 127-31; also my Arthurian Legend, pp. 29-33.

[214] See the Book of Taliessin, poem vii, in Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales, ii. 136-7; also poem viii, p. 137 et seq.

[215] Some account of this process will be found in Elton's Origins of English History (London, 1882), p. 33, where he has drawn on Martin's Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, published in 1703: see pp. 204-5.

[216] For one or two instances of the nomenclature in question, see pp. 76-7 above.

[217] Sywedyd is probably a word of Goidelic origin: compare Irish súi, 'a sage,' genitive súad, and derivative súithe, 'wisdom.' Stokes suggests the derivation su-vet, in which case súi = su-vi, for su-viss = su-vet-s, and sú-ithe = suvetia, while the Welsh sywedyd is formally su-vetios or su-vetiios. Welsh has also syw, from súi, like dryw, 'a druid,' from Goidelic drúi. Syw, it is true, now only means elegant, tidy; but Dr. Davies of Mallwyd believed its original signification to have been 'sapiens, doctus, peritus.' The root vet is most probably to be identified with the wet of Med. Welsh gwet-id, 'a saying,' dy-wawt, 'dixit,' whence it appears that the bases were vet and vat, with the latter of which Irish fáith, 'a poet or prophet,' Latin vates, agrees, as also the Welsh gwawd, 'poetry, sarcasm,' and in Mod. Welsh, 'any kind of derision.' In the Book of Taliessin syw has, besides the plurals sywyon and sywydon (Skene, ii. 142, 152), possibly an older plural, sywet (p. 155) = su-vet-es, while for súithe = su-vetia we seem to have sywyd or sewyd (pp. 142, 152, 193); but all the passages in point are more or less obscure, I must confess.

[218] See the Book of Taliessin, in Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales, ii. 130-1, 134, 142, 151-2, 155.

[219] As, for instance, in the account given of Uath mac Imomain in Fled Bricrenn: see the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 110b, and Windisch's Irische Texte, p. 293.

[220] The Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 77a, and the Book of Leinster, fo. 75b: compare also the story of Tuan mac Cairill in the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 16b, where the Tuatha Dé Danann are represented as Tuatha Dee ocus Ande, 'the tribes of gods and not-gods,' to whom one of the manuscripts adds a people of legendary Ireland called the Galiúin. See the story as recently edited by Professor Kuno Meyer in Nutt's Voyage of Bran, ii. 291-300, where, however, the sense of § 12 with its allusion to the fall of Lucifer is missed in the translation. It should read, I think, somewhat as follows:--'Of these are the Tuatha Dee and Ande, whose origin is unknown to the learned, except that they think it probable, judging from the intelligence of the Tuatha and their superiority in knowledge, that they belong to the exiles who came from heaven.'

[221] See Evans' Black Book of Carmarthen, fo. 33b; also the Mabinogion, pp. 104, 306. The Irish lucht cumachtai would be in Welsh literally rendered llwyth cyfoeth, 'the cyfoeth tribe or host,' as it were. For cyfoeth, in Med. Welsh, meant power or dominion, whence cyfoethog, 'powerful,' and holl-gyfoethog, 'almighty'; but in Mod. Welsh cyfoeth and cyfoethog have been degraded to mean 'riches' and 'rich' respectively. Now if we dropped the prefix cum from the Irish cumachtai, and its equivalent cyf from the Welsh cyfoeth, we should have lucht cumachtai reduced to an approximate analogy to llwyth Oeth, 'the Oeth tribe,' for which we have the attested equivalent Teulu Oeth, 'the Oeth household or family.' Oeth, however, seems to have meant powerful rather than power, and this seems to have been its force in Gwalchmai's poetry of the twelfth century, where I find it twice: see the Myvyrian Arch., i. 196b, 203a. In the former passage we have oeth dybydaf o dybwyf ryd, 'I shall be powerful if I be free,' and in the latter oeth ym uthrwyd, 'mightily was I astonished or dismayed.' An-oeth was the negative of oeth, and meant weak, feeble, frivolous: so we find its plural, anoetheu, applied in the story of Kulhwch to the strange quests on which Kulhwch had to engage himself and his friends, before he could hope to obtain Olwen to be his wife. This has its parallel in the use of the adjective gwan, 'weak,' in the following instance among them:--Arthur and his men were ready to set out in search of Mabon son of Modron, who was said to have been kidnapped, when only three nights old, from between his mother Modron and the wall; and though this had happened a fabulously long time before Arthur was born, nothing had ever been since heard of Mabon's fate. Now Arthur's men said that they would set out in search of him, but they considered that Arthur should not accompany them on feeble quests of the kind: their words were (p. 128), ny elli di uynet ath lu y geissa6 peth mor uan ar rei hynn, 'thou canst not go with thy army to seek a thing so weak as these are.' Here we have uan as the synonym of an-oeth; but Oeth ac Anoeth probably became a phrase which was seldom analysed or understood; so we have besides Teulu Oeth ac Anoeth, a Caer Oeth ac Anoeth, or fortress of O. and A., and a Carchar Caer Oeth ac Anoeth, or the Prison of Caer O. and A., which is more shortly designated also Carchar Oeth ac Anoeth, or the Prison of O. and A. A late account of the building of that strange prison and fortress by Manawydan is given in the Iolo MSS., pp. 185-6, 263, and it is needless to point out that Manawydan, son of Llyr, was no other than the Manannán mac Lir of Irish literature, the greatest wizard among the Tuatha Dé or Tuatha Dé Danann; for the practical equivalence of those names is proved by the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 16b. For further details about Oeth and Anoeth, Silvan Evans' Geiriadur may be consulted, s. v. Anoeth, where instances are cited of the application of those terms to tilled land and wild or uncultivated land. Here the words seem to have the secondary meanings of profitable and unprofitable lands, respectively: compare a somewhat analogous use of grym, 'strength, force,' in a passage relating to the mutilated horses of Matholwch--hyt nad oed rym a ellit ar meirch, 'so that no use was possible in the case of the horses,' meaning that they were of no use whatever, or that they had been done for: see the Oxford Mabinogion, p. 29, and Lady Charlotte Guest's, iii. 107, where the translation 'and rendered them useless' is barely strong enough.

