[43] Between Colwyn Bay and Ỻandudno Junction, on the Chester and Holyhead line of railway. [↑]
[44] I have discussed some of the traces of the Goidels in Wales in the Arch. Camb. for 1895, pp. 18–39, 264–302; 1899, pp. 160–7. [↑]
[45] In fact the genitive Grúcind occurs in the Book of Leinster, fo. 359a. [↑]
[46] The sort of question one would like to ask in that district is, whether there is a spot there called Beđ y Rhyswyr, Carn y Rhyswyr, or the like. The word rhyswr is found applied to Arthur himself in the Life of Gruffyđ ab Cynan, as the equivalent probably of the Latin Arthur Miles (p. 538 below): see the Myvyrian Archaiology, ii. 590. Similarly the soldiers or champions of Christ are called rysỽyr crist in the Welsh Life of St. David: see the Elucidarium and other Tracts (in the Anecdota Oxoniensia), p. 118. [↑]
[47] Rudvyw Rys would be in Modern Welsh Rhuđfyw Rys, and probably means Rhuđfyw the Champion or Fighter, as Rhys is likely to have been synonymous with rhyswr. The corresponding Irish name was Russ or Ross, genitive Rossa, and it appears to come from the same origin as Irish ross, ‘a headland, a forest,’ Welsh rhos, ‘moorland, uncultivated ground.’ The original meaning was presumably ‘exposed or open and untilled land’; and Stokes supposes the word to stand for an early (p)ro-sto- with sto of the same origin as Latin sto, ‘I stand,’ and as the English word stand itself. In that case Ros, genitive Rossa, Welsh Rhys, would mean one who stands out to fight, a προστάτης, so to say. But not only are these words of a different declension implying a nominative Ro-stus, but the Welsh one must have been once accented Ro-stús on the ending which is now lost, otherwise there is no accounting for the change of the remaining vowel into y. Other instances postulating an early Welsh accentuation of the same kind are very probably ỻyg, ‘a fieldmouse,’ Irish luch, ‘a mouse’; pryd, ‘form,’ Irish cruth; pryf, ‘a worm,’ Irish cruim; so also with ych, ‘an ox,’ and nyth, ‘a nest,’ Irish nett, genitive nitt, derived by Stokes from nizdo-, which, however, must have been oxytone, like the corresponding Sanskrit nīdhá. There is one very interesting compound of rhys, namely the saint’s name Rhwydrys, as it were Rēdo-rostus to be compared with Gaulish Eporēdo-rīx, which is found in Irish analysed into rí Eochraidhi, designating the fairy king who was father to Étáin: see Windisch’s Irische Texte, p. 119. Bledrws, Bledrus, as contrasted with Bledrys, Bledris, postulate Goidelic accentuation, while one has to treat Bledruis as a compromise between Bledrws and Bledris, unless it be due to misreading a Bledruif (Book of Ỻan Dâv, pp. 185, 221–2, and Arch. Camb. for 1875, p. 370). The Goidelic accent at an early date moved to first syllables, hence cruth (with its vowel influenced by the u̯ of a stem qu̯r̥t) under the stress accent, became, when unstressed, cridh (from a simplified stem cr̥t) as in Noicride (also Nóicrothach, Windisch, ibid., pp. 259, 261, 266) and Luicridh (Four Masters, A.D. 748), Luccraid, genitive Luccraide (Book of Leinster, 359f), Luguqurit- in Ogam. [↑]
[48] These operations cannot have been the first of the kind in the district, as a writer in the Archæologia Cambrensis for 1862, pp. 159–60, in extracting a note from the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries (series II, vol. i. p. 10) relative to the discovery of the canoe, adds a statement based on the same volume, p. 161, to the effect that ‘within half a mile of Ỻyn Ỻydaw there are the remains of a British town, not marked in the ordnance map, comprising the foundations of numerous circular dwellings. In some of them quantities of the refuse of copper smeltings were found. This town should be visited and examined with care by some of the members of our Association.’ This was written not far short of forty years ago; but I am not aware that the Association has done anything positive as yet in this matter. [↑]
[49] According to Jenkins’ Beđ Gelert, p. 300, the canoe was subsequently sold for a substantial price, and nobody seems to know what has eventually become of it. It is to be hoped this is not correct. [↑]
[50] See Holder’s Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz, s. v. Litavia. [↑]
[51] For these notes I am indebted to Williams’ Dictionary of Eminent Welshmen, and to Rees’ Welsh Saints, pp. 187, 191; for our Paulinus is not yet recognized in the Dictionary of Christian Biography. His day was Nov. 22. [↑]
[52] There are two other inscriptions in South Wales which contain the name Paulinus, one on a stone found in the neighbourhood of Port Talbot in Glamorgan, reading Hic iacit Cantusus Pater Paulinus, which seems to imply that Paulinus set up the stone to the memory of a son of his named Cantusus. The other, found on the site of the extinct church of Ỻanwrthwl, near Dolau Cothi in Carmarthenshire, is a remarkable one in a kind of hexameter to the following effect:—