[33] This name also occurs in a passage quoted in Jones’ Brecknock, ii. 501, from a Carte MS. which he treats as relating to the year 1234: the MS. is said to be at the Bodleian, though I have not succeeded in tracing it. But Jones gives Villa de Ystraddewi, and speaks of a chapel of St. John’s of Stradtewi, which must have been St. John’s Church, at Tretower, one of the ecclesiastical districts of Cwm Du: see also p. 497. The name is probably to be treated as Strad or Strat d’Ewe. [↑]
[34] A river may in Welsh be briefly called after anybody or anything. Thus in North Cardiganshire there is a stream called Einon, that is to say ‘Einion’s river,’ and the flat land on both sides of it is called Ystrad Einon, which looks as if one might translate it Einion’s Strath, but it means the Strath of Einion’s river, or of the stream called Einon, as one will at once see from the upper course of the water being called Blaen Einon, which can only mean the upper course of the Einon river. So here yw is in English ‘yew,’ but Ystrad Yw and Ỻygad Yw have to be rendered the Strath of the Yew burn and the Eye of the Yew burn respectively. It is moreover felt by the Welsh-speaking people of the district that yw is the plural of ywen, ‘a single yew,’ and as there is only one yew at the source somebody had the brilliant idea of making the name right by calling it Ywen, and this has got into the maps as Ewyn, as though it were the Welsh word for foam. Who began it I cannot say, but Theophilus Jones has it in his History of the County of Brecknock, published in 1809. Nevertheless the name is still Yw, not Ywen or Ewyn, in the Welsh of the district, though Lewis gives it as Ywen in his article on Ỻanvihangel-Cwm-Du. [↑]
[35] For exact information as to the Gaer, the Yw, and Ỻygad Yw, I am indebted chiefly to the courtesy of Lord Glanusk, the owner of that historic strath, and to the Rector of Ỻansantffread, who made a special visit to Ỻygad Yw for me; also to Mr. Francis Evans, of the Farmers’ Arms at the Bwlch, who would be glad to change the name Ỻygad Yw into Ỻygad dan yr Ywen, ‘the Source beneath the Yew-tree,’ partly on account of the position ‘of the spring emanating under the but of the yew tree,’ and partly because there is only a single yew there. Theophilus Jones complained a century ago that the Gaer in Ystrad Yw had not attracted the attention it deserved; and I have been greatly disappointed to find that the Cambrian Archæological Association has had nothing to say of it. At any rate, I have tried the Index of its proceedings and found only a single mention of it. The whole district is said to teem with antiquities, Celtic, Roman, and Norman. [↑]
[36] Theophilus Jones, in his Brecknockshire, ii. 502, describes Miarth or Myarth as a ‘very extensive’ camp, and proceeds as follows:—‘Another British camp of less extent is seen on a knoll on Pentir hill, westward of the Rhiangoỻ and the parish church of Cwmdu, above a wood called Coed y Gaer, and nearly opposite to the peak or summit called Cloch y Pibwr, or the piper’s call.’ This would probably be more accurately rendered the Piper’s Rock or Stone, with cloch treated as the Goidelic word for a stone rather than the Brythonic word for a bell: how many more clochs in our place-names are Goidelic? [↑]
[37] The Twrch would seem to have crossed somewhere opposite the mouth of the Wye, let us say not very far from Aust; but he escapes to Cornwall without anything happening to him, so we are left without any indication whether the story originally regarded Kernyw as including the Penrhyn Awstin of the Coỻ story given at p. 503. [↑]
[38] For this suggestion I am indebted to the Rev. Dr. Gaster in the Cymmrodorion’s Transactions for 1894–5, p. 34, and also for references in point to M. Cosquin’s Contes Populaires de la Lorraine, i. 134, 141, 152. Compare also such Gaelic stories as that of the Bodach Glas, translated by Mrs. Mackellar, in the Celtic Magazine, xii. 12–6, 57–64. [↑]
[39] In some native Welsh words we have an option between a prefix ym and am, an option arising out of the fact that originally it was neither ym nor am, but m̥, for an earlier m̥bi, of the same origin as Latin ambi and Greek ἀμφί, ‘around, about.’ The article, its meaning in the combination in banbh being forgotten, would fall under the influence of the analogy of the prefix, now am or ym, so far as the pronunciation was concerned. [↑]
[40] Possibly the benwic was thrown in to correct the reckoning when the redactor discovered, as he thought, that he had one too many to account for: it has been pointed out that he had forgotten that one had been killed in Ireland. [↑]
[41] It is just possible, however, that in an older version it was named, and that the place was no other than the rock just above Ystrad Yw, called Craig Lwyd or, as it is said to be pronounced, Craig Ỻwyd. If so, Ỻwyd would seem to have been substituted for the dissyllable Ỻwydog: compare the same person called Ỻwyt and Ỻwydeu in the Mabinogion, pp. 57, 110, 136. [↑]
[42] The name is well known in that of Ỻanrhaiadr yn Mochnant, ‘Ỻanrhaiadr in Mochnant,’ in the north of Montgomeryshire. [↑]