[25] See my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 546–8. [↑]
[26] The case with regard to the extreme south of the Principality is somewhat similar; for inscriptions in Glamorgan seem to bring the last echoes there of Goidelic speech down to the seventh century: see the Archæologia Cambrensis for 1899, pp. 160–6. [↑]
[27] See Evans’ Report on MSS. in the Welsh Language, p. 837, where the Welsh is quoted from p. 131 of the Peniarth MS. 134. [↑]
[28] See my Arthurian Legend, p. 70. [↑]
[29] See the Revue Celtique, ii. 197–9, where Dr. Stokes has published the original with a translation and notes; also p. 435 above. [↑]
[30] The gentlemen to whom I am chiefly indebted for the information embodied in the foregoing notes are the following four: the Rev. John Jones of Ystad Meurig, Professor Robert Williams of St. David’s College, the Vicar of Ỻanđewi Brefi, Mr. J. H. Davies of Cwrt Mawr and Lincoln’s Inn (p. 354); and as to the ‘wild cattle’ story of Ỻyn Eiđwen, Mr. J. E. Rogers of Aber Meurig is my authority. [↑]
[31] So I had it many years ago from an old woman from Ỻangeitho, and so Mr. J. G. Evans remembers his mother repeating it; but now it is made into Ỻan Đewi Brefi braith, with the mutations disregarded. [↑]
[32] See the Archæologia Cambrensis for 1868, p. 88. [↑]
[33] See ib. p. 87. I have ascertained on the best authority the identity of the present owner of the horn, though I have not succeeded in eliciting from him any reply to my inquiries. I conclude that there is something wrong with the postal service in my native county. [↑]
[34] Several passages bearing on the word bannog have been brought together in Silvan Evans’ Geiriadur. He gives the meaning as ‘high, lofty, prominent, conspicuous.’ The word is derived from ban, ‘a summit or peak,’ plural bannau, so common in the names of hills and mountains in South Wales—as in y Fan in Carmarthenshire, Bannwchdeni (p. 22) in Breconshire, Pen y Bannau near Pont Rhyd Fendigaid in Cardiganshire, Bannau Brycheiniog and Bannau Sir Gaer, the mountains called in English the Beacons of Breconshire and Carmarthenshire respectively. In North Wales we have it possibly in the compound Tryfan, which the mapsters will have us call Tryfaen; and the corresponding word in Scotch Gaelic appears in such names as Ben Nevis and the like, while in Irish the word benn meant a horn or peak. I am, nevertheless, not at all sure that Ychen Bannog meant horned oxen or even tall and conspicuous oxen; for there is a Welsh word man, meaning a spot or mark (Latin menda), and the adjective was mannawc, mannog, ‘spotted, marked, particoloured.’ Now in the soft mutation all four words—ban, bannog, and man, mannog—would begin with f = v, which might help to confusion between them. This may be illustrated in a way from Williams’ Seint Greal (pp. 88–92), where Gwalchmai has a dream in which he sees 150 bulls with spots or patches of colour on them, except three only which were ‘without any spot in the world’ (neb ryw vann or byt), or as it is also put ‘without spot’ (heb vann). This word vann, applied to the colour of the bulls, comes from the radical form mann; and the adjective was mannawc or mannog, which would mean spotted, particoloured, or having patches of colour. Now the oxen of Welsh legends are also sometimes called Ychen Mannog (pp. 131–2), and it is possible, that, whichever way the term is written, it should be interpreted to mean spotted, marked, or particoloured oxen. I take it also that Ỻan Đewi Frefi fraith was meant as synonymous with Ỻan Đewi Frefi fannog, which did not fit the rhyme. Lastly, the Dyfed use of the saying Fel dau ych bannog, ‘Like two Bannog oxen,’ in the sense of ‘equal and inseparable companions’ (as instanced in the Geiriadur), sounds like the antithesis of the passage in the Kulhwch (Mabinogion, p. 121). For there we have words to the following effect: ‘Though thou shouldst get that, there is something which thou wilt not get, namely the two oxen of Bannog, the one on the other side of the Bannog mountain and the other on this side, and to bring them together to draw the same plough. They are, to wit, Nynio and Peibio, whom God fashioned into oxen for their sins.’ Here the difficulty contemplated was not to separate the two, but to bring them together to work under the same yoke. This is more in harmony with the story of the mad quarrel between the two brother kings bearing those names as mentioned above. [↑]