Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/142

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. xn. A. 7, im

England was at war with Spain as well as with France. Those on board the Leander thought the enemy was either the Couronne, eighty, or the Pluton, seventy-four, both French ships. But the French have never mentioned the battle, and the antagonist of the Leander has never been identified. Novels have been written in which this action is the original of sea-fights told with the wildest details that the superstition of sailors can invent, showing the impression it must have made at the time.

I have read Cooper's ' Pilot.' The author had been in the navy, but only in time of peace, and he describes sea-fights very differently from Capt. Marryat, who had been in many a hard-fought battle.

M. N. G.

STATUES AND MEMOBIALS IN THE BRITISH ISLES (10 S. xi. 441 ; xii. 51). MB. PICK- FOJRD may be glad to know that there is still to be seen, in a hedge near the high road, on the battle-field of Towton, the sub- stantial base of a commemorative column or cross. C. 3. PEACOCK.

The inscription on King Richard's well at Bosworth Field may be found in ' Memoirs of Dr. Parr,' by the Rev. William Field, vol. ii. p. 473 (London, Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street, 1828). It is also to be found in ' Visits to Fields of Battle,' by Richard Brooke, F.S.A., 1857, p. 174.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

LONDON : ORIGIN OF THE NAME (10 S. xi. 302). There is a little confusion in the handling of the Welsh words brought into this discussion. The word llyn ("lake") is pronounced in South Wales exactly as if it were spelt ttin (riming with Eng. " inn"); but in the plural, and whenever it is not a final syllable, it is sounded so as to rime with Eng. "fun." I say nothing of the II sound, which is of no consequence here. Now the modern Welsh word for London is Llundain, a spelling going back as far as the fifteenth century, the earlier form as far as the twelfth century being Llundein. Not having read Mr. Bradley 's letter in The Athenaeum, I can only suspect that the very improbable personal name Londlnos is founded mainly on the diphthongal final syllables in the above two Welsh forms.

As to the first syllable Llun-, that comes, not from llyn, * but from llun (a picture, image Dydd Llun, cf. Lundi). For, to j udge from modern Welsh usage, the vowel u,

unlike y, never varies its sound, e.g., llun, lluniau ; mur ("wall"), muriau ; du ("black"), superl. duaf ; sur ("sour"), surion ; while in (e.g.) llynoedd, pi. of llyn; dynion, pi. of dyn ("man"); byraf, superlative of byr (" short ") ; and ystyried, derivative of ystyr ("meaning"), the final y has the sound of i in Eng. "in," and the non-final one the sound of u in Eng. " fun." I may add here that there is considerable confusion, both of spelling and pronunciation, especially in South Wales, as regards the vowels i, u, y. If the reader can get a native of North Wales to pronounce the following sentence, he will find himself unable to represent in English spelling two of the sounds : " Tyt ! du yw dy dy di, y dyn, ac nid gwyn " (" Tut ! black is thy house thine, the man, and not white "). In my South -Walian pronunciation it would sound thus (English values) : " Tut ! dee ewe du [as in " tut "] dee dee, u [as in "tut"] deen, ak nid gwinn." Welsh u has not two sounds, like Welsh y, but only one, that of the French u ; hence there can be no con- nexion between Llun- and llyn. If the place-name London had not been found before the Anglo-Norman period, there would be no difficulty in identifying it with the Londinieres of Normandy (on the Aulne, Seine Inferieure) ; and as the name of that town has been satisfactorily proved to be a corruption of Lat. nundince, a similar deriva- tion would have suited London " down to the ground." But as London was known and mentioned when the country was occupied by the Romans, we ought, if we are to trust the Welsh spelling, to compare the name with the form found in Amm. Marcellinus Lundinium. Llun is the same as Lat. Luna, or rather, perhaps, Lunus = Lucnus, whence the seven or eight known Lugoduna of Continental Celtdom. If that derivation is for any reason inadmissible, as I am afraid it is, then the only alternative defensible on substantial analogical grounds is Landin in Roman terminology the arx (din) of an oppidum (lana, lanon, or lanion), stretching back from the Thames, between the Lea and the Fleet. I have already, in my articles on Llan in these pages, suggested this derivation. J. P. OWEN.

The modern Welsh name Llyndain is an ill-spelt representative of a form employed in Old Welsh which was not indigenous, and which did not represent Londinium. For the eighth-century Welsh name of London we must turn to the * List of Names of the Cities of Britain ' in the ' Historia Brit-