Note 13 — Chapter III · Fairy Ways and Words (continued 2)

Cwta makes cota in the feminine in North Cardiganshire; the word is nevertheless only the English cutty borrowed. Du, ‘black,’ has corresponding to it in Irish, dubh. So the Welsh word seems to have passed through the stages dyv, dyw, before yw was contracted into û, which was formerly pronounced like French û, as proved by the grammar already mentioned (p. 22) of J. D. Rhys, published in London in 1592; see p. 33, to which my attention has been called by Prof. J. Morris Jones. In Old or pre-Norman Welsh m did duty for m and v, so one detects dyv as dim in a woman’s name Penardim, ‘she of the very black head’; there was also a Penarwen, ‘she of the very blonde head.’ The look of Penardim having baffled the redactor of the Branwen, he left the spelling unchanged: see the (Oxford) Mabinogion, p. 26. The same sort of change which produced du has produced cnu, ‘a fleece,’ as compared with cneifio, ‘to fleece’; ỻuarth, ‘a kitchen garden,’ as compared with its Irish equivalent lubhghort. Compare also Rhiwabon, locally pronounced Rhuabon, and Rhiwaỻon, occurring sometimes as Rhuaỻon. But the most notable rôle of this phonetic process is exemplified by the verbal nouns ending in u, such as caru, ‘to love,’ credu, ‘to believe,’ tyngu, ‘to swear,’ in which the u corresponds to an m termination in Old Irish, as in sechem, ‘to follow,’ cretem, ‘belief,’ sessam or sessom, ‘to stand.’ ↑