Note 15 — Chapter XI · Folklore Philosophy

Sywedyđ is probably a word of Goidelic origin: compare Irish súi, ‘a sage,’ genitive súad, and derivative súithe, ‘wisdom.’ Stokes suggests the derivation su-vet, in which case súi = su-vi, for su-viss = su-vet-s, and sú-ithe = suveti̯a, while the Welsh sywedyđ is formally su-veti̯os or su-vetii̯os. Welsh has also syw, from súi, like dryw, ‘a druid,’ from Goidelic drúi. Syw, it is true, now only means elegant, tidy; but Dr. Davies of Maỻwyd believed its original signification to have been ‘sapiens, doctus, peritus.’ The root vet is most probably to be identified with the wet of Med. Welsh gwet-id, ‘a saying,’ dy-wawt, ‘dixit,’ whence it appears that the bases were vĕt and vāt, with the latter of which Irish fáith, ‘a poet or prophet,’ Latin vātes, agrees, as also the Welsh gwawd, ‘poetry, sarcasm,’ and in Mod. Welsh, ‘any kind of derision.’ In the Book of Taliessin syw has, besides the plurals sywyon and sywydon (Skene, ii. 142, 152), possibly an older plural, sywet (p. 155) = su-vet-es, while for súithe = su-veti̯a we seem to have sywyd or sewyd (pp. 142, 152, 193); but all the passages in point are more or less obscure, I must confess. ↑