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Archaeological Notes and Queries.

NEOLITHIC CELT FOUND AT COLWYN BAY.--The Celt here illustrated was found in April 1868, by my wife, among the shingle on the

Celt from Colwyn Bay.

beach at Colwyn Bay. Other stones and pebbles which attracted her attention from their peculiar shape were gathered at the same time, and placed in a box along with the Celt, to be left unnoticed for some fifteen years. They were then handed by the finder to the

writer, who casually examined them, and again put them away in a drawer where they remained till last year (1896).

On reading "Cave-Hunting" by Professor Boyd Dawkins, I was struck with a woodcut of a greenstone Celt (p. 157), found by Professor Dawkins near Llandegla, in Denbighshire; and on referring to the box of stones collected by my wife I found among them a somewhat similar Celt to the one illustrated by Professor Dawkins; and it was not until then I became aware I had been treasuring up an interesting Neolithic relic.

This Celt (still in my possession) is of smoothly-polished greenstone, and its dimensions are: height 5 in., breadth 3 in., circumference 73 in., width at thick end 2 in. From this thick and rough end it gradually tapers to a cutting edge: this edge has got somewhat chipped, probably by abrasion with other stones on the beach.

On grasping the broad or thick end in the palm of the hand, the thumb fits into a slight depression on the side of the stone, and there is a corresponding depression on the reverse side into which the second and third fingers naturally find their place; this is an interesting point, for it seems to confirm Professor Dawkins's theory that such instruments when rounded at both ends 66 were probably used freely in the hand; and from their analogy with similar instruments used by the Eskimos, there can be but little doubt that they were intended for the preparation of skins" (" Cave-Hunting," p. 341).

College Road, Crosby, Liverpool.

WM. FRED PRICE.

THE ANCIENT NAMES OF HAVERFORD.-The substance of the following letter appeared in the Antiquaries' column of Mr. H. W. Williams's paper," The Pembroke County Guardian," for May 29th, 1897; and as it concerns a part of my former paper, especially pages 134-6, I should be glad if you could find room for it in the Journal. In the April number I gave some account of the stone which Mr. Williams took Mr. Henry Owen, Mr. Laws, and myself to see in August 1896, near Rickardston Hall. The first line you remember reads in Latin

BRIAC FIL-,

which being in the genitive has to be rendered "the Stone or the Monument of Briacus son of "-we have not been able to make out whom. Briacus is the name which has become Briog in modern Welsh, and we have it with a reverential prefix ty in Ty-friog in Llan Dyfriog in the Teivi Valley, while in Brittany the same name has become Brieuc in St. Brieuc; and I referred to a Life of the Saint in the second volume of the hagiological collection known as the Analecta Bollandiana, to which my attention had been called by Professor Hugh Williams, of Bala. Then I proceeded to speculate

as follows: The reader, however, is not to infer that I regard our Briac-i as the Saint; but I take the liberty of appending some remarks on the Life to which I have referred. It opens with the following statement, p. 163: Sanctus Briomaglus, Coriticianæ regionis indigena, parentibus secundum seculi dignitatem nobilibus ortus est. Here the full name is given as Briomaglus, but afterwards Brioccius is the form regularly used. More interest attaches to the identity of the Coriticiana Regio; the same designation occurs again twice, namely, on p. 186, and we have Patria Coriticiana on the same page. Lastly, when the Saint goes to be educated to St. Germanus, the latter is made to exclaim (p. 166), as he approaches him: "Ecre de Coriticiorum gente puerum generis nobilitate clarum, etc. Where, then, was the Saint's country? The Editor says in a footnote that it was the County of Kerry; but it would puzzle him, I think, to find any name of Kerry that could be identified with Coriticiana. He was naturally led to his conclusion by the statement in the Life, p. 171, that, when the Saint wished to return home from Gaul, he embarked on board a ship which was going ad scene fluvium; for there seems to be evidence that this was once the name of the river which drains Loch Currane between the counties of Cork and Kerry; or was it Kenmare River? On the whole, however, I find it far harder to believe that Coriticiana was Kerry, than to suppose that there is some mistake in the Life, or what is more probable, that there was another Scene Fluvius, namely in Wales, say the Cleddeu, the Teivi or the Aeron. For one finds that Coriticiana equates letter for letter with our Keredigion, "Cardiganshire," the Ceretica Regio of Giraldus, and the Coriticiana of an earlier writer, the reference to whom, I am sorry to say, I have lost. The name is usuallyand doubtlessly correctly-regarded as derived from that of a chieftain Cereticus; and the older form of this latter name occurs probably in that of the Coroticus of St. Patrick's Epistola. Now the fact that there is a Llandyfriog in Cardiganshire, and that the name Briac-i is attested in the neighbouring county of Pembroke, favours the view that Coriticiana was our Keredigion. Lastly, I ought to have mentioned that when St. Briog comes home and converts his people to Christianity, he builds churches among them, and especially one called in the Life (p. 174), Landa Magna, a name to be expected in Wales rather than in Ireland. In fact, I should render it Llan Fawr, "Ecclesia Magna"; but the only Llan Fawr known to me in Cardiganshire consists of some old houses near Yspyty Cynfyn, in the north of the County. I trust, however, that some of our readers may be able to point to a Llan Fawr in South Cardiganshire, or in one of the adjoining districts of Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire.

