Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/110

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NOTES AND QUERIES. no s. VIL FEB. 2, 1007.

modious harbourage at the north-western extremity of the Peninsula. The river Sil possibly still retains their name, and these mountaineers were doubtless piloted to the opposite shores of Britain by the seafaring Artabrians, who would tell them that they must now, owing to the Belgic settlements of the south-eastern parts of the island, sail further to the west than previous Penin- sular emigrants, and so they first touched land in the Scilly Islands, which still bear their name, just as, I would suggest, Annette Head does that of Nethon (or Aneto).

" In a westerly direction the rapid tides surge and eddy among innumerable rocks, objects pic- turesque and pleasing to tourists wafted round them by a summer breeze, but as terrible when beheld white with foam and cataracts of raging water from the deck of some luckless vessel driving towards the land."' Murray's Handbook to Devon and Cornwall,' p. 475.

I have already instanced the form pych. The two rocky eminences in Glamorganshire called Pen Pych and Pen Hydd ("Stag Head") have caused much controversy among local antiquaries. I need say no more about the former, but the latter may possibly have been Pen Nudd (Nudd's Head).

While putting these notes together, I have seen but only by a mere glance, unfor- tunately an interesting paper in the ArchcBologia Cambrensis on some prehistoric hearths found lately in South Wales. Two of these have been discovered close to Llwchwr's " Eye," two others on the farm of Gelli- Shiffor, and one at Garnbica. The first of these spots is on the north-eastern edge of my Lan, the second on the southern edge of it, and the third on the north-western edge. I venture to submit that they are " prehistoric " in a qualified sense only _ that they are, in fact, parts (inhabited out- posts, say) in a complete system of defence of a Celtic Ian or oppidum, of which we have a glimpse in Caesar, Tacitus, and Strabo One detail given by the last-named author is that they " hut themselves " (/caAvflo- Troioui/rai) therein, which may refer either to such structures as have been traced in the so-called "prehistoric hearths," or to such earth-pits as Leland says were to be found at the foot of the " Blake Mountayne," - m;ule with Hand large lykea Bowie at theHead'e, H-id narrow ,n th- Botum, overgrowen in the Swart with fine Grae, and be scatterd here and there about the Quarters where the Heade of Kennen River is that cummythe by Carre Kennen. And V Fe CyVe a Hunderth Me n sum

I have never seen these pits, but I have

always understood that they were to be found near the " Trap " pass of what I have called " my Lan " in this paper. I add, before passing on, that the river-name Llwchwr bears, I venture to suggest, that of the Pyrenean god Lixon (as Luchon does). Prof. Rhys, in dealing with Nuada Argetlam, says that he had lost his arm in a battle. It is a well-known fact that hundreds of the bravest heroes of pre- Christian Spain had their right hands cut off by the Romans. The very name of the Lusitanian hero Viriathus is found in early Welsh pedigrees in the parallel form Gwriad. That name and the exploits of him who bore it might well have been carried to their South Walian settlement by the emigrant Silures, there to give birth in process of time to the tales of the mythical Arthur and his Table Round. In that case Arthur's " twelve great battles " may be simply an echo of those of Viriathus, and the real cradle of the Arthurian legends may have been on the same chivalric ground as that of Roland and his paladins and that of the Cid.

One word in conclusion as to my attitude towards Celtic mythology. I have never been able to appreciate the " solar myth " theory or any general formula of that kind. The Celts in their migrations carried their beliefs and superstitions with them, but sometimes perhaps, amid fresh woods and pastures new, they forgot them. But that these gods had a way of reclaiming the lapsed allegiance of their whilom devotees may be illustrated by a trivial incident that once happened to myself. One bright spring morning some years ago I was walking down Bond Street at a good pace. On passing a fishmonger's shop, I cast an admir- ing but casual glance at the salmon and trout that adorned the tradesman's deftly ar- ranged slab. Suddenly a subtle whiff assailed my nostrils, instantaneously in- vaded the mysterious avenues of memory, and brought up before my mental eye the picture of a little boy who had been working busily for over an hour at diverting the course of a babbling brook, and who was tossing out troutlets from the dried-up pools on to the grassy margin odoriferous with meadowsweet. I had grassed many a trout in many different circumstances since that far-off time, but one may easily realize that such a vivid re- minder would have been a very imperative " call " to a forgetful worshipper from the long-neglected mountain deity or river goddess of a long-left early home. Such a