[222] It is right, however, to state that M. d'A. de Jubainville's account of the views of Erigena is challenged by Mr. Nutt, ii. 105.

[223] For instance, by Silvan Evans in his Geiriadur, where, s. v. dihaed, he suggests 'unmerited' or 'undeserved' as conveying the sense meant.

[224] The reader will find them quoted under the word Druida in Holder's Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz: see also M. Alexandre Bertrand's Religion des Gaulois, especially the chapter entitled Les Druides, pp. 252-76, and Nutt's Voyage of Bran, ii. 107-12.

[225] See Valerius Maximus, ii. 6. 10.

[226] See the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 68a.

[227] Notably Johannes Schmidt in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, xxiii. 267, where he gives the following gradations of the stem in question:--1. anman; 2. anaman; 3. naman; 4. naman.

[228] See Clodd's Tom Tit Tot, p. 97.

[229] Tom Tit Tot, p. 89.

[230] The Oxford Mabinogion, p. 100.

[231] The Oxford Mabinogion, p. 35.

[232] As to Irish, I would not lay much stress on the question 'What is your name?' being put, in a fourteenth or fifteenth century version of the French story of Fierabras, as ca hainm tú?--literally, 'what name art thou?' see the Revue Celtique, xix. 28. It may be mentioned here that the Irish writers of glossaries had a remarkable way of appearing to identify words and things. Thus, for instance, Cormac has Cruimther .i. Gædelg indi as presbyter, which O'Donovan (edited by Stokes) has translated, p. 30, as 'Cruimther, i. e. the Gaelic of presbyter': literally it would be rather 'of the thing which is presbyter.' Similarly, Cormac's explanation of the Irish aiminn, now aoibhinn, 'delightful,' runs thus in Latin, Aimind ab eo quod est amoenum, 'from the word amoenus,' literally, 'from that which is amoenus.' But this construction is a favourite one of Latin grammarians, and instances will be found in Professor Lindsay's Latin Language (Oxford, 1894), pp. 26, 28, 42, 53. On calling his attention to it, he kindly informed me that it can be traced as far back as Varro, from whose Lingua Latina, vi. 4, he cites Meridies ab eo quod medius dies. So in this matter, Irish writers have merely imitated their Latin models; and one detects a trace of the same imitation in some of the Old Welsh glosses, for instance in the Juvencus Codex, where we have XPS explained as irhinn issid crist, 'that which is Christ,' evidently meaning, 'the word Christos or Christus.' So with regia, rendered by gulat, 'a state or country,' in celsi thronus est cui regia caeli; which is glossed issit padiu itau gulat, 'that is the word gulat for him' = 'he means his country': see Kuhn's Beiträge, iv. 396, 411.

[233] Some instances in point, accompanied with comments on certain eminently instructive practices and theories of the Church, will be found in Clodd's Tom Tit Tot, pp. 100-5.

[234] For some instances of name-giving by the druid, the reader may consult The Welsh People, pp. 66-70; and druidic baptism will be found alluded to in Stokes' edition of Coir Anmann, and in Stokes and Windisch's Irische Texte, iii. 392, 423. See also the Revue Celtique, xix. 90.

[235] See The Welsh People, more especially pp. 71-4, where it has been attempted to discuss this question more at length.

