5. Grugyn is killed at a place called Garth Grugyn.
6. A swine called Ỻwydawc is killed at a spot, not named, in Ystrad Yw or not far off[41].
Thus in five cases out of the six, the story accounts for the place-name, and the question now is, can that be a mere accident? Just think what the probabilities of the case would be if you put them into numbers: South Wales, from St. David’s to the Vale of the Usk, would supply hundreds of place-names as deserving of mention, to say the least, as those in this story; is it likely then that out of a given six among them no less than five should be accounted for or alluded to by any mere accident in the course of a story of the brevity of that of Twrch Trwyth. To my thinking such an accident is inconceivable, and I am forced, therefore, to suppose that the narrative was originally so designed as to account for them. I said ‘originally so designed,’ for the scribe of the Red Book, or let us say the last redactor of the story as it stands in the Red Book, shows no signs of having noticed any such design. Had he detected the play on the names of the places introduced, he would probably have been more inclined to develop that feature of the story than to efface it.
What I mean may best be illustrated by another swine story, namely, that which has already been referred to as occurring in the Mabinogi of Math. There we find Pryderi, king of Dyfed, holding his court at Rhuđlan on the Teifi, but though he had become the proud possessor of a new race of animals, given him as a present by his friend Arawn, king of Annwn, he had made a solemn promise to his people, that he should give none of them away until they had doubled their number in Dyfed: these animals were the hobeu or pigs to which reference was made at p. 69 above. Now Gwydion, having heard of them, visited Pryderi’s court, and by magic and enchantment deceived the king. Successful in his quest, he sets out for Gwyneđ with his hobeu, and this is how his journey is described in the Mabinogi: ‘And that evening they journeyed as far as the upper end of Keredigion, to a place which is still called, for that reason, Mochdref, “Swine-town or Pigs’ stead.” On the morrow they went their way, and came across the Elenyd mountains, and that night they spent between Kerry and Arwystli, in the stead which is also called for that reason Mochdref. Thence they proceeded, and came the same evening as far as a commot in Powys, which is for that reason called Mochnant[42], “Swine-burn.” Thence they journeyed to the cantred of Rhôs, and spent that night within the town which is still called Mochdref[43].’ ‘Ah, my men,’ said Gwydion, ‘let us make for the fastness of Gwyneđ with these beasts: the country is being raised in pursuit of us.’ So this is what they did: they made for the highest town of Arỻechweđ, and there built a creu or sty for the pigs, and for that reason the town was called Creu-Wyrion, that is, perhaps, ‘Wyrion’s Sty.’ In this, it is needless to state, we have the Corwrion of chap. i: see pp. 47, 50–70 above—the name is variously pronounced also Cyrwrion and C’rwrion.
That is how a portion of the Math story is made to account for a series of place-names, and had the editor of the Kulhwch understood the play on the names of places in question in the story of Twrch Trwyth, it might be expected that he would have given it prominence, as already suggested. Then comes the question, how it came to pass that he did not understand it? The first thing to suggest itself as an answer is, that he may have been a stranger to the geography of the country concerned. That, however, is a very inadequate explanation; for his being a stranger, though it might account for his making blunders as to the localities, would not be likely to deter him from venturing into geography which he had not mastered.
What was it, then, that hid from him a portion of the original in this instance? In part, at least, it must have been a difficulty of language. Let us take an illustration: Gwys has already been mentioned more than once as a name applied to one of Twrch Trwyth’s offspring, and the words used are very brief, to the following effect:—‘And then another of his swine was killed: Gwys was its name.’ As a matter of fact, the scribe was labouring under a mistake, for he ought to have said rather, ‘And then another of his swine was killed: it was a sow’; since gwys was a word meaning a sow, and not the name of any individual hog. The word has, doubtless, long been obsolete in Welsh; but it was known to the poet of the ‘Little Pig’s Lullaby’ in the Black Book of Carmarthen, where one of the stanzas begins, fo. 29a, with the line:
Oian aparchellan. aparchell. guin guis.
The late Dr. Pughe translated it thus:
Listen, little porkling! thou forward little white pig.
I fear I should be obliged to render it less elegantly: