Arise, come home.
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. [↑]