[162a] Book ii. c. 4.
[162b] If by the mountains of Eryri we are to understand the Snowdonian range of hills, our author has not been quite accurate in fixing the source of the river Dovy, which rises between Dynas-y-mowddu and Bala Lake, to the southward of Mount Arran: from whence it pursues its course to Mallwyd, and Machynlleth, below which place it becomes an estuary, and the boundary between North and South Wales.
[162c] Our author is again incorrect in stating that the river Maw forms, by its course, the two tracts of sands called Traeth Mawr and Traeth Bychan. This river, from which Barmouth derives the name of Abermaw, and to which Giraldus, in the fifth chapter of the second book of his Itinerary, has given the epithet of bifurcus, runs far to the southward of either of the Traeths. The Traeth Mawr, or large sands, are formed by the impetuous torrents which descend from Snowdon by Beddgelert, and pass under the Devil’s Bridge at Pont Aberglasllyn, so called from the river Glasllyn; and the Traeth Bychan, or little sands, are formed by numerous streams which unite themselves in the vale of Festiniog, and become an æstuary near the village of Maentwrog.
[165a] Better known as Geoffrey of Monmouth.
[165b] The Anglo-Saxons called the Britons Wealhas, from a word in their own language, which signified literally foreigners; and hence we derive the modern name Welsh.
[168] The Peak, in Derbyshire.
[169a] Sir R. C. Hoare has altogether misunderstood the original here. It was the custom in the middle ages to place the guests at table in pairs, and each two persons ate out of one plate. Each couple was a mess. At a later period, among the great the mess consisted of four persons; but it appears that in Wales, at this time, it was formed of three guests.
[169b] “Bread, called Lagana, was, I suppose, the sort of household bread, or thin cake baked on an iron plate, called a griddle (gradell), still common in Caermarthenshire, and called Bara Llech and Bara Llechan, or griddle bread, from being so baked.”—Owen. “Laganum, a fritter or pancake, Baranyiod.”—Lluyd, Archaiology, p. 75.
[170] Brychan, in Lhuyd’s Archaiology and Cornish Grammar, is spelt Bryccan, and interpreted a blanket.
[171] “Omnes vero se Britanni vitro inficiunt, quod cæruleum efficit colorem, atque hoc horridore sunt in pugna adspectu; capilloque sunt promisso, atque omni parte corporis rasa, præter caput et labrum superius.”—Cæsar de Bello Gallico, cap. 13, 14.