Note 21 — Chapter III · Fairy Ways and Words (continued 2)

This name means the Bridge of the Blessed Ford, but how the ford came to be so called I know not. The word bendigaid, ‘blessed,’ comes from the Latin verb benedico, ‘I bless,’ and should, but for the objection to nđ in book Welsh, be benđigaid, which, in fact, it is approximately in the northern part of the county, where it is colloquially sounded Pont Rhyd Fynđiged, Fyđiged, or even Fđiged, also Pont Rhyd m̥điged, which represents the result of the unmutated form Bđiged coming directly after the d of rhyd. Somewhat the same is the case with the name of the herb Dail y Fendigaid, literally ‘the Leaves of the Blessed’ (in the feminine singular without any further indication of the noun to be supplied). This name means, I find, ‘hypericum androsæmum, tutsan,’ and in North Cardiganshire we call it Dail y Fynđiged or Fđiged, but in Carnarvonshire the adjective is made to qualify dail, so that it sounds Dail Byđigad or Bđigad, ‘Blessed Leaves.’ ↑