Note 24 — Chapter IX · Place-name Stories

The boars accordingly set out for Wales, while Arthur with his host, his horses, and his hounds, on board his ship Prydwen, kept within sight of them. Twrch Trwyth came to land at Porth Clais, a small creek south of St. David’s, but Arthur went that night to Mynyw, which seems to have been Menevia or St. David’s. The next day Arthur was told that the boars had gone past, and he overtook them killing the herds of Kynnwas Cwrvagyl, after they had destroyed all they could find in Deugleđyf, whether man or beast. Then the Twrch went as far as Presseleu, a name which survives in that of Preselly or Precelly, as in Preselly Top and Preselly Mountains in North Pembrokeshire. Arthur and his men began the hunt again, while his warriors were ranged on both sides of the Nyfer or the river Nevern. The Twrch then left the Glen of the Nevern and made his way to Cwm Kerwyn, the name of which survives in that of Moel Cwm Kerwyn, one of the Preselly heights. In the course of the hunt in that district the Twrch killed Arthur’s four champions and many of the people of the country. He was next overtaken in a district called Peuliniauc24 or Peuliniog, which appears to have occupied a central area between the mountains, Ỻanđewi Velfrey, Henỻan Amgoed, and Laugharne: it probably covered portions of the parish of Whitland and of that of Ỻandysilio, the church of which is a little to the north of the railway station of Clyn Derwen on the Great Western line. Leaving Peuliniog for the Laugharne Burrows, he crossed, as it seems, from Ginst Point to Aber Towy or Towy Mouth25, which at low water are separated mostly by tracts of sand interrupted only by one or two channels of no very considerable width; for Aber Towy would seem to have been a little south-east of St. Ishmael’s, on the eastern bank of the Towy. Thence the Twrch makes his way to Glynn Ystu, more correctly perhaps Clyn Ystun, now written Clyn Ystyn26, the name of a farm between Carmarthen and the junction of the Amman with the Ỻychwr, more exactly about six miles from that junction and about eight and a half from Carmarthen as the crow flies. The hunt is resumed in the Valley of the Ỻychwr or Loughor27, where Grugyn and another young boar, called Ỻwydawc Gouynnyat28, committed terrible ravages among the huntsmen. This brought Arthur and his host to the rescue, and Twrch Trwyth, on his part, came to help his boars; but as a tremendous attack was now made on him he moved away, leaving the Ỻychwr, and making eastwards for Mynyđ Amanw, or ‘the Mountain of Amman,’ for Amanw is plentifully preserved in that neighbourhood in the shortened form of Aman or Amman29. On Mynyđ Amanw one of his boars was killed, but he is not distinguished by any proper name: he is simply called a banw, ‘a young boar.’ The Twrch was again hard pressed, and lost another called Twrch Ỻawin. Then a third of the swine is killed, called Gwys, whereupon Twrch Trwyth went to Dyffryn Amanw, or the Vale of Amman, where he lost a banw and a benwic, a ‘boar’ and a ‘sow.’ All this evidently takes place in the same district, and Mynyđ Amanw was, if not Bryn Amman, probably one of the mountains to the south or south-east of the river Amman, so that Dyffryn Amanw may have been what is still called Dyffryn Amman, or the Valley of the Amman from Bryn Amman to where the river Amman falls into the Ỻychwr. From the Amman the Twrch and the two remaining boars of his herd made their way to Ỻwch Ewin, ‘the lake or pool of Ewin,’ which is now represented by a bog mere above a farm house called Ỻwch in the parish of Bettws, which covers the southern slope of the Amman Valley. I have found this bog called in a map Ỻwch is Awel, ‘Pool below Breeze,’ whatever that may mean.