Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/186

 178 CELTS (LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE) comparative degree is formed by oc*h, thus, kaeroc'h, more beautiful; the superlative by prefixing the article, thus, ar c'haera, most beautiful. The numerals are : unan, 1 ; daou, 2 ; tri, 3 ; pevar, 4 ; pemp, 5 ; c'houec'h, 6 ; seiz, 7; eiz, 8; ndo, 9; dek, 10. The ordinals are made by suffixing ved (trived, third, &c.) ; these are irregular: kenta, first; eil, second. The personal pronouns are me, I ; te, thou ; hen, he ; hi, she. The terminations of the verbs are: ann for I, ez for thou, the radical for he, she, it, omp for we, it for you, ont for they ; thus, ro-ann, ro-ez, ro, ro-omp, r&-it, ro-ont I give, thou givest, he, she, it gives, we, you, they give. The past tense is formed by iz, the fu- ture by inn, &c. Each verb is preceded by the particle a before nouns and pronouns, by e (or ez, ec'h) before adverbs. There are three auxiliary verbs, viz.: leza, to be; kaout, to have; ober, to do. There are some specific prefixes. The syntax is free, with some anom- alies ; thus, the third person singular of a verb may be joined to the first and second personal pronouns, as me aro, which is / gives, instead of give. The structure of Breton poetry is generally in tercets or triads, as in the kin- dred language of Wales. The principal su- pernatural agents in the popular poetry of Brittany are the dwarfs and the fairies. The common appellation of these elfish beings is korrigan, whether masculine or feminine, from korr, little (diminutive, korrik), and gan or gwen, genius. The goddess Koridgwen is said by the Welsh bards to have had nine attendant virgins, called the nine Korrigan. This also was the name of the nine priestesses of the isle of Sein. We may refer here, as character- istic examples, to several of the ancient poems collected and translated by La Villemarque, especially "The Prophecy of Gwenchlan," "The Submersion of the City of Is," "The Changeling," and "The March of Arthur." "The Plague of Elliant" and the "Tale of Lord Nann and the Fay," as preserved until this time, retain the technical bardic form, which was alliterated and arranged in strophes of three lines. This " Lord Nann," which is said to date from the 5th or Gth century, com- mences thus : Lord Nann and his bride, both plighted In yonthtbl days, soon blighted, Were early disunited. Of snow-white twins a pair Yestreen the lady bare, A son and daughter fair. " What cheer shall I get for thee, Who givest a son to me? Bay, sweet, what shall it be? " From the forest green a roe, Or a woodcock from where. I trow, The pond In the vale lies low ? M " For venison am I fain. But would nut give thee pain For me the wood to gain." But while the lady spoke, Lord Nann took his lance of oak. And mounting his jet-black steed Bode forth to the wood with speed. When he gained the greenwood shade, A white hind from the glade Fled, of his lance afraid. Swift after the hind he flew ; The ground shook 'neath the two, So swiftly on they flew, And late the evening grew. It ends in this gallant huntsman coming " un- der the ban of a Korrigan," and the death of himself and his wife, from whose grave sprang forth " two spreading oaks." As a specimen of the Bas Breton tongue itself, we give the following from the tale of Koadalan (dialect of Tr6guier) : " Neuz6 a krogas ann aotro en- han hag a savas gant-han en er, uhel, uhel. Diskenn a eure gant-han e-kichenn ur c'hastell- kaer, en un ale vraz, lec'h ma oe souezet o welet skrivet war delio ar gwez : Ann hini a antre aman, na sorti k6n. Ma teuas c'hoant d'ehan mont-kuit, met penoz? Antren a reont ho daou bars ar c'hastell ; debri hag eva a reont, ha goude koan, a kousk mad en ur gvv616-plun." Which is thus translated: "The knight then took him up, and lifted him very high into the air. He descended near to a fine castle, in a grand avenue, where Koadalan was much surprised to see written on the leaves of the trees, 'He who enters here never goes away again. 1 Which gave him a desire to go at once ; but how ? They enter together into the castle ; they eat together ; and after sup- per Koadalan sleeps well in a bed of feathers." On the whole it may be said that the relics of Bas Breton literature are entirely confined to childish fairy tales and stories of romance, of- fering little or nothing of the antiquarian his- toric interest which is found in the remains of the Cymric tongues of Wales and in the Gaelic of Ireland. THE WELBII (Cymraeg). The al- phabet of this language consists of thirteen simple and seven double consonants and seven vowels, with numerous diphthongs and triph- thongs. The letter e always has the sound of 1c ; ch is sounded gntturally, as in the Scottish word loch ; dd is equivalent to th in English ; f has the sound of the English t>, ff of the English f, II a peculiar sound similar to that of the French I mouille, u and y that of the Italian i or English ee, and w of oo in fool. The accent is always on the ultimate or penultimate syllable. Initial consonants are changed by declension and by the effect of preceding words ; e. g. : tdd, a father ; ei ddd, his father ; ei thdd, her father ; vy nhdd, my father. Thus p is changed into I, mh, and ph ; t into d, nh, and th; & into /and m; d into dd and n, &c. There is one article, which is not declined, but varies according to the initial let- ter of the following word. Substantives are declined by prepositions, by terminations, and by changes in their radical vowels ; e. g. : perth, bush, plural perthi ; bwa, bow, plur. bwaau ; tyrfa, throng, troop, plur. tyrfaoedd; march, horse, plur. meirch; ffordd, road, iplur. Jfyrdd ; alarch, swan, plnr. elyrch; mat, son, plur. meibion ; nant, brook, plur. nentydd ; maen, stone, plur. meini. There are but two genders,