to the shaving is related by Geoffrey of Monmouth, x. 3, where Arthur is made to tell how the giant, after destroying the other kings and using their beards in the way mentioned, asked him for his beard to fix above the other beards, as he stood above them in rank, or else to come and fight a duel with him. Arthur, as might be expected, chose the latter course, with the result that he slew Rhita, there called Ritho, at a place said to be in Aravio Monte, by which the Welsh translator understood the chief mountain of Eryri1 or Snowdon. So it is but natural that his grave should also be there, as already mentioned. I may here add that it is the name Snowdon itself, probably, that underlies the Senaudon or Sinadoun of such Arthurian romances as the English version of Libeaus Desconus, though the place meant has been variously supposed to be situated elsewhere than in the Snowdon district: witness Sinodun Hill in Berkshire 2.

The story of Rhita is told also by Malory, who calls that giant Ryons and Ryence; and there the incident seems to end with Ryons being led to Arthur's court by knights who had overcome him. Ryons' challenge, as given by Malory 3, runs thus :—

'This meane whyle came a messager from kynge Ryons of Northwalys. And kynge he was of all Ireland and of many Iles. And this was his message gretynge wel kynge Arthur in this manere wyse sayenge . that kynge Ryons had discomfyte and ouercome xj kynges. and eueryche of hem did hym homage. and that was this.

1 Oxford Bruts, p. 213: compare p. 146, together with Geoffrey's Latin, vii. 3, X. 3.

2 See Kölbing's Altenglische Bibliothek, the fifth volume of which consists of Libeaus Desconus, edited by Max Kaluza (Leipsic, 1890), lines 163, 591, and Introduction, p. cxxxxiv. For calling my attention to this, I have to thank my friend, Mr. Henry Bradley.

3 Malory's Morte Darthur, i. 27: see also i. 17-8, 28; ii. 6, 8-9.

they gaf hym their berdys clene flayne of . as moche as ther was. wherfor the messager came for kyng Arthurs berd. For kyng Ryons had purfyled a mantel with kynges berdes. and there lacked one place of the mantel. wherfor he sente for his berd or els he wold entre in to his landes. and brenne and slee. & neuer leue tyl he haue the hede and the berd.'

Rhita is not said, it is true, to have been a Gwydel, 'Goidel'; but he is represented ruling over Ireland, and his name, which is not Welsh, recalls at first sight those of such men as Boya the Pict or Scot figuring in the life of St. David, and such as Lia Gvitel,' ILia the Goidel,' mentioned in the Stanzas of the Graves in the Black Book of Carmarthen as buried in the seclusion of Ardudwy1. Malory's Ryons is derived from the French Romances, where, as for example in the Merlin, according to the Huth MS., it occurs as Rion-s in the nominative, and Rion in régime. The latter, owing to the old French habit of eliding & or th, derives regularly enough from such a form as the accusative Rithon-em2, which is the one

1 See Evans' Autotype Facsimile, fo. 33a: could the spot so called (in the Welsh text argel Ardudwy) be somewhere in the neighbourhood of ILyn Irdyn (p. 148), a district said to be rich in the remains of a prehistoric antiquity? J. Evans, author of the North Wales volume of the Beauties of England and Wales, says, after hurriedly enumerating such antiquities, p. 909 : 'Perhaps in no part of Britain is there still remaining such an assemblage of relicks belonging to druidical rites and customs as are found in this place, and the adjacent parts.'

'As to Rion, see Gaston Paris and Ulrich's Merlin (Paris, 1886), i. 202, 239-46. Other instances will readily occur to the reader, such as the Domesday Roelend or Roelent for Rothelan, in Modern Welsh Rhuðlan; but for more instances of this elision by French and Anglo-Norman scribes of vowel-flanked & and th, see Notes and Queries for Oct. 28, 1899, pp. 351-2, and Nov. 18, p. 415; also Vising's Étude sur le Dialecte anglo-normand du xije Siècle (Upsala, 1882), p. 88; and F. Hildebrand's article on Domesday, in the Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 1884, p. 360. According to Suchier in Gröber's Grundriss der rom. Philologie, i. 581, this process of elision became complete in the twelfth century: see also Schwan's Grammatik des Altfranzösischen (Leipsic, 1888), p. 65. For most of these references, I have to thank my friend and neighbour, Mr. Stevenson of Exeter College.

occurring in Geoffrey's text; and we should probably be right in concluding therefrom that the correct old Welsh form of the name was Rithon. But the Goidelic form was at the same time probably Ritta, with a genitive Rittann, for an earlier Ritton. Lastly, that the local legend should perpetuate the Goidelic Ritta slightly modified, has its parallel in the case of Trwyd and Trwyth, and of Echel and Egel or Ecel, pp. 541-2 and 536-7.

