Note 40 — Chapter X · Difficulties of the Folklorist

Into Welsh, however, the designation Silly Frit must have come, not from Scotland, but from the Marches; and the history of Sìli go Dwt must be much the same. For, though construed as Welsh, the name would mean the Silly who is go Dwt40, ‘somewhat tidy or natty’; but the dwt (mutated from twt) was suggested doubtless by the tot of such fairy names as Tom Tit Tot. That brings me to another group, where the syllable is trot or trut, and this we have in the Welsh doggerel, mentioned at p. 229, as follows:—