Chapter III · Fairy Ways and Words (continued 2)
Reading edition
The Crown of the Giants’ Island.
Here Ynys y Ceûri inevitably recalls the fact that Britain is called Ynys y Kedyrn, or Island of the Mighty, in the Mabinogion, and also, in effect, in the story of Kulhwch and Olwen. But such stories as these, which enabled Geoffrey to say, i. 16, when he introduced his banal brood of Trojans, that up to that time Britain had only been inhabited by a few giants, are the legends, as will be pointed out later, of the Brythonicized Goidels of Wales. So one may infer that their ancestors had given this country the name of the Island of the Mighty, unless it should prove more accurate to suppose them to have somehow derived the term from the Aborigines.
Notes in this chapter
Note 1 · Out of excessive fondness for our Arthur English people translate this name into Arthur’s Seat instead of Idris’ Seat; but Idris was also soNote 2 · There is a special similarity between this and an Anglesey story given by Howells, p. 138: it consists in the sequence of seeing the fairiesNote 3 · It was so called by the poet D. ab Gwilym, cxcii. 12, when he sang:Note 4 · This is commonly pronounced ‘Y Gath Dorwen,’ but the people of the neighbourhood wish to explain away a farm name which could, strangely enoNote 5 · The hiring time in Wales is the beginning of winter and of summer; or, as one would say in Welsh, at the Calends of Winter and the Calends oNote 6 · In a Cornish story mentioned in Choice Notes, p. 77, we have, instead of ointment, simply soap. See also Mrs. Bray’s Banks of the Tamar, pp.Note 7 · See the Mabinogion, pp. 1–2; Evans’ Facsimile of the Black Book of Carmarthen, fol. 49b–50a; Rhys’ Arthurian Legend, pp. 155–8; Edmund JonesNote 8 · As it stands now this would be unmutated Césel Gýfarch, ‘Cyfarch’s Nook,’ but there never was such a name. There was, however, Elgýfarch or Note 9 · Owing to some oversight he has ‘a clean or a dirty cow’ instead of cow-yard or cow-house, as I understand it. ↑Note 10 · Cwta makes cota in the feminine in North Cardiganshire; the word is nevertheless only the English cutty borrowed. Du, ‘black,’ has corresponNote 11 · In medieval Welsh poetry this name was still a dissyllable; but now it is pronounced Ỻŷn, in conformity with the habit of the Gwyndodeg, whiNote 12 · It is also called dolur byr, or the ‘short disease’; I believe I have been told that it is the disease known to ‘the vet.’ as anthrax. ↑Note 13 · Here the writer seems to have been puzzled by the mh of Amheirchion, and to have argued back to a radical form Parch; but he was on the wronNote 14 · This is pronounced Rhiwan, though probably made up of Rhiw-wen, for it is the tendency of the Gwyndodeg to convert e and ai of the unaccenteNote 15 · I may mention that some of the Francises of Anglesey are supposed to be descendants of Frazers, who changed their name on finding refuge in Note 16 · According to old Welsh orthography this would be written Moudin, and in the book Welsh of the present day it would have to become Meuđin. ReNote 17 · For other mentions of the colours of fairy dress see pp. 44, 139 above, where red prevails, and contrast the Lake Lady of Ỻyn Barfog clad inNote 18 · This name means the Bridge of the Blessed Ford, but how the ford came to be so called I know not. The word bendigaid, ‘blessed,’ comes from Note 19 · I am far from certain what y nos, ‘the night,’ may mean in such names as this and Craig y Nos, ‘the Rock of the Night’ (p. 254 above), to whNote 20 · Dâr is a Glamorgan pronunciation, metri gratiâ of what is written daear, ‘earth’: compare d’ar-fochyn in Glamorgan for a badger, literally ‘Note 21 · Applied in Glamorgan to a child that looks poorly and does not grow. ↑Note 22 · In Cardiganshire a conjurer is called dyn hysbys, where hysbys (or, in older orthography, hyspys) means ‘informed’: it is the man who is infNote 23 · Rhyd y Gloch means ‘the Ford of the Bell,’ in allusion, as the story goes, to a silver bell that used in former ages to be at Ỻanwonno ChurcNote 24 · It was peat fires that were usual in those days even in Glamorgan. ↑Note 25 · See Hartland’s Science of Fairy Tales, pp. 112–6. ↑Note 26 · In no other version has Mr. Reynolds heard cwcwỻ wy iâr, but either plisgyn or cibyn wy iâr, to which I may add masgal from Mr. Craigfryn HuNote 27 · The whole passage will be found in the Itinerarium Kambriæ, i. 8 (pp. 75–8), and Giraldus fixes the story a little before his time somewhereNote 28 · The words in the original are: Nec carne vescebantur, nec pisce; lacteis plerumque cibariis utentes, et in pultis modum quasi croco confectiNote 29 · Perhaps it is this also that suggested the name Eliodorus, as it were Ἡλιόδωρος; for the original name was probably the medieval Welsh one oNote 30 · For one or two more instances from Wales see Howells, pp. 54–7. Brittany also is a great country for death portents: see A. Le Braz, LégendeNote 31 · Another word for the toeli is given by Silvan Evans as used in certain parts of South Wales, namely, tolaeth or dolath, as to which he mentiNote 32 · See, for instance, pp. 200, 221, 228. ↑Note 33 · Mrs. Williams-Ellis of Glasfryn writes to me that the place is now called Bwlch Trwyn Swncwl, that it is a gap on the highest part of the roNote 34 · For this I am indebted to Mr. Gwenogvryn Evans’ Report on MSS. in the Welsh Language, i. 585 k. The words were written by Williams about theNote 35 · See the Oxford Mabinogion, pp. 110, 113, and 27–9, 36–41, 44, also 309, where a Triad explains that the outposts were Anglesey, Man, and LunNote 36 · For Prydyn in the plural see Skene’s Four Ancient Books of Wales, ii. 209, also 92, where Pryden is the form used. In modern Welsh the two sNote 37 · So Geoffrey (i. 12–15) brings his Trojans on their way to Britain into Aquitania, where they fight with the Pictavienses, whose king he callNote 38 · Cadarn and cadr postulate respectively some such early forms as catṛno-s and cadro-s, which according to analogy should become cadarn and caNote 39 · The most important of these are the old Breton kazr, now kaer, ‘beautiful or pretty,’ and old Cornish caer of the same meaning; elsewhere weNote 40 · The Fairy Glen above Bettws y Coed is called in Welsh Ffos ‘Nođyn, ‘the Sink of the Abyss’; but Mr. Gethin Jones told me that it was also caNote 41 · This last surmise is countenanced by the fact that in the Kulhwch story, the British Isles as a group are called Islands of the Mighty. The Note 42 · Rhys ab Sion â’r hysbys iaith, Gwr yw acw o Grugcaith.Note 43 · This spelling postulates the interpretation Crug-Caith, earlier Crug y Ceith, ‘the mound or barrow of the captives,’ in reference to some foNote 44 · I odi ac i luchio Ođiar lechweđ Moel Eilio. To bring snow and drifting flakes From off Moel Eilio’s slope.