Trwyth and his swine at Esgeir Oervel. The hunt began and was continued for several days, but it did not prevent the Twrch from laying waste a fifth part of Ireland, that is in Medieval Irish cóiced, a province of the island. Arthur's men, however, succeeded in killing one of the Twrch's offspring, and they asked Arthur the history1 of that swine. Arthur replied that it had been a king before being transformed by God into a swine on account of his sins. Here I should remark by the way, that the narrator of the story forgets the death of this young boar, and continues to reckon the Twrch's herd as seven.

Arthur's next move was to send one of his men, Gwrhyr, interpreter of tongues 2, to parley with the boars. Gwrhyr, in the form of a bird, alighted above where Twrch Trwyth and his swine lay, and addressed them as follows: For the sake of Him who fashioned you in this shape, if you can speak, I ask one of you to come to converse with Arthur.' Answer was made by one of the boars, called Grugyn Gwrych Ereint, that is, Grugyn Silver-bristle; for like feathers of silver, we are told, were his bristles wherever he went, and whether in woods or on plains, one saw the gleam of his bristles. The following, then, was Grugyn's answer: 'By Him who fashioned us in

'The word used in the text is ystyr, which now means 'meaning or signification'; but it is there used in the sense of 'history,' or of the Latin 'historia,' from which it is probably borrowed.

In the original his designation is Gwrhyr Gwalstawt Ieithoed, and the man so called is in the Kulhwch credited with the mastery of all languages, including those of certain birds and quadrupeds. Gwalstawt, found written also gwalstot, is the Anglo-Saxon word wealhstód, an interpreter,' borrowed. The name Gwrhyr is possibly identical with that of Ferghoir, borne by the Stentor of Fionn mac Cumhaill's following. Ferghoir's every shout is said to have been audible over three cantreds. Naturally one who was to parley with a savage host had good reason to cultivate a far-reaching voice, if he wished to be certain of returning to his friends. For more about it see the footnote at p. 489 of my Hibbert Lectures.

this shape, we shall not do so, and we shall not converse with Arthur. Enough evil has God done to us when He fashioned us in this shape, without your coming to fight with us.' Gwrhyr replied: 'I tell you that Arthur will fight for the comb, the razor, and the shears that are between the ears of Twrch Trwyth.' 'Until his life has first been taken,' said Grugyn, 'those trinkets shall not be taken, and to-morrow morning we set out hence for Arthur's own country, and all the harm we can, shall we do there.'

The boars accordingly set out for Wales, while Arthur with his host, his horses, and his hounds, on board his ship Prydwen, kept within sight of them. Twrch Trwyth came to land at Porth Clais, a small creek south of St. David's, but Arthur went that night to Mynyw, which seems to have been Menevia or St. David's. The next day Arthur was told that the boars had gone past, and he overtook them killing the herds of Kynnwas Cwrvagyl, after they had destroyed all they could find in Deugledyf, whether man or beast. Then the Twrch went as far as Presseleu, a name which survives in that of Preselly or Precelly, as in Preselly Top and Preselly Mountains in North Pembrokeshire. Arthur and his men began the hunt again, while his warriors were ranged on both sides of the Nyfer or the river Nevern. The Twrch then left the Glen of the Nevern and made his way to Cwm Kerwyn, the name of which survives in that of Moel Cwm Kerwyn, one of the Preselly heights. In the course of the hunt in that district the Twrch killed Arthur's four champions and many of the people of the country. He was next overtaken in a district called Peuliniauc1 or Peuliniog, which appears

1 The original has Pelumyawc, p. 138, and the name occurs in the (Red Book) Bruts, p. 355, as Pelunyawc, and p. 411, as Pelunea (wc) between the commots of Amgoed and Velfrey. The identification here suggested

to have occupied a central area between the mountains, ILandewi Velfrey, Henllan Amgoed, and Laugharne : it probably covered portions of the parish of Whitland and of that of ILandysilio, the church of which is a little to the north of the railway station of Clyn Derwen on the Great Western line. Leaving Peuliniog for the Laugharne Burrows, he crossed, as it seems, from Ginst Point to Aber Towy or Towy Mouth', which at low water are separated mostly by tracts of sand interrupted only by one or two channels of no very considerable width; for Aber Towy would seem to have been a little south-east of St. Ishmael's, on the eastern bank of the Towy. Thence the Twrch makes his way to Glynn Ystu, more correctly perhaps Clyn Ystun, now written Clyn Ystyn 2, the name of a farm between Carmarthen and the junction of the Amman with the ILychwr, more exactly about six miles from that junction and about

comes from Mr. Phillimore, who has seen that Peuliniawc must be a derivative from the name Paulinus, that is of the Paulinus, probably, who is mentioned in an ancient inscription at Landysilio. There are other churches called after Tysilio, so this one used to be distinguished as ILandysilio yn Nyfed, that is, ILandysilio-in-Dyfed; but the pronunciation was much the same as if it had been written ILandysilio yn Yfed, meaning 'Landysilio a-drinking,'' whereof arose a merrye jest,' as George Owen tells us in his Pembrokeshire, p. 9. It is now sometimes called ILandysilio'r Gynffon, or 'Landysilio of the Tail,' from the situation of a part of the parish on a strip, as it were a tail, of Carmarthenshire land running into Pembrokeshire.

