swine were the seven brought away by Pwyll Head of Annwn and given by him to Pendaran of Dyfed his foster father; and the Glen of the Cuch was the place where they were kept. The reason why Pryderi is called a mighty swineherd is that no one could prevail over him either by fraud or by force1.

iii. 101:-The first was Pryderi son of Pwyll of Pendaran in Dyfed, who guarded his father's swine while he was in Annwn, and it was in the Glen of the Cuch that he guarded them.

The history of the pigs is given, so to say, in the Mabinogion. Pwyll had been able to strike up a friendship and even an alliance with Arawn king of Annwvyn3 or Annwn, which now means Hades or the other world; and they kept up their friendship partly by exchanging presents of horses, greyhounds, falcons, and any other things calculated to give gratification to the receiver of them. Among other gifts which Pryderi appears to have received from the king of Annwn were hobeu or moch, 'pigs, swine,' which had never before been heard of in the island of Prydain. The news about this new race of animals, and that they formed sweeter food than oxen, was not long before it reached Gwyned; and we shall presently see that there was another story which

1 This was meant to explain the unusual term g6rdueichyat, also written gordueichat, g6rueichyat, and gwrddfeichiad. This last comes in the modern spelling of iii. 101, where this clause is not put in the middle of the Triad but at the end.

The editor of this version seems to have supposed Pendaran to have been a place in Dyfed! But his ignorance leaves us no evidence that he had a different story before him.

This word is found written in Mod. Welsh Annwfn, but it has been mostly superseded by the curtailed form Annwn, which appears twice in the Mabinogi of Math. These words have been studied by M. Gaidoz in Meyer and Stern's Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie, i. 29-34, where he equates Annwfn with the Breton anauon, which is a plural used collectively for the souls of the departed, the other world. His view, however, of these interesting words has since been mentioned in the same Zeitschrift, iii. 184-5, and opposed in the Annales de Bretagne, xi. 488.

flatly contradicts this part of the Triad, namely to the effect that Gwydion, nephew of Math king of Gwyned and a great magician, came to Pryderi's court at Rhudlan, near Dolau Bach or Highmead on the Teifi in what is now the county of Cardigan, and obtained some of the swine by deceiving the king. But, to pass by that for the present, I may say that Dyfed seems to have been famous for rearing swine; and at the present day one affects to believe in the neighbouring districts that the chief industry in Dyfed, more especially in South Cardiganshire, consists in the rearing of parsons, carpenters, and pigs. Perhaps it is also worth mentioning that the people of the southern portion of Dyfed are nicknamed by the men of Glamorgan to this day Moch Sir Benfro, 'the Pigs of Pembrokeshire.'

But why so much importance attached to pigs? I cannot well give a better answer than the reader can himself supply if he will only consider what rôle the pig plays in the domestic economy of modern Ireland. But, to judge from old Irish literature, it was even more so in ancient times, as pigs' meat was so highly ap preciated, that under some one or other of its various names it usually takes its place at the head of all flesh meats in Irish stories. This seems the case, for instance, in the medieval story called the Vision of MacConglinne1; and, to go further back, to the Feast of Bricriu for instance, one finds it decidedly the case with the Champion's Portion at that stormy banquet. Then one may mention the story of the fatal feast on MacDáthó's great swine 3, where that beast would have apparently sufficed for the braves both of Connaught

Edited by Professor Kuno Meyer (London, 1892): see for instance pp. 76-8.

* See Windisch's Irische Texte, p. 256, and now the Irish Text Society's Fled Bricrend, edited with a translation by George Henderson, pp. 8, 9. Windisch, ibid. pp. 99-105.

and Ulster had Conall Cernach carved fair, and not given more than their share to his own Ultonian friends in order to insult the Connaught men by leaving them nothing but the fore-legs. It is right, however, to point out that most of the stories go to show, that the gourmands of ancient Erin laid great stress on the pig being properly fed, chiefly on milk and the best kind of meal. It cannot have been very different in ancient Wales; for we read in the story of Peredur that, when he sets out from his mother's home full of his mother's counsel, he comes by-and-by to a pavilion, in front of which he sees food, some of which he proceeds to take according to his mother's advice, though the gorgeously dressed lady sitting near it has not the politeness to anticipate his wish. It consisted, we are told, of two bottles of wine, two loaves of white bread, and collops of a milk-fed pig's flesh. The home of the fairies was imagined to be a land of luxury and happiness with which nothing could compare in this world. In this certain Welsh and Irish stories agree; and in one of the latter, where the king of the fairies is trying to persuade the queen of Ireland to elope with him, we find that among the many inducements offered her are fresh pig, sweet milk, and ale2. Conversely, as the fairies were considered to be always living and to be a very old-fashioned and ancient people,

