Note 10 — Chapter X · Difficulties of the Folklorist

The next story10 points to a spot between y Dinas or Dinas Emrys and Ỻyn y Dinas as containing the grave of Owen y Mhacsen, that is to say, ‘Owen son of Maxen.’ Owen had been fighting with a giant—whose name local tradition takes for granted—with balls of steel; and there are depressions (panylau11) still to be seen in the ground where each of the combatants took his stand. Some, however, will have it that it was with bows and arrows they fought, and that the hollows are the places they dug to defend themselves. The result was that both died at the close of the conflict; and Owen, being asked where he wished to be buried, ordered an arrow to be shot into the air and his grave to be made where it fell. The story is similarly given in the Iolo MSS., pp. 81–2, where the combatants are called Owen Finđu ab Macsen Wledig, ‘Owen of the Dark Face, son of Prince Maxen,’ and Eurnach Hen, ‘E. the Ancient,’ one of the Gwyđyl or ‘Goidels’ of North Wales, and otherwise called Urnach Wyđel. He is there represented as father (1) of the Serrigi defeated by Catwaỻawn or Cadwaỻon Law-hir, ‘C. the Long-handed,’ at Cerrig y Gwyđyl, ‘the Stones of the Goidels,’ near Maỻdraeth12, in Anglesey, where the great and final rout of the Goidels is represented as having taken place13; (2) of Daronwy, an infant spared and brought up in Anglesey to its detriment, as related in the other story, p. 504; and (3) of Solor, who commands one of the three cruising fleets of the Isle of Prydain14. The stronghold of Eurnach or Urnach is said to have been Dinas Ffaraon, which was afterwards called Din Emreis and Dinas Emrys. The whole story about the Goidels in North Wales, however, as given in the Iolo MSS., pp. 78–80, is a hopeless jumble, though it is probably based on old traditions. In fact, one detects Eurnach or Urnach as Wrnach or Gwrnach in the story of Kulhwch and Olwen15 in the Red Book, where we are told that Kei or Cai, and others of Arthur’s men, got into the giant’s castle and cut off his head in order to secure his sword, which was one of the things required for the hunting of Twrch Trwyth. In an obscure passage, also in a poem in the Black Book, we read of Cai fighting in the hall of this giant, who is then called Awarnach16. Some such a feat appears to have been commemorated in the place-name Gwryd Cai, ‘Cai’s Feat of Arms,’ which occurs in Ỻewelyn’s grant of certain lands on the Beđgelert and Pen Gwryd side of Snowdon in 1198 to the monks of Aberconwy, or rather in an inspeximus of the same: see Dugdale’s Monasticon, v. 673a, where it stands printed gwryt, kei. Nor is it unreasonable to guess that Pen Gwryd is only a shortening of Pen Gwryd Cai, ‘Cai’s Feat Knoll or Terminus’; but compare p. 217 above. Before leaving Cai I may point out that tradition seems to ascribe to him as his residence the place called Caer Gai, ‘Cai’s Fort,’ between Bala and Ỻanuwchỻyn. If one may treat Cai as a historical man, one may perhaps suppose him, or some member of his family, commemorated by the vocable Burgocavi on an old stone found at Caer Gai, and said to read: Ic iacit Salvianus Burgocavi filius Cupitiani17—‘Here lies Salvianus Burgocavis, son of Cupitianus.’ The reader may also be referred back to such non-Brythonic and little known figures as Daronwy, Cathbalug, and Brynach, together perhaps with Mengwaed, the wolf-lord of Arỻechweđ, pp. 504–5. It is worth while calling attention likewise to Goidelic indications afforded by the topography of Eryri, to wit such cases as Bwlch Mwrchan or Mwlchan, ‘Mwrchan’s Pass,’ sometimes made into Bwlch Mwyalchen or even Bwlch y Fwyalchen, ‘the Ousel’s Gap,’ near Ỻyn Gwynain; the remarkable remains called Muriau’r Dre, ‘the Town Walls’—otherwise known as Tre’r Gwyđelod18, ‘the Goidels’ town’—on the land of Gwastad Annas at the top of Nanhwynain; and Bwlch y Gwyđel, still higher towards Pen Gwryd, may have meant the ‘Goidel’s Pass.’