[6] I am indebted for the English story to an article entitled ‘The Two Pedlar Legends of Lambeth and Swaffham,’ contributed by Mr. Gomme to the pages of the Antiquary, x. 202–5, in which he gives local details and makes valuable comparisons. I have to thank Mr. Gomme also for a cutting from the weekly issue of the Leeds Mercury for Jan. 3, 1885, devoted to ‘Local Notes and Queries’ (No. cccxii), where practically the same story is given at greater length as located at Upsall Castle in Yorkshire. [↑]
[7] I have never been to the spot, and I owe these particulars partly to Mr. J. P. Owen, of 72 Comeragh Road, Kensington, and partly to the Rev. John Fisher, already quoted at p. 379. This is the parish where some would locate the story of the sin-eater, which others stoutly deny, as certain periodical outbursts of polemics in the pages of the Academy and elsewhere have shown. Mr. Owen, writing to me in 1893, states, that, when he last visited the dinas some thirty years previously, he found the mouth of the cave stopped up in order to prevent cattle and sheep straying into it. [↑]
[8] Mr. Fisher refers me to an account of the discovery published in the Cambrian newspaper for Aug. 14, 1813, a complete file of which exists, as he informs me, in the library of the Royal Institution of South Wales at Swansea. Further, at the Cambrians’ meeting in 1892 that account was discussed and corrected by Mr. Stepney-Gulston: see the Archæologia Cambrensis for 1893, pp. 163–7. He also ‘pointed out that on the opposite side of the gap in the ridge the noted cave of Owain Law Goch was to be found. Near the Pant-y-ỻyn bone caves is a place called Craig Derwyđon, and close by is the scene of the exploits of Owain Law Goch, a character who appears to have absorbed some of the features of Arthurian romance. A cave in the locality bears Owain’s name.’ [↑]
[9] As in Ỻewelyn’s charter to the Monks of Aberconwy, where we have, according to Dugdale’s Monasticon, v. 673a, a Scubordynemreis, that is Scubor Dyn Emreis, ‘Din-Emreis Barn,’ supposed to be Hafod y Borth, near Beđgelert: see Jenkins’ Beđ Gelert, p. 198. In the Myvyrian, i. 195a, it has been printed Din Emrais. [↑]
[10] See Somer’s Malory’s Morte Darthur, xxi. v (= vol. i. p. 849), and as to the Marchlyn story see p. 236 above. Lastly some details concerning Ỻyn Ỻydaw will be found in the next chapter. [↑]
[11] The oldest spellings known of this name occur in manuscript A of the Annales Cambriæ and in the Book of Ỻan Dâv as Elized and Elised, doubtless pronounced Elisseđ until it became, by dropping the final dental, Elisse. This in time lost its identity by assimilation with the English name Ellis. Thus, for example, in Wynne’s edition of Powell’s Caradog of Ỻancarfan’s History of Wales (London, 1774), pp. 22, 24, Elised is reduced to Elis. In the matter of dropping the đ compare our Dewi, ‘St. David,’ for Dewiđ, for an instance of which see Duffus Hardy’s Descriptive Catalogue, i. 119. The form Eliseg with a final g has no foundation in fact. Can the English name Ellis be itself derived from Eliseđ? [↑]
[12] Boncyn is derived from bonc of nearly the same meaning, and bonc is merely the English word bank borrowed: in South Wales it is pronounced banc and used in North Cardiganshire in the sense of hill or mountain. [↑]
[13] The name occurs twice in the story of Kulhwch and Olwen: see the Mabinogion, p. 107, where the editors have read Ricca both times in ‘Gormant, son of Ricca.’ This is, however, more than balanced by Rita in the Book of Ỻan Dâv, namely in Tref Rita, ‘Rita’s town or stead,’ which occurs five times as the name of a place in the diocese of Ỻandaff; see pp. 32, 43, 90, 272. The uncertainty is confined to the spelling, and it has arisen from the difficulty of deciding in medieval manuscripts between t and c: there is no reason to suppose the name was ever pronounced Ricca. [↑]
[14] This can hardly be the real name of the place, as it is pronounced Gwybrnant (and even Gwybrant), which reminds me of the Gwybr fynyđ on which Gwyn ab Nûđ wanders about with his hounds: see Evans’ facsimile of the Black Book of Carmarthen, p. 50a, where the words are, dẏ gruidir ar wibir winit. [↑]
[15] Dugdale has printed this (v. 673a) Carrecerereryr with one er too much, and the other name forms part of the phrase ad capud Weddua-Vaur, ‘to the top of the Great Gwyđfa’; but I learn from Mr. Edward Owen, of Gray’s Inn, that the reading of the manuscript is Wedua vawr and Carrecereryr. [↑]