The next story1 points to a spot between y Dinas or Dinas Emrys and Lyn y Dinas as containing the grave of Owen y Mhacsen, that is to say, 'Owen son of Maxen.' Owen had been fighting with a giant-whose name local tradition takes for granted-with balls of steel; and there are depressions (panylau 2) still to be seen in the ground where each of the combatants took his stand. Some, however, will have it that it was with bows and arrows they fought, and that the hollows are the places they dug to defend themselves. The result was that both died at the close of the conflict; and Owen, being asked where he wished to be buried, ordered an arrow to be shot into the air and his grave to be made where it fell. The story is similarly given in the Iolo MSS., pp. 81-2, where the combatants are called Owen Findu ab Macsen Wledig, 'Owen of the Dark Face, son of Prince Maxen,' and Eurnach Hen, 'E. the Ancient,' one of the Gwydyl or 'Goidels' of North Wales, and otherwise called Urnach Wydel. He is there represented as father (1) of the Serrigi defeated by Catwattawn or Cadwallon Law-hir, 'C. the Long-handed,' at Cerrig y Gwydyl, 'the Stones of the Goidels,' near Malldraeth 3, in Anglesey, where the great and final rout of the Goidels is represented as having

1 It comes from the same Lwyd MS. which has already been cited at pp. 233-4 see the Cambrian Journal for 1859, pp. 209-10.

"I notice in the maps a spot called Panylau, which is nearer to Lyn Gwynain than to Lyn y Dinas.

3 See Morris' Celtic Remains, s. v. Serigi, and the Iolo MSS.,

p. 81.

taken place1; (2) of Daronwy, an infant spared and brought up in Anglesey to its detriment, as related in the other story, p. 504; and (3) of Solor, who commands one of the three cruising fleets of the Isle of Prydain 2. The stronghold of Eurnach or Urnach is said to have been Dinas Ffaraon, which was afterwards called Din Emreis and Dinas Emrys. The whole story about the Goidels in North Wales, however, as given in the Iolo MSS., pp. 78-80, is a hopeless jumble, though it is probably based on old traditions. In fact, one detects Eurnach or Urnach as Wrnach or Gwrnach in the story of Kulhwch and Olwen in the Red Book, where we are told that Kei or Cai, and others of Arthur's men, got into the giant's castle and cut off his head in order to secure his sword, which was one of the things required for the hunting of Twrch Trwyth. In an obscure passage, also in a poem in the Black Book, we read of Cai fighting in the hall of this giant, who is then called Awarnach. Some such a feat appears to have been commemorated in the place-name Gwryd Cai, Cai's Feat of Arms,' which occurs in ILewelyn's grant of certain lands on the Bedgelert and Pen Gwryd side of Snowdon in 1198 to the monks of Aberconwy, or rather in an inspeximus of the same: see Dugdale's Monasticon, v. 673a, where it stands printed gwryt, kei. Nor is it unreasonable to guess that Pen Gwryd is only a shortening of Pen Gwryd Cai, 'Cai's Feat Knoll or Terminus'; but compare p. 217 above. Before leaving Cai I may point out that

1 The Iolo MSS., p. 81, have Syrigi Wydel son of Mwrchan son of Eurnach Hen.

• See Triads, ii. 12, and the Mabinogion, p. 301: in Triads, i. 72, iii. 86, instead of Solor we have Doler and Dolor.

See the Oxford Mabinogion, pp. 125–8.

'Evans' Autotype Facsimile, fo. 48; see also my preface to Dent's Malory, p. xxvii; likewise p. 457 above..

tradition seems to ascribe to him as his residence the place called Caer Gai, 'Cai's Fort,' between Bala and Lanuwchllyn. If one may treat Cai as a historical man, one may perhaps suppose him, or some member of his family, commemorated by the vocable Burgocavi on an old stone found at Caer Gai, and said to read: Ic iacit Salvianus Burgocavi filius Cupitiani 1— 'Here lies Salvianus Burgocavis, son of Cupitianus.' The reader may also be referred back to such nonBrythonic and little known figures as Daronwy, Cathbalug, and Brynach, together perhaps with Mengwaed, the wolf-lord of Arttechwed, pp. 504-5. It is worth while calling attention likewise to Goidelic indications afforded by the topography of Eryri, to wit such cases as Bwlch Mwrchan or Mwlchan, Mwrchan's Pass,' sometimes made into Bwlch Mwyalchen or even Bwlch y Fwyalchen, 'the Ousel's Gap,' near ILyn Gwynain; the remarkable remains called Muriau'r Dre, 'the Town Walls' otherwise known as Tre'r Gwydelod2, 'the Goidels' town'-on the land of Gwastad Annas at the top of Nanhwynain; and Bwlch y Gwyđel, still higher towards Pen Gwryd, may have meant the 'Goidel's Pass.'

Probably a study of the topography on the spot would result in the identification of more names similarly significant; but I will call attention to only one of them,

1 See my Lectures on Welsh Philology, pp. 377-9; and, as to the Caer Gai tradition, the Arch. Camb. for 1850, p. 204, and Morris' Celtic Remains, p. 63. I may add as to ILanuwchllyn, that the oldest inhabitants pronounce that name LLanuwiłyn.

" I cannot discover that it has ever been investigated by the Cambrian Archæological Association or any other antiquaries. Compare the case of the neighbouring site with the traces of the copper smeltings mentioned in the note on p. 532 above. To my knowledge the Cambrians have twice failed to make their way nearer to the ruins than Lanberis, or at most Lanberis Pass, significantly called in Welsh Pen Gorffwysfa for the older name Gorffwysfa Beris, 'Peris' Resting-place': thus we loyally follow the example of resting set by the saint, and leave alone the archæology of the district.