Note 9 — Chapter IX · Place-name Stories

See the Oxford Mabinogion, p. 196, and Guest’s trans., i. 302, where the Welsh words a golỽython o gic meluoch are rendered ‘and collops of the flesh of the wild boar,’ which can hardly be correct; for the mel in mel-uoch, or mel-foch in the modern spelling, is the equivalent of the Irish melg, ‘milk.’ So the word must refer either to a pig that had been fed on cows’ milk or else a sucking pig. The former is the more probable meaning, but one is not helped to decide by the fact, that the word is still sometimes used in books by writers who imagine that they have here the word mel, ‘honey,’ and that the compound means pigs whose flesh is as sweet as honey: see Dr. Pughe’s Dictionary, where melfoch is rendered ‘honey swine,’ whatever that may mean. ↑