Note 64 — Chapter IX · Place-name Stories

Here possibly one might mention likewise Gilmin Troetu or Troedđu, ‘Gilmin of the Black Foot,’ the legendary ancestor (p. 444) of the Wynns of Glyn Ỻifon, in Carnarvonshire. So the name might be a shortening of some such a combination as Gilla-min, ‘the attendant of Min or Men,’ a name we have also in Mocu-Min, ‘Min’s Kin,’ a family or sept so called more than once by Adamnan. Perhaps one would also be right in regarding as of similar origin the name of Gilberd or Gilbert, son of Cadgyffro, who is mentioned in the Kulhwch, and in the Black Book, fo. 14b: at any rate I am not convinced that the name is to be identified with the Gillebert of the Normans, unless that was itself derived from Celtic. But there is a discrepancy between Gilmin, Gilbert, with unmutated m and b, and Gilvaethwy with its mutation consonant v. In all three, however, Gil, had it been Welsh, would probably have appeared as Giỻ, as indicated by the name Giỻa in the Kulhwch (Oxford Mabinogion, p. 110), in which we seem to have the later form of the old name Gildas. Compare such Irish instances as Fiachna and Cera, which seem to imply stems originally ending in -asa-s (masculine) and -asā (feminine); and see the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 1899, P. 402. ↑