1 See the Oxford Mabinogion, p. 196, and Guest's trans., i. 302, where the Welsh words a golbython o gic meluoch are rendered and collops of the flesh of the wild boar,' which can hardly be correct; for the mel in mel-uoch, or mel-foch in the modern spelling, is the equivalent of the Irish melg, 'milk.' So the word must refer either to a pig that had been fed on cows' milk or else a sucking pig. The former is the more probable meaning, but one is not helped to decide by the fact, that the word is still sometimes used in books by writers who imagine that they have here the word mel, 'honey,' and that the compound means pigs whose flesh is as sweet as honey: see Dr. Pughe's Dictionary, where melfoch is rendered 'honey swine,' whatever that may mean.

'Windisch's Irische Texte, p. 133, where laith lemnacht = Welsh #aeth Hefrith,' sweet milk.'

it was but natural to suppose that they had the animals which man found useful, such as horses, cattle, and sheep, except that they were held to be of superior breeds, as they are represented, for instance, in our lake legends. Similarly, it is natural enough that other stories should ascribe to them also the possession of herds of swine; and all this prior to man's having any. The next step in the reasoning would be that man had obtained his from the fairies. It is some tradition of this kind that possibly suggested the line taken by the Pwyll story in the matter of the derivation of the pig from Annwn: see the last chapter.

The next story in the Triad is, if possible, wilder still: it runs as follows:

i. 30°:-Coff son of Cofffrewi1 who guarded Henwen2, Dattweir Dattben's sow, which went burrowing as far as the Headland of Awstin in Kernyw and then took to the sea. It was at Aber Torogi in Gwent Is-coed that she came to land, with Coff keeping his grip on her bristles whatever way she went by sea or by land. Now in Maes Gwenith, 'Wheat Field,' in Gwent she dropped a grain of wheat and a bee, and thenceforth that has been the best place for wheat. Then she went as far as ILonwen in Penfro and there dropped a grain of barley and a bee, and thenceforth ILonwen has been the best place for barley. Then she proceeded to Rhiw Gyferthwch in Eryri and dropped a wolf-cub and an eagle-chick. These Coff gave away, the eagle to the

1 Colifrewi was probably, like Gwenfrewi, a woman's name: this is a point of some importance when taken in connexion with what was said at p. 326 above as to Gwydion and Coff's magic.

• This reminds one of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Henvinus, whom he makes into dux Cornubia and father of Cunedagius or Cuneđa: see ii. 12, 15. Probably Geoffrey's connecting such names as those of Cuneđa and Dyfnwal Moelmud (ii. 17) with Cornwall is due to the fact, that the name of the Dumnonia of the North had been forgotten long before that of the Dumnonia to be identified with Devon and Cornwall.

Goidel Brynach from the North, and the wolf to Menwaed of Arttechwed, and they came to be known as Menwaed's Wolf and Brynach's Eagle. Then the sow went as far as the Maen Du at ILanfair in Arfon, and there she dropped a kitten, and that kitten Coff cast into the Menai: that came later to be known as Cath Paluc, 'Palug's Cat.'

ii. 56°:—The third was Coff son of Kattureuy with the swine of Dallwyr Dallben in Dallwyr's Glen in Kernyw. Now one of the swine was with young and Henwen was her name; and it was foretold that the Isle of Prydain would be the worse for her litter; and Arthur collected the host of Prydain and went about to destroy it. Then one sow went burrowing, and at the Headland of Hawstin in Kernyw she took to the sea with the swineherd following her. And in Maes Gwenith in Gwent she dropped a grain of wheat and a bee, and ever since Maes Gwenith is the best place for wheat and bees. And at ILonyon in Penfro she dropped a grain of barley and another of wheat: therefore the barley of ILonyon has passed into a proverb. And on Rhiw Gyferthwch in Arfon she dropped a wolf-cub and an eagle-chick. The wolf was given to Mergaed and the eagle to Breat a prince from the North, and they were the worse for having them. And at ILanfair in Arfon, to wit below the Maen Du, she dropped a kitten, and from the Maen Du the swineherd cast it into the sea, but the sons of Paluc reared it to their detriment. It grew to be Cath Paluc, 'Palug's Cat,' and proved one of the three chief molestations of Mona reared in the island: the second was Daronwy and the third was Edwin king of England.

iii. 101:-The second was Coft son of Collfrewi who guarded Daffwaran Daftben's sow, that came burrowing as far as the Headland of Penwedic in Kernyw and