[236] See Stokes' Cormac's Glossary, translated by O'Donovan, p. 87, and O'Curry's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, ii. 218-9.

[237] See Mind for 1893, p. 390: the review is by Mr. A. T. Myers, and the title of the book noticed is La Pathologie des Émotions, Études physiologiques et cliniques, par Charles Féré, médecin de Bicêtre (Paris, 1892).

[238] See Frazer's Golden Bough, i. 9, where a few most instructive instances are given.

[239] See Guest's Mabinogion, iii. 255, where, however, Dôn is wrongly treated as a male.

[240] One has, however, to admit that the same agency may also mar the picture. Since the above was written I have read in Stokes' Festschrift, pp. 7-19, a very interesting article by L. Chr. Stern, in which he discusses some of the difficulties attaching to the term Tuatha Dé Danann. Among other things he suggests that there was a certain amount of confusion between Danann and dána, genitive of dán, 'art or profession'--the word meant also 'lot or destiny,' being probably of the same origin as the Latin donum, in Welsh dawn, which means a gift, and especially 'the gift of the gab.' But it would invert the natural sequence to suppose any such a formula as Tuatha Dé Dána to have preceded Tuatha Dé Danann; for why should anybody substitute an obscure vocable Danann for dána of well-known meaning? Dr. Stern has some doubts as to the Welsh Dôn being a female; but it would have been more satisfactory if he had proved his surmise, or at any rate shown that Dôn has nothing to do with Danann or Donann. I am satisfied with such a passage in the Mabinogi of Math as that where Gwydion, addressing Math, describes Arianrhod, daughter of Dôn, in the words, dy nith uerch dy ch6aer, 'thy niece daughter of thy sister': see the Mabinogion, p. 68, and, for similar references to other children of Dôn, consult pp. 59 and 65. Arianrhod is in the older Triads, i. 40, ii. 15, called daughter of Beli, whom one can only have regarded as her father. So for the present I continue to accept Stokes' rendering of Tuatha Dé Danann as 'the Folks of the Goddess Danu.'

[241] See the Oxford Mabinogion, p. 102; Guest's trans., ii. 252. The combination occurs also in the Book of Aneurin: see Stephens' Gododin (London, 1888), p. 322.

[242] It will be noticed that there is a discrepancy between the gutturals of these two words: tyngu, 'to swear' (O. Ir. tongu, 'I swear'), has ng--the Kulhwch spelling, tynghaf, should probably be tyngaf--while tynghed and its Irish equivalent imply an nc. I do not know how to explain this, though I cannot doubt the fact of the words being treated as cognate. A somewhat similar difference, however, occurs in Welsh dwyn, 'to bear, carry, steal,' and dwg, 'carries, bears': see the Revue Celtique, vi. 18-9.

[243] See the Oxford Mabinogion, p. 100, and Guest's trans., ii. 249, where it is rendered 'a wife as a helpmate,' which is more commonplace than suggestive.

[244] La Cité antique (Paris, 1864), p. 50; see also Joachim Marquardt's Privatleben der Römer (Leipsic, 1886), pp. 49-51, and among the references there given may be mentioned Dionysius of Halicarnassus, ii. 25.

[245] See Vigfusson and Powell's Corpus Poeticum Boreale, i. 126, 181-3, 197; the Prose Edda in Edda Snorronis Sturlæi (Copenhagen, 1848), i. 90-2, 102, 104, 172-86; and Simrock's Edda (Stuttgart, 1855), pp. 292-3, 295-6, 299, 316-20.

[246] Two versions of a story to account for the Ultonian couvade have been published with a translation into German, by Prof. Windisch, in the Berichte der k. sächs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften (phil.-hist. Classe) for 1884, pp. 338 et seq. Sundry references to the couvade will also be found in my Hibbert Lectures, where certain mythological suggestions made with reference to it require to be reconsidered. But when touching on this point it occurred to me that the wholesale couvade of the Ultonian braves, at one and the same time of the year, implied that the birth of Ultonian children, or at any rate those of them that were to be reared, took place (in some period or other of the history of their race) at a particular season of the year, namely, about the beginning of the winter, that is when food would be most abundant. I have since been confirmed in this view by perusing Westermarck's work on the History of Human Marriage, and by reading especially his second chapter entitled 'A Human Pairing Season in Primitive Times.' For there I find a considerable body of instances in point, together with a summary treatment of the whole question. But in the case of promiscuity, such as originally prevailed doubtless at the Ultonian Court, the question what men were to go into couvade could only be settled by the confinement of them all, wherein we have an alternative if not an additional reason for a simultaneous couvade.

[247] See Strabo, iii. 165, and Diodorus, v. 14.

[248] For some more detailed remarks on the reckoning of descent by birth, see The Welsh People, pp. 36 et seq.

