Note 38 — Chapter VII · Triumphs of the Water-world

While touching at p. 286 on Gwaen Ỻifon with its Ỻyn Pencraig as one of those claiming to be the Ỻyn Ỻïon of the Triads, it was hinted that Ỻïon was but a thinner form of Ỻifon. Here one might mention perhaps another Ỻifon, for which, however, no case could be made. I allude to the name of the residence of the Wynns descended from Gilmin Troedđu, namely, Glyn Ỻifon, which means the river Ỻifon’s Glen; but one could not feel surprised if the neighbouring Ỻyfni, draining the lakes of Nantỻe, should prove to have once been also known as a Ỻifon, with the Nantỻe waters conforming by being called Ỻyn Ỻifon. But however that may be, one may say as to the flood caused by the bursting of any such lake, that the notion of the universality of the catastrophe was probably contributed by the author of Triad iii. 13, from a non-Welsh source. He may have, however, not invented the vessel in which he places Dwyfan and Dwyfach: at all events, one version of the story of the Fan Fach represents the Lake Lady arriving in a boat. As to the writer of the other Triad, iii. 97, he says nothing about Dwyfan and his wife, but borrows Nefyđ Naf Neifion’s ship to save all that were to be saved; and here one may probably venture to identify Nefyđ with Nemed38, genitive Nemid, a name borne in Irish legend by a rover who is represented as one of the early colonizers of Erin. As to the rest, the name Neifion by itself is used in Welsh for Neptune and the sea, as in the following couplet of D. ab Gwilym’s poem lv:—