Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/109

 10 s. vii. FKB. 2, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Xow Striveland is simply an Anglicized form of W. Treflan Rhys, i.e., " Rhys's Treflan." The name has entirely vanished, or at any rate only appears in the farm-name Pen- iannau, and that of the little " bede-house " or '" baptistry " (if either is the origin of "Bettws") has quite displaced it. Lle'r Castell, however, still remains, and perhaps the earlier (Goidhelic) synonym cath (cathair, mod. Jr. cahir, W. caer) of that name sur- vives in the stream-name Cathan. In the O.S. maps similar names in the neighbour- hood are spelt caeth, " strait," " narrow," from captivus ; thus Waunglyncath is given as Waunglyncaeth (" narrow glen meadow "), although caeth is never pronounced cdth in the district, or indeed anywhere else in Wales, so far as I know. The real form, however, is evidenced by a farm-name Cathilas, close by, which can only mean the cath " of " or " on " the Dulas. The little glen of Glyncath is now known as Glynhir or Cwmllwchwr, that river sepa- rating the farms in question from the Ian which I described in the previous paper. Another farm adjoining Waunglyncath was once one of the two or three " manors " of the " Comote of Iskennen," namely, Myddynfych (written " Metheuuigh " in Bromley's Survey). Mr. Owen has ex- plained this as Myddfai ; but that place is far away from Llandybie, whereas Myd- dynfych is still one of the most important farms in the parish. Its name, by the way, is found also written Myddyfnych ; but as it includes a high round hill called Brynmawr, I am inclined to think that Mai-ddin-fych are the components. It is admirably situ- ated as one of the outposts of the Lan. Dinbych, in the forms Denbigh and Tenby, are familiar to every one. On the upper or north-western side of the same Lan is Garn-bica, and even a much rarer form of the second element, Glynpowys. The forms piga, pugu, pych, " peak," are found elsewhere ; but for powys we must go from Siluria to the Central Pyrenees (pic de pouys, &c), where, too, lanne, with its Latin equivalent plan, reappears south of the landes. Pouy- louby and Cathervielle, near Luchon, not to mention the " eyes " of the Garonne, seem strangely familiar forms to one born near Glynpowys, Cathilas, and Llwchwr's "Eye." I have already mentioned the curious name Y Pal at Carreg Cennen, which may be from Lat. palum, but is just as likely to be akin to the Pyrenean Pales or Pic de Burat, &c., and Celtic rather than Latin, just as the Pyrenean coume is. The numerous las stream-names in Llandybie and its neigh-

bourhood Lash, Dulas, Gwenlais, Maries remind one irresistibly of the Louzon, Lys r Lastie, &c., of the Central Pyrenees. But within a few hours' brisk walk of my Lan there is a still more interesting stream-name, for it is unique in Wales.

Mr. Tozer in his ' Lectures on the Geo- graphy of Greece ' speaks (p. 89) of

"a group of names, Neda and Nedon in Messenia, and Nestus in Thrace, from a root nad, which does appear elsewhere in Greek, but is used for a river in Sanskrit, and signifies to ' roar.'" Now nad means a " bellowing " in Welsh,, and the corresponding verb nadu, to bellow or roar, is also in use ; while Neste is a generic name for mountain streams in the Central Pyrenees, with specific applications in particular localities. It is curious that even so far back as thirty years ago an eminent Oxford lecturer should have ignored not only the Pyrenees, but even Glamorgan- shire. It is to the river Nedd (pronounced to rime with "bathe"), in English Neath, that I refer. A river-name in Welsh is feminine, and if Nedd had a masculine form it would be Nudd (pronounced to rime with "breathe"). That form, too, is found in Welsh, but it means " thick white mist," not quite synonymous with the common word niwl ("fog"). Prof. Rhys in his ' Celt. Myth.' identifies Nudd with Lludd, with the Irish Nuada Argetlam ("N. of the Silver Hand"), and with the Nodens, Nodons, or Nudens, the remains of whose temple have been found at Lydney,. " on the western bank of the Severn, in the territory of the ancient Silures." He ignores the W. common noun nudd and the Pyrenean Pic de Nethou, the highest point in the Pyrenees, and in the immediate neighbour- hood of the other places mentioned in this paper. I am aware that the inscription supposed to attest the existence of the god dwelling on " 1' antique Olympe du dievt Nethon," as M. A. Joanne puts it in the first edition of his excellent ' Itineraire des Pyrenees,' has been proved not to do so ; but in the teeth of his own Silurian Nodens, I quite fail to see how a mistaken reading on an inscribed stone could have led Mr. Rhys to disbelieve the godship of the Pyrenean Nethon. The salient phenomena of the Pic de Nethou are the violent squalls of wind and the masses of white mist that they whirl around it. Everything that I have read on this subject leads me to the belief that the Silures migrated from the Spanish slopes of the Pyrenees in the second century B.C., travelling along the more central parts until they reached the com-