Note 47 — Chapter IX · Place-name Stories

Rudvyw Rys would be in Modern Welsh Rhuđfyw Rys, and probably means Rhuđfyw the Champion or Fighter, as Rhys is likely to have been synonymous with rhyswr. The corresponding Irish name was Russ or Ross, genitive Rossa, and it appears to come from the same origin as Irish ross, ‘a headland, a forest,’ Welsh rhos, ‘moorland, uncultivated ground.’ The original meaning was presumably ‘exposed or open and untilled land’; and Stokes supposes the word to stand for an early (p)ro-sto- with sto of the same origin as Latin sto, ‘I stand,’ and as the English word stand itself. In that case Ros, genitive Rossa, Welsh Rhys, would mean one who stands out to fight, a προστάτης, so to say. But not only are these words of a different declension implying a nominative Ro-stus, but the Welsh one must have been once accented Ro-stús on the ending which is now lost, otherwise there is no accounting for the change of the remaining vowel into y. Other instances postulating an early Welsh accentuation of the same kind are very probably ỻyg, ‘a fieldmouse,’ Irish luch, ‘a mouse’; pryd, ‘form,’ Irish cruth; pryf, ‘a worm,’ Irish cruim; so also with ych, ‘an ox,’ and nyth, ‘a nest,’ Irish nett, genitive nitt, derived by Stokes from nizdo-, which, however, must have been oxytone, like the corresponding Sanskrit nīdhá. There is one very interesting compound of rhys, namely the saint’s name Rhwydrys, as it were Rēdo-rostus to be compared with Gaulish Eporēdo-rīx, which is found in Irish analysed into rí Eochraidhi, designating the fairy king who was father to Étáin: see Windisch’s Irische Texte, p. 119. Bledrws, Bledrus, as contrasted with Bledrys, Bledris, postulate Goidelic accentuation, while one has to treat Bledruis as a compromise between Bledrws and Bledris, unless it be due to misreading a Bledruif (Book of Ỻan Dâv, pp. 185, 221–2, and Arch. Camb. for 1875, p. 370). The Goidelic accent at an early date moved to first syllables, hence cruth (with its vowel influenced by the u̯ of a stem qu̯r̥t) under the stress accent, became, when unstressed, cridh (from a simplified stem cr̥t) as in Noicride (also Nóicrothach, Windisch, ibid., pp. 259, 261, 266) and Luicridh (Four Masters, A.D. 748), Luccraid, genitive Luccraide (Book of Leinster, 359f), Luguqurit- in Ogam. ↑