[14] For one or two instances of the nomenclature in question, see pp. 76–7 above. [↑]
[15] Sywedyđ is probably a word of Goidelic origin: compare Irish súi, ‘a sage,’ genitive súad, and derivative súithe, ‘wisdom.’ Stokes suggests the derivation su-vet, in which case súi = su-vi, for su-viss = su-vet-s, and sú-ithe = suveti̯a, while the Welsh sywedyđ is formally su-veti̯os or su-vetii̯os. Welsh has also syw, from súi, like dryw, ‘a druid,’ from Goidelic drúi. Syw, it is true, now only means elegant, tidy; but Dr. Davies of Maỻwyd believed its original signification to have been ‘sapiens, doctus, peritus.’ The root vet is most probably to be identified with the wet of Med. Welsh gwet-id, ‘a saying,’ dy-wawt, ‘dixit,’ whence it appears that the bases were vĕt and vāt, with the latter of which Irish fáith, ‘a poet or prophet,’ Latin vātes, agrees, as also the Welsh gwawd, ‘poetry, sarcasm,’ and in Mod. Welsh, ‘any kind of derision.’ In the Book of Taliessin syw has, besides the plurals sywyon and sywydon (Skene, ii. 142, 152), possibly an older plural, sywet (p. 155) = su-vet-es, while for súithe = su-veti̯a we seem to have sywyd or sewyd (pp. 142, 152, 193); but all the passages in point are more or less obscure, I must confess. [↑]
[16] See the Book of Taliessin, in Skene’s Four Ancient Books of Wales, ii. 130–1, 134, 142, 151–2, 155. [↑]
[17] As, for instance, in the account given of Uath mac Imomain in Fled Bricrenn: see the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 110b, and Windisch’s Irische Texte, p. 293. [↑]
[18] The Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 77a, and the Book of Leinster, fo. 75b: compare also the story of Tuan mac Cairill in the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 16b, where the Tuatha Dé Danann are represented as Tuatha Dee ocus Ande, ‘the tribes of gods and not-gods,’ to whom one of the manuscripts adds a people of legendary Ireland called the Galiúin. See the story as recently edited by Professor Kuno Meyer in Nutt’s Voyage of Bran, ii. 291–300, where, however, the sense of § 12 with its allusion to the fall of Lucifer is missed in the translation. It should read, I think, somewhat as follows:—‘Of these are the Tuatha Dee and Ande, whose origin is unknown to the learned, except that they think it probable, judging from the intelligence of the Tuatha and their superiority in knowledge, that they belong to the exiles who came from heaven.’ [↑]
[19] See Evans’ Black Book of Carmarthen, fo. 33b; also the Mabinogion, pp. 104, 306. The Irish lucht cumachtai would be in Welsh literally rendered ỻwyth cyfoeth, ‘the cyfoeth tribe or host,’ as it were. For cyfoeth, in Med. Welsh, meant power or dominion, whence cyfoethog, ‘powerful,’ and hoỻ-gyfoethog, ‘almighty’; but in Mod. Welsh cyfoeth and cyfoethog have been degraded to mean ‘riches’ and ‘rich’ respectively. Now if we dropped the prefix cum from the Irish cumachtai, and its equivalent cyf from the Welsh cyfoeth, we should have lucht cumachtai reduced to an approximate analogy to ỻwyth Oeth, ‘the Oeth tribe,’ for which we have the attested equivalent Teulu Oeth, ‘the Oeth household or family.’ Oeth, however, seems to have meant powerful rather than power, and this seems to have been its force in Gwalchmai’s poetry of the twelfth century, where I find it twice: see the Myvyrian Arch., i. 196b, 203a. In the former passage we have oeth dybydaf o dybwyf ryd, ‘I shall be powerful if I be free,’ and in the latter oeth ym uthrwyd, ‘mightily was I astonished or dismayed.’ An-oeth was the negative of oeth, and meant weak, feeble, frivolous: so we find its plural, anoetheu, applied in the story of Kulhwch to the strange quests on which Kulhwch had to engage himself and his friends, before he could hope to obtain Olwen to be his wife. This has its parallel in the use of the adjective gwan, ‘weak,’ in the following instance among them:—Arthur and his men were ready to set out in search of Mabon son of Modron, who was said to have been kidnapped, when only three nights old, from between his mother Modron and the wall; and though this had happened a fabulously long time before Arthur was born, nothing had ever been since heard of Mabon’s fate. Now Arthur’s men said that they would set out in search of him, but they considered that Arthur should not accompany them on feeble quests of the kind: their words were (p. 128), ny eỻi di uynet ath lu y geissaỽ peth mor uan ar rei hynn, ‘thou canst not go with thy army to seek a thing so weak as these are.’ Here we have uan as the synonym of an-oeth; but Oeth ac Anoeth probably became a phrase which was seldom analysed or understood; so we have besides Teulu Oeth ac Anoeth, a Caer Oeth ac Anoeth, or fortress of O. and A., and a Carchar Caer Oeth ac Anoeth, or the Prison of Caer O. and A., which is more shortly designated also Carchar Oeth ac Anoeth, or the Prison of O. and A. A late account of the building of that strange prison and fortress by Manawyđan is given in the Iolo MSS., pp. 185–6, 263, and it is needless to point out that Manawyđan, son of Ỻyr, was no other than the Manannán mac Lir of Irish literature, the greatest wizard among the Tuatha Dé or Tuatha Dé Danann; for the practical equivalence of those names is proved by the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 16b. For further details about Oeth and Anoeth, Silvan Evans’ Geiriadur may be consulted, s. v. Anoeth, where instances are cited of the application of those terms to tilled land and wild or uncultivated land. Here the words seem to have the secondary meanings of profitable and unprofitable lands, respectively: compare a somewhat analogous use of grym, ‘strength, force,’ in a passage relating to the mutilated horses of Matholwch—hyt nad oed rym a eỻit ar meirch, ‘so that no use was possible in the case of the horses,’ meaning that they were of no use whatever, or that they had been done for: see the Oxford Mabinogion, p. 29, and Lady Charlotte Guest’s, iii. 107, where the translation ‘and rendered them useless’ is barely strong enough. [↑]
[20] It is right, however, to state that M. d’A. de Jubainville’s account of the views of Erigena is challenged by Mr. Nutt, ii. 105. [↑]
[21] For instance, by Silvan Evans in his Geiriadur, where, s. v. dihaeđ, he suggests ‘unmerited’ or ‘undeserved’ as conveying the sense meant. [↑]
[22] The reader will find them quoted under the word Druida in Holder’s Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz: see also M. Alexandre Bertrand’s Religion des Gaulois, especially the chapter entitled Les Druides, pp. 252–76, and Nutt’s Voyage of Bran, ii. 107–12. [↑]