Note 5 — Chapter IX · Place-name Stories

The history of the pigs is given, so to say, in the Mabinogion. Pwyỻ had been able to strike up a friendship and even an alliance with Arawn king of Annwvyn5 or Annwn, which now means Hades or the other world; and they kept up their friendship partly by exchanging presents of horses, greyhounds, falcons, and any other things calculated to give gratification to the receiver of them. Among other gifts which Pryderi appears to have received from the king of Annwn were hobeu or moch, ‘pigs, swine,’ which had never before been heard of in the island of Prydain. The news about this new race of animals, and that they formed sweeter food than oxen, was not long before it reached Gwyneđ; and we shall presently see that there was another story which flatly contradicts this part of the Triad, namely to the effect that Gwydion, nephew of Math king of Gwyneđ and a great magician, came to Pryderi’s court at Rhuđlan, near Dolau Bach or Highmead on the Teifi in what is now the county of Cardigan, and obtained some of the swine by deceiving the king. But, to pass by that for the present, I may say that Dyfed seems to have been famous for rearing swine; and at the present day one affects to believe in the neighbouring districts that the chief industry in Dyfed, more especially in South Cardiganshire, consists in the rearing of parsons, carpenters, and pigs. Perhaps it is also worth mentioning that the people of the southern portion of Dyfed are nicknamed by the men of Glamorgan to this day Moch Sir Benfro, ‘the Pigs of Pembrokeshire.’