1 These were held, so far as I can gather from the descriptions usually given of them, exactly as I have seen a kermess or kirchmesse celebrated at Heidelberg, or rather the village over the Neckar opposite that town. It was in 1869, but I forget what saint it was with whose name the kermess was supposed to be connected: the chief features of it were dancing and beer drinking. It was by no means unusual for a Welsh Gwyl Fabsant to bring together to a rural neighbourhood far more people than could readily be accommodated; and in Carnarvonshire a hurriedly improvised bed is to this day called gwely g’l’absant, as it were ‘a bed (for the time) of a saint’s festival.’ Rightly or wrongly the belief lingers that these merry gatherings were characterized by no little immorality, which made the better class of people set their faces against them. ↑

2 Since the editing of this volume was begun I have heard that it is intended to publish the Welsh collection which Mr. Jones has made: so I shall only give a translation of the Edward Ỻwyd version of the afanc story: see section v. of this chapter. ↑

3 This word is not in Welsh dictionaries, but it is Scotch and Manx Gaelic, and is possibly a remnant of the Goidelic once spoken in Gwyneđ. ↑

4 Our charlatans never leave off trying to make this into Tryfaen so as to extract maen, ‘stone,’ from it. They do not trouble themselves to find out whether it ever was Tryfaen or not: in fact they rather like altering everything as much as they can. ↑

5 Ystrádỻyn, with the accent on the penult, is commonly pronounced Stráỻyn, and means ‘the strand of the lake,’ and the hollow is named after it Cwm Stráỻyn, and the lake in it Ỻyn Cwm Stráỻyn, which literally means ‘the Lake of the Combe of the Strand of the Lake’—all seemingly for the luxury of forgetting the original name of the lake, which I have never been able to ascertain. ↑

6 So Mr. Jones puts it: I have never heard of any other part of the Principality where the children are usually baptized before they are eight days old. ↑

7 I cannot account for this spelling, but the ll in Bellis is English ll, not the Welsh ỻ, which represents a sound very different from that of l. ↑

8 Where not stated otherwise, as in this instance, the reader is to regard this chapter as written in the latter part of the year 1881. ↑

9 See Giraldus’ Itinerarium Kambriæ, i. 8 (pp. 75–8); some discussion of the whole story will be found in chapter iii of this volume. ↑

10 Dr. Moore explains this to be cabbages and potatoes, pounded and mixed with butter or lard. ↑

11 It would be interesting to know what has become of this letter and others of Ỻwyd’s once in the possession of the canon, for it is not to be supposed that the latter ever took the trouble to make an accurate copy of them any more than he did of any other MSS. ↑

12 There is also a Sarn yr Afanc, ‘the Afanc’s Stepping Stones,’ on the Ogwen river in Nant Ffrancon: see Pennant’s Tours in Wales, iii. 101. ↑

13 The oxen should accordingly have been called Ychain Pannog; but the explanation is not to be taken seriously. These oxen will come under the reader’s notice again, to wit in chapter x. ↑

14 The lines are copied exactly as given at p. 189 (I. vi. 25–30) of The Poetical Works of Lewis Glyn Cothi, edited for the Cymmrodorion by Gwaỻter Mechain and Tegid, and printed at Oxford in the year 1837. ↑

15 This, I should say, must be a mistake, as it contradicts all the folklore which makes the rowan an object of dread to the fairies. ↑

16 See Choice Notes from ‘Notes and Queries’ (London, 1859), p. 147. ↑

17 It is more likely that it is a shortening of Ỻyn y Barfog, meaning the Lake of the Bearded One, Lacus Barbati as it were, the Bearded One being somebody like the hairy monster of another lake mentioned at p. 18 above, or him of the white beard pictured at p. 127. ↑

18 So far from afanc meaning a crocodile, an afanc is represented in the story of Peredur as a creature that would cast at every comer a poisoned spear from behind a pillar standing at the mouth of the cave inhabited by it; see the Oxford Mabinogion, p. 224. The corresponding Irish word is abhac, which according to O’Reilly means ‘a dwarf, pigmy, manikin; a sprite.’ ↑

19 I should not like to vouch for the accuracy of Mr. Pughe’s rendering of this and the other Welsh names which he has introduced: that involves difficult questions. ↑

20 The writer meant the river known as Dyfi or Dovey; but he would seem to have had a water etymology on the brain. ↑

21 This involves the name of the river called Disynni, and Diswnwy embodies a popular etymology which is not worth discussing. ↑

22 It would, I think, be a little nearer the mark as follows:—

But one would like to know whether Dodin ought not rather to be written Dodyn, to rhyme with Ỻyn. ↑

23 Hywel’s real name is William Davies, Tal y Bont, Cardiganshire. As adjudicator I became acquainted with several stories which Mr. Davies has since given me permission to use, and I have to thank him for clues to several others. ↑

24 Or Ỻech y Deri, as Mr. Williams tells me in a letter, where he adds that he does not know the place, but that he took it to be in the Hundred of Cemmes, in North-west Pembrokeshire. I take Ỻech y Derwyđ to be fictitious; but I have not succeeded in finding any place called by the other name either. ↑

25 Perhaps the more usual thing is for the man returning from Faery to fall into dust on the spot: see later in this chapter the Curse of Pantannas, which ends with an instance in point, and compare Howells, pp. 142, 146. ↑

26 B. Davies, that is, Benjamin Davies, who gives this tale, was, as I learn from Gwynionyđ, a native of Cenarth. He was a schoolmaster for about twelve years, and died in October, 1859, at Merthyr, near Carmarthen: he describes him as a good and intelligent man. ↑