This Aber Towy appears to have been a town with a harbour in 1043, for we read in Brut y Tywysogion of a cruel engagement fought there between Gruffyd ab Lewelyn and Howel ab Edwin, who, with Irish auxiliaries, tried to effect a landing. Not long ago a storm, carrying away the accumulation of sand, laid bare a good deal of the site. It is to be hoped that excavations will be made soon on the spot.

* See the Transactions of the Cymmrodorion, 1894-5, pp. 146-7. There are a good many clyns about South Wales, but our etymologists are careful to have them in most cases written glyn, 'a glen.' Our story, however, shows that the word came under the influence of glyn long ago, for it should be, when accented, clûn, corresponding to Irish cluain, 'a meadow.' We have it as clun in Clun Kein in the Black Book, p. 34, where I guess it to mean the place now called Cilcain, Kilken' in Flintshire, which is accented on the first syllable; and we have had it in y Clun Hir, the Long Meadow,' mentioned above at p. 22.

RHYS

eight and a half from Carmarthen as the crow flies. The hunt is resumed in the Valley of the ILychwr or Loughor1, where Grugyn and another young boar, called ILwydawc Gouynnyat, committed terrible ravages among the huntsmen. This brought Arthur and his host to the rescue, and Twrch Trwyth, on his part, came to help his boars; but as a tremendous attack was now made on him he moved away, leaving the ILychwr, and making eastwards for Mynyd Amanw, or 'the Mountain of Amman,' for Amanw is plentifully preserved in that neighbourhood in the shortened form of Aman or Amman 3. On Mynyd Amanw one of his boars was killed, but he is not distinguished by any proper name: he is simply called a banw, 'a young boar.' The Twrch was again hard pressed, and lost another called Twrch ILawin. Then a third of the swine is killed, called Gwys, whereupon Twrch Trwyth went to Dyffryn Amanw, or the Vale of Amman, where he lost a banw and a benwic, a 'boar' and a 'sow.' All this evidently takes place in the same district, and Mynyd Amanw was, if not Bryn Amman, probably one of the mountains to the south or south-east of the river Amman, so that Dyffryn Amanw may have been what is still called Dyffryn Amman, or the Valley of the

1 Cas Lychwr, 'Loughor Castle,' is supposed to involve in its Lychwr, ILwchwr, or Loughor, the name of the place in the Antoninus Itinerary, 484, 1, to wit Leucarum; but the guttural spirant ch between vowels in Lychwr argues a phonetic process which was Goidelic rather than Brythonic.

2 ILwydawc Gouynnyat would seem to mean Lwydawc the Asker or Demander, and the epithet occurs also in the Kulhwch in the name Gallcoyt Gouynynat (Mabinogion, 106), to be read doubtless G. Gouynnyat, 'G. who asks or demands': possibly one should rather compare with Go-uynnyat the word tra-mynyat, 'a wild boar': see Williams' Seint Greal, pp. 374, 381. However, the epithets in the Twrch Trwyth story do not count so far as concerns the place-names derived.

Other instances of the like shortening occur in words like cefnder, 'a cousin,' for cefnderw, and ardel, ' to own,' for ardelw. As to Amman, it enters, also, into a group of Glamorganshire place-names: witness Aber Amman and Cwm Amman, near Aberdare.

Amman from Bryn Amman to where the river Amman falls into the Lychwr. From the Amman the Twrch and the two remaining boars of his herd made their way to ILwch Ewin, 'the lake or pool of Ewin,' which is now represented by a bog mere above a farm house called Lwch in the parish of Bettws, which covers the southern slope of the Amman Valley. I have found this bog called in a map ILwch is Awel, 'Pool below Breeze,' whatever that may mean.

We find them next at Lwch Tawi, the position of which is indicated by that of Ynys Pen ILwch, 'Pool's End Isle,' some distance lower down the Tawe than Pont ar Dawe. At this point the boars separate, and Grugyn goes away to Din Tywi, 'Towy Fort,' an unidentified position somewhere on the Towy, possibly Grongar Hill near ILandeilo, and thence to a place in Keredigion where he was killed, namely, Garth Grugyn. I have not yet been able to identify the spot, though it must have once had a castle, as we read of a castle called Garthgrugyn being strengthened by Maelgwn Vychan in the year 1242: the Bruts locate it in Keredigion1, but this part of the story is obscured by careless copying on the part of the scribe 2 of the

1 It should perhaps be looked for near Brechfa, where there is a Hafod Grugyn, and, as I am told, a Garth also which is, however, not further defined. For it appears that both Brechfa and Cayo, though now in Carmarthenshire, once belonged to Keredigion: see Owen's Pembrokeshire, p. 216. But perhaps another spot should be considered: J. D. Rhys, the grammarian (p. 22 above), gives in the Peniarth MS. 118 a list of caers or castles called after giants, and among them is that of Grugyn in the parish, he says, of ILan Hilar.' I have, however, not been able to hear of any trace of the name there, though I should guess the spot to have been Pen y Castell, called in English Castle Hill, the residence of Mr. Loxdale in the parish of Lanilar, near Aberystwyth.

"I have re-examined the passage, and I have no doubt that the editors were wrong in printing Gregyn: the manuscript has Grugyn, which comes in the last line of column 841. Now besides that the line is in part somewhat faint, the scribe has evidently omitted something from the original story, and I guess that the lacuna occurs in the first line of the next column after the words y llas, was killed,' which seem to end the story of Grugyn.