Page:The Mabinogion.djvu/72

Rh —Page 3.

literal translation of this expression is yellow-red. With regard to this mixture of colours, Ellis, in his notes to Way's Fabliaux, remarks, '* The old French writers speak also of pourpre and écarlate blanches (white crimson); of pourpre sanguine (sanguine crimson); and, in the Fabliau de Gautier d'Aupais, mention is made of "un vert mantel porprin, (a mantel of green crimson)."

Hence, M. Le Grand conjectures, "that the crimson dye being, from its costliness, used only on cloths of the finest manufacture, the term crimson came at length to signify, not the colour, but the texture, of the stuff. Were it allowable to attribute to the Weavers of the Middle Ages the art now common amongst us, of making what are usually called shot silks (or silks of two colours, predominating interchangeably as in the neck of the drake or pigeon), the contradictory compounds above given (white crimson, green crimson, &c/) would be easily accounted for." II. 227.

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, "desert places, and the extremities of the earth."

It is possible that some peculiar district of romantic geography was intended to be here alluded to, since we find that "la terre deserte" was formerly a kingdom of no inconsiderable importance, the sovereign of which, named Claudas, overran the territories of King Ban of Benoic, one of Arthurs allies in Gaul. And in the Morte d' Arthur, it is said that Arthur, being wounded in the battle of Camlan, was conveyed to the Island of Avalon "in a shyppe wherin were thre queues, that one was kyng Arthurs syster queue Morgan le fay, the other was the queue of North galys, the thyrd was the queue of the waste londes. Also there was Nynyue (Yiviane) the chyef lady of the lake," &c.

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species of scenery appears to have been much admired by our ancestors.

A similar description occurs in a chivalric tale of considerable interest, by Grufiydd ab Adda, a Bard who was killed at Dolgellau, about 1370.

"In the furthermost end of this ferest he saw a level green valley, and trees of equal height, &c."