Note 19 — Chapter IX · Place-name Stories

Now this story as a whole looks like a sort of device for stringing together explanations of the origin of certain place-names and of certain local characteristics. Leaving entirely out of the reckoning the whole of Mid-Wales, that is to say, the more Brythonic portion of the country, it is remarkable as giving to South Wales credit for certain resources, but to North Wales for pests alone and scourges, except that the writer of the late version bethought himself of Ỻeyn and Eifionyđ as having good land for growing rye; but he was very hazy as to the geography of North Wales—both he and the redactors of the other Triads equally belonged doubtless to South Wales. Among the place-names, Maes Gwenith, ‘the Wheat Field,’ is clear; but hardly less so is the case of Aber Torogi, ‘Mouth of the Troggy,’ where torogi is ‘the pregnancy of animals,’ from torrog, ‘being with young.’ So with Rhiw Gyferthwch, ‘the Hillside or Ascent of Cyferthwch,’ where cyferthwch means ‘pantings, pangs, labour.’ The name Maen Du, ‘Black Rock,’ is left to explain itself; and I am not sure that the original story was not so put as also to explain Ỻonion, to wit, as a sort of plural of ỻawn, ‘full,’ in reference, let us say, to the full ears of the barley grown there. But the reference to the place-names seems to have partly escaped the later tellers of the story or to have failed to impress them as worth emphasizing. They appear to have thought more of explaining the origin of Menwaed’s Wolf and Brynach’s Eagle. Whether this means in the former case that the district of Arỻechweđ was more infested by wolves than any other part of Wales, or that Menwaed, lord of Arỻechweđ, had a wolf as his symbol, it is impossible to say. In another Triad, however, i. 23 = ii. 57, he is reckoned one of the Three Battle-knights who were favourites at Arthur’s court, the others being Caradog Freichfras and Ỻyr Ỻüyđog or Ỻuđ Ỻurugog, while in iii. 29 Menwaed’s place is taken by a son of his called Mael Hir. Similarly with regard to Brynach’s Eagle one has nothing to say, except that common parlance some time or other would seem to have associated the eagle in some way with Brynach the Goidel. The former prevalence of the eagle in the Snowdon district seems to be the explanation of its Welsh name of Eryri—as already suggested, p. 479 above—and the association of the bird with the Goidelic chieftain who had his stronghold under the shadow of Snowdon seems to follow naturally enough. But the details are conspicuous by their scarcity in Welsh literature, though Brynach’s Eagle is probably to be identified with the Aquila Fabulosa of Eryri, of which Giraldus makes a curious mention19. Perhaps the final disuse of Goidelic speech in the district is to be, to some extent, regarded as accounting for our dearth of data. A change of language involved in all probability the shipwreck of many a familiar mode of thought; and many a homely expression must have been lost in the transition before an equivalent acceptable to the Goidel was discovered by him in his adopted idiom.