[26] This has already been undertaken: on Feb. 7, 1900, a summary of this chapter was read to a meeting of the Hon. Society of Cymmrodorion, and six weeks later Mr. Edward Owen, of Gray’s Inn, read an elaborate paper in which he essayed to fix more exactly Yvain de Galles’ place in the history of Wales. It would be impossible here to do justice to his reasoning, based as it was on a careful study of the records in point. Let it suffice for the present, however, that the paper will in due course appear in the Society’s Transactions. Mr. J. H. Davies also informs me that he is bringing together items of evidence, which tend, as he thinks, to show that Miss Ỻwyd’s information was practically correct. Before, however, the question can be considered satisfactorily answered, some explanation will have to be offered of Froissart’s statement, that Yvain’s father’s name was Aymon. [↑]
[27] We seem also to have an instance in point in Carmarthenshire, where legend represents Owen and his men sleeping in Ogof Myrđin, the name of which means Merlin’s Cave, and seems to concede priority of tenancy to the great magician: see the extinct periodical Golud yr Oes (for 1863), i. 253, which I find to have been probably drawing on Eliezer Williams’ English Works (London, 1840), p. 156. [↑]
[28] For the Greek text of the entire passage see the Didot edition of Plutarch, vol. iii. p. 511 (De Defectu Oraculorum, xviii); also my Arthurian Legend, pp. 367–8. It is curious to note that storms have, in a way, been associated in England with the death of her great men as recently as that of the celebrated Duke of Wellington: see Choice Notes, p. 270. [↑]
[29] See my Arthurian Legend, p. 335. I am indebted to Professor Morfill for rendering the hexameters into English verse. [↑]
CHAPTER IX
Place-name Stories
The Dindṡenchas is a collection of stories (senchasa), in Middle-Irish prose and verse, about the names of noteworthy places (dind) in Ireland—plains, mountains, ridges, cairns, lakes, rivers, fords, estuaries, islands, and so forth …. But its value to students of Irish folklore, romance (sometimes called history), and topography has long been recognized by competent authorities, such as Petrie, O’Donovan, and Mr. Alfred Nutt.
Whitley Stokes.
In the previous chapters some folklore has been produced in which we have swine figuring: see more especially that concerned with the Hwch Đu Gwta, pp. 224–6 above. Now I wish to bring before the reader certain other groups of swine legends not vouched for by oral tradition so much as found in manuscripts more or less ancient. The first three to be mentioned occur in one of the Triads[1]. I give the substance of it in the three best known versions, premising that the Triad is entitled that of the Three Stout Swineherds of the Isle of Prydain:—
i. 30a:—Drystan[2] son of Taỻwch who guarded the swine of March son of Meirchion while the swineherd went to bid Essyỻt come to meet him: at the same time Arthur sought to have one sow by fraud or force, and failed.