27 This is ordinarily written Cenarth, the name of a parish on the Teifi, where the three counties of Cardigan, Pembroke, and Carmarthen meet. ↑

28 The name Ỻan Dydoch occurs in the Bruts, A.D. 987 and 1089, and is the one still in use in Welsh; but the English St. Dogmael’s shows that it is derived from that of Dogfael’s name when the mutation consonant f or v was still written m. In Welsh the name of the saint has been worn down to Dogwel, as in St. Dogwell’s near Fishguard, and Ỻanđogwel in Ỻanrhuđlad parish in Anglesey: see Reece’s Welsh Saints, p. 211. It points back to an early Brythonic form Doco-maglos, with doco of the same origin as Latin dux, dŭcis, ‘a leader,’ and maglo-s = Irish māl, ‘a lord or prince.’ Dogfael’s name assumes in Ỻan Dydoch a Goidelic form, for Dog-fael would have to become in Irish Doch-mhāl, which, cut down to Doch with the honorific prefix to, has yielded Ty-doch; but I am not clear why it is not Ty-đoch. Another instance of a Goidelic form of a name having the local preference in Wales to this day offers itself in Cyfelach and Ỻan Gyfelach in Glamorganshire. The Welsh was formerly Cimeliauc (Reece, p. 274). Here may also be mentioned St. Cyngar, otherwise called Docwinnus (Reece, p. 183), but the name occurs in the Liber Landavensis in the genitive both as Docunn-i and Docguinni, the former of which seems easily explained as Goidelic for an early form of Cyngar, namely Cuno-caros, from which would be formed To-chun or Do-chun. This is what seems to underlie the Latin Docunnus, while Docguinni is possibly a Goidelic modification of the written Docunni, unless some such a name as Doco-vindo-s has been confounded with Docunnus. In one instance the Book of Ỻan Dâv has instead of Abbas Docunni or Docguinni, the shorter designation, Abbas Dochou (p. 145), which one must not unhesitatingly treat as Dochon, seeing that Dochou would be in later book Welsh Dochau, and in the dialect of the district Docha; and that this occurs in the name of the church of Ỻandough near Cardiff, and Ỻandough near Cowbridge. The connexion of a certain saint Dochdwy with these churches does not appear at all satisfactorily established, but more light is required to help one to understand these and similar church names. ↑

29 This name which may have come from Little England below Wales, was once not uncommon in South Cardiganshire, as Mr. Williams informs me, but it is now mostly changed as a surname into Davies and Jones! Compare the similar fortunes of the name Mason mentioned above, p. 68. ↑

30 I have not succeeded in discovering who the writer was, who used this name. ↑

31 This name as it is now written should mean ‘the Gold’s Foot,’ but in the Demetian dialect aur is pronounced oer, and I learn from the rector, the Rev. Rhys Jones Lloyd, that the name has sometimes been written Tref Deyrn, which I regard as some etymologist’s futile attempt to explain it. More importance is to be attached to the name on the communion cup, dating 1828, and reading, as Mr. Lloyd kindly informs me, Poculum Eclyseye de Tre-droyre. Beneath Droyre some personal name possibly lies concealed. ↑

32 Y Ferch o Gefn Ydfa (‘The Maid of Cefn Ydfa’), by Isaac Craigfryn Hughes, published by Messrs. Daniel Owen, Howell & Co., Cardiff, 1881. ↑

33 In a letter dated February 9, 1899, he states, however, that as regards folklore the death of his father at the age of seventy-six, in the year 1889, had been a great loss to him; for he adds that he was perfectly familiar with the traditions of the neighbourhood and had associated with older men. Among the latter he had been used to talk with an old man whose father remembered Cromwell passing on his way to destroy the Iron Works of Pant y Gwaith, where the Cavaliers had had a cannon cast, which was afterwards used in the engagement at St. Fagan’s. ↑

34 This term is sometimes represented as being Bendith eu Mamau, ‘their Mother’s Blessing,’ as if each fairy were such a delightful offspring as to constitute himself or herself a blessing to his or her mother; but I have not found satisfactory evidence to the currency of Bendith eu Mamau, or, as it would be pronounced in Glamorgan, Béndith ĭ Máma. On the whole, therefore, perhaps one may regard the name as pointing back to the Celtic goddesses known in Gaul in Roman times as the Mothers. ↑

35 On Pen Craig Daf Mr. Hughes gives the following note:—It was the residence of Dafyđ Morgan or ‘Counsellor Morgan,’ who, he says, was executed on Kennington Common for taking the side of the Pretender. He had retreated to Pen y Graig, where his abode was, in order to conceal himself; but he was discovered and carried away at night. Here follows a verse from an old ballad about him:—

 ↑

36 A tòn is any green field that is used for grazing and not meant to be mown, land which has, as it were, its skin of grassy turf unbroken for years by the plough. ↑

37 On this Mr. Hughes has a note to the effect that the whole of one milking used to be given in Glamorgan to workmen for assistance at the harvest or other work, and that it was not unfrequently enough for the making of two cheeses. ↑

38 Since this was first printed I have learnt from Mr. Hughes that the first cry issued from the Black Cauldron in the Taff (o’r Gerwyn Đu ar Daf), which I take to be a pool in that river. ↑

39 The Fan is the highest mountain in the parish of Merthyr Tydfil, Mr. Hughes tells me: he adds that there was on its side once a chapel with a burial ground. Its history seems to be lost, but human bones have, as he states, been frequently found there. ↑

40 The above, I am sorry to say, is not the only instance of this nasty trick associating itself with Gwent, as will be seen from the story of Bwca’r Trwyn in chapter x. ↑