(9) ORIGIN OF THE WELSH.
Source: An old seaman, who avers he heard it on a ship, on the way home from Calcutta. I look with suspicion on the story. However, the Welsh always believed they were descended from the Trojans, and the author of the book cited says on this point:—
“Elen was a very common name among the ancient British ladies, and it seems to have been often bestowed out of compliment upon genteel and beautiful women; as we sometimes hear at this day Ei Elen O—his Elen when a man has a young and beautiful wife; and there is hardly a love-song but the woman is called or compared in it to the Trojan Helena, or Elen, as the Welsh write and pronounce the word. The Welsh have had amongst them, time out of mind, a tradition that the first colony of Bretons came to these islands from Troy after the destruction of that city.”