Note 16 — Chapter IX · Place-name Stories

Mergaed for Mengwaed hardly requires any explanation; and as to Breat or rather Vreat, as it occurs in mutation, we have only to suppose the original carelessly written Vrēac for Vrēach, and we have the usual error of neglecting the stroke indicating the n, and the very common one of confounding c with t. This first-mentioned name should possibly be analysed into Mengw-aed or Menw-aed for an Irish Menb-aed, with the menb, ‘little,’ noticed at p. 510 below; in that case one might compare such compounds of Aed as Beo-aed and Lug-aed in the Martyrology of Gorman. Should this prove well founded the Mod. Welsh transcription of Menwaed should be Menwaeđ. I have had the use of other versions of the Triads from MSS. in the Peniarth collection; but they contribute nothing of any great importance as regards the proper names in the passages here in question. ↑