Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/354

 408 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9«-s. iv. NOV. n,-99. MR. JONAS asks, Where was the castle of Senghenyd, if not at Caerphilly ? There is documentary evidence—principally In- quisitiones post mortem of the De Clare family in the fourteenth century—to prove that at that time Castell Coch was called the castle of Senghenyd. That name, as far as I can find out, was never connected with Caerphilly until Wynne so bestowed it without any authority ; up to his time it was known to the English as Caerphilly, to the Welsh as Castle Glais. MR. JONAS also thinks that the change of Senghenyd to Signith offers no analogy to the change of Sein Henyd to Sweynes, because one is recorded in the sixteenth cen- tury, the other three hundred years earlier; but the argument has shifted ground. The original contention was that Sein Henyd could never become Sweynes. In Welsh the accent would be on the penultimate syllable, which would, therefore, oe retained under any alteration. He now admits that Senghenyd in the sixteenth century was mulcted of its penultimate, and was written Signith. The spirit of the Welsh language was unchanged, so that this mutation would have been equally possible in the twelfth century. W. L. MORGAN, Lieut.-Col. The early form (K. John's time), Swyneshe, of this place-name suggests to me yet another explanation of its origin. Prof. Rnys has the following foot-note on p. 668 of his ' Lectures on Celtic Mythology':— " The earliest reference to Oeth and Annoeth is one in the ' Stanzas of the Graves' [of which, I may add, there is an exquisite translation by Mr. Ernest Rhys in the delightful little volume of verse he published last year] in the ' Black Bk. of Carmar- then' (Skene, ii. 31), where the household of Oeth and Annoeth are ascribed 'the long graves in Gwanas.' But the passage raises a number of questions which cannot be discussed here ; suffice it to say that its Gwanas ought to be somewhere in Gow er, a far more likely locality also for the Prison of Oeth and Annoeth than where the lolo MSB. fix it, in the neighbourhood of Margam in the same county of Glamorgan." At the neck of the Gower peninsula, where the old Roman road crossed the Llwchwr into Carmarthenshire, and where there are still some remains of the old Norman castle, is situated the village of Casllwchwr. That name is the reduced form of Castell Llwchwr. Now if one " Castell" in Gower could be reduced into "Gas," its neighbour at the other end of the neck might not improbably lie I reated in the same way. If Castell Gwanas were reduced in that way, the name would become in Welsh Gas Wanas. That form would not be distinguishable when spoken from Cae Swanas ( = "Swana's field or enclo- sure "). This would not only give satisfactory origin for Swansea, but also fix the position of the forgotten Gwanas and its "long graves." J. p. OWEN. "To HELE" (9th S. iv. 47, 92, 174, 315).—I have been acquiring information about some verbal provincialisms from Mr. Edwin Stan- bury, the tenant of the Barton-part here, who, having always lived within twenty miles of Chagford, is well qualified to report on the speech of mid Devon. He says that "to heal" (pronounced hail, or, pe'rhaps more precisely, heyl or hey-al) signifies to cover, as " to heal up tha tatties," for instance. Another term that may often be heard in this con- nexion is to " alley " or " halley "-up " tha tatties." As applied to roofs, " slate-healing " (so spelt) occurs constantly in old deeds and accounts. A horse-blanket is "a healer"; a cut or abrasion over which new skin has grown is said to be healed (pron. " hey-aled ") over. There is a local proverb which declares that "the healer is as bad as the stealer" (pron. "heyler," "steyler"), signifying, I sup pose, one who " covers " a theft. A gardener at Dolton named Heale was called by every one " Heyl." On the other hand, the name Hill is commonly pronounced Heel. ETHEL LEGA-WEEKES. North Wyke, Devon. After reading MR. HARRY HEMS'S contri- bution, I asked an old Devonshire woman what she called banking up the potatoes. She replied at once, '• Haling 'em, sir." "Do you ever call it ' heling ' them?" "No, sir; but we may pronounce it wrong, you know." I said, " I suppose you mean that you pro- nounce the e as a, as you say ' kay' for ' key.'" " Yes, sir," she replied at once ; and I think that is the explanation. The word hele (pronounced " hale ) is a good Devonshire word still. HENRY DRAKE. ENGRAVED PORTRAIT OF DEAN VINCENT (9th S. iv. 185, 253, 313).—It appears that there are two such portraits, and each by William Owen, R.A. The larger one was the property of George Giles Vincent (died 28 January, 1859), now owned by his grand- son, Charles Greaves Vincent : the smaller portrait now belongs to the Dean's great- granddaughter, Mrs. Charles Edward Dyer, daughter of the Rev. William Vincent (died II April, 1872). REGINALD STEWART BODDINGTON. LETTER OF KING JAMES VI. (9th S. iii. 447).— In reply to T. G. I may say that the intro- duction to the 'Revenue of the Scottish