[249] In Welsh eli means 'ointment,' probably so called from spells pronounced over it when used as a remedy. In the Twrch Trwyth story (Oxford Mabinogion, p. 138) one of Arthur's men bears the curious designation of Reid6n uab Eli Atuer, which might be Englished 'R. son of the Restoring Ointment,' unless one should rather say 'of the Restoring Enchantment.'

[250] See the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 128b, and Windisch's Irische Texte, pp. 138-9. The rebirth of Lug as Cúchulainn has been touched upon in my Hibbert Lectures, p. 431; but since then the whole question of rebirth has been discussed at length in Nutt and Meyer's volumes entitled The Voyage of Bran (London, 1895).

[251] Tylor's Primitive Culture, ii. 4, where he gives a reference to Gustav Klemm's Culturgeschichte, iii. 77, and Klemm's authority proves to be Jessen, whose notes are given in a 'tractatus' bound with Knud Leem De Lapponibus Finmarchiæ (Copenhagen, 1767): Jessen's words in point read as follows, p. 33:--Et baptismum quidem, quem ipsi Laugo, i. e. lavacrum appellabant, quod attinet, observandum occurrit, foeminam Lapponicam, jam partui vicinam, atque in eo statu Sarakkæ impensius commendatam, de nomine, nascituro infanti imponendo, per insomnia plerumque a Jabmekio quodam admonitam fuisse et simul de Jabmekio illo, qui, ut ipsi quidem loqui amarunt, in hoc puero resuscitandus foret, edoctam. Hujusmodi per insomnia factas admonitiones niëgost nuncuparunt Lappones. Si gravida mulier a Jabmekio hac ratione edocta non fuerit, recens nati infantis vel parenti vel cognatis incubuit, per to Myran, in tympano, securi vel balteo susceptum, vel etiam Noaaidum consulendo, explorare, quo potissimum nomine infans appellandus esset. In the body of Leem's work, p. 497, one reads, that if the child sickens or cries after baptism, this is taken to prove that the right ancestor has not been found; but as he must be discovered and his name imposed on the child, resort is had to a fresh baptism to correct the effects of the previous one.

[252] See Holder's Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz, s. v. Lugus; also the index to my Hibbert Lectures, s. v. Lleu, Lug, Lugoves.

[253] For more on this subject see the chapter on the Pictish question in The Welsh People, pp. 36-74.

[254] It is right to say that the story represents the fairies as living under the rule of a rí, a title usually rendered by 'king'; but rí (genitive rig) was probably at one time applicable to either sex, just as we find Gaulish names like Biturix and Visurix borne by women. The wonder, however, is that such a line as that just quoted has not been edited out of the verses long ago, just as one misses any equivalent for it in Joyce's English expansion of the story in his Old Celtic Romances, pp. 106-11. Compare, however, the Land of the Women in the Voyage of Maildun (Joyce, pp. 152-6), and in Meyer and Nutt's Voyage of Bran, i. 30-3.

[255] This conclusion has been given in a note at the foot of p. 37 of The Welsh People; but for a variety of instances to illustrate it see Hartland's chapters on Supernatural Birth in his Legend of Perseus.

[256] See Frazer's article on 'The Origin of Totemism' in the Fortnightly Review for April, 1899, p. 649. The passage to which it refers will be found at p. 265 of Spencer and Gillen's volume, where one reads as follows:--'Added to this we have amongst the Arunta, Luritcha, and Ilpirra tribes, and probably also amongst others such as the Warramunga, the idea firmly held that the child is not the direct result of intercourse, that it may come without this, which merely, as it were, prepares the mother for the reception and birth also of an already-formed spirit child who inhabits one of the local totem centres. Time after time we have questioned them on this point, and always received the reply that the child was not the direct result of intercourse.' It is curious to note how readily the Australian notion here presented would develop into that of the Lapps, as given at p. 658 from Jessen's notes.

[257] This feature of Welsh has escaped M. de Charencey, in his instructive letter on 'Numération basque et celtique,' in No. 48 of the Bulletin de la Soc. de Linguistique de Paris, pp. cxv-cxix. In passing, I may be allowed to mention a numerical curiosity which occurs in Old Irish: it has probably an important historical significance. I refer to the word for 'seven men' occurring sometimes as morfeser, which means, as it were, a magnus seviratus or 'big sixer.'

[258] The non-Welsh names of the fairy ancestress ought possibly to lead one to discover the origin of that settlement; and a careful study perhaps of the language of the Belsiaid or Bellisians, if their Welsh has any dialectic peculiarities, might throw further light on their past.

[259] Our stories frequently delight in giving the fairy women fine dresses and long trains; but I would rely more on the Ystrad Meurig smith's account (p. 245), and the case of the Pennant fairy who tears to shreds the gown offered her (p. 109).