Now the first-fruits of my inquiry after a Llan Fawr was a card from Mr. Henry Owen, pointing one out in the parish of Eglwys Wrw about a quarter of a mile from the parish church. What there is remaining of that Llan Fawr I know not, but I daresay

some one of our members will let us know in the pages of this Journal. I wrote back to thank Mr. Owen for his Llan Fawr, and I added that ad scene fluvium ought to mean "to the river of Knife as there is an Irish word scian, genitive sceine, meaning a knife the name had reminded me of the Cleddeu or cleddyf— "sword." He wrote back improving on this, by directing me to page 98 of George Owen's Pembrokeshire, where one will find all about the little river Cyllell or Cylleth, which Leland gives "in Englisch" as Knife. It rises, George Owen says, near Walton, and it comes in, if I remember rightly, a little below the bridge at Haverfordwest. So I have no longer any doubt that the cleric Briog coming ad scene fluvium was going to land at Haverford, and I cannot help thinking that the Irish name of the port was an early form of Inver Scene, Welsh Aber Cyllell, "the inver, aber, or confluence of the scian, cyllell, or Knife River. Possibly the name was also cut down to Scian and Cyllell.

As to the Llan Fawr near Eglwys Wrw, in Pembrokeshire, that was probably in the heart of St. Briog's country; but how, you will ask, could that be Keredigion? There is no difficulty if you will suppose Keredig and his people to have pushed their conquests southwards over the Teivi, but to have been eventually thrust back to that river, and to have been forced to remain content with it as their boundary ever afterwards. This is not altogether guessing on my part: if you will look into the Lives of the Cambro-British Saints, you will find (at page 101) a passage in the Life of St. Carannog to the effect that Cunedda's sons had possession of the country from a river called Dubyr Dviv to another river called Groun-these are the correct readings, for the reader of these Lives must be warned that they teem with inaccuracies. The rivers meant were the Dyfrdwyf, "the Dee," and the Gwaen or Gweun by Fishguard, which is called in Welsh, as you know, Aber Gwaen. Among the sons of Cunedda, in the passage to which I have referred, Keredig is duly mentioned; and putting together the statement in question and the life of St. Briog we arrive at the conclusion that Keredig's people held possession of Pembrokeshire from the Gwaen northwards in the time of the Saint, that is to say in the fifth century; for he was, as we have seen, a pupil of St. Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, in the French department of the Yonne. Now for the fame of Germanus to have so spread as to attract a pupil from the neighbourhood of Eglwys Wrw, one is induced to suppose that it was after Germanus's first visit to Britain to confute the Pelagians; and this took place, according to Prosper of Aquitaine, in the year 429. On the other hand, it has been inferred that Germanus died in the year 448. So to the time between 429 and 448 we may provisionally refer Briog's interval of study under Germanus. How much later North Pembrokeshire belonged to the Keredig dynasty I cannot say; but in this connection I may mention the fact to which Mr. Owen has called my attention at the last moment, namely, that the Deanery of Kemes is

contained in the Archdeaconry of Cardigan; but how old is that arrangement? In any case, the life of St. David should be carefully studied in the light of the newly-acquired data.

One's curiosity is roused, I may notice in passing, as to the nature of the trade implied between Haverford and the Seine, or in other words between Paris and Demetia. This, however, and other points which suggest themselves to me I feel content to leave to my friend, the editor of George Owen. I am well aware of his love for his "honey" Haverford, and perhaps you will be able to induce him to give us his views further in the pages of the Journal.

I wish to add that, since writing the above words, I have come across the missing reference, and I find it was to the Acta Sanctorum for May 1, Vol. I, pp. 91-94, where a life of St. Briog is published ex officio proprio Ecclesiæ S. Brioci. In this life the spelling is Briocus and Corriticiana, also once Corriticia; but most of the proper names relating to the Greater Britain have been omitted, and the Germanus to whom the Saint was pupil is represented as a later Germanus flourishing in the sixth century. This opens up a question which I am not competent to discuss, but perhaps Professor Williams might help us. Lastly, I may mention that I have heard from Mr. Phillimore, that he has in view another Llan Fawr, so we seem to be only touching the borders as yet of a much larger inquiry than I contemplated when I began: so much the better.

JOHN RHYS.

P.S. This letter was written, it must be borne in mind, before my paper published in the last October number of this Journal. —J. R.

TURNIPS IN PEMBROKESHIRE. George Owen, in his paper on "Pembrokeshire Ploughland" (published in Owen's Pembrokeshire, i, p. 366), speaks of the cultivation of turnips in the county by the acre. Turnips had been grown in England in gardens, but the field-culture was introduced from Hanover in the early part of the last century by Lord Townshend, who thereby added to his titles that of "Turnip Townshend". It seems open to conjecture whether the cultivation of turnips in Pembrokeshire was not another legacy from the Flemings, who have left there the mark of their superior civilization in the voor and the donneken.

HENRY OWEN.