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into these tales as Smychiaid, Cowperiaid, Pellings, Penelope, Leisa Bèla or Isabella, and the like. This association of the lake legends with intruders from without is what has, perhaps, to a great measure served to rescue them from oblivion.

As to a church at Corwrion, the tradition does not seem to be an old one, and it appears founded on one of the popular etymologies of the word Corwrion, which treats the first syllable as cor in the sense of a choir; but the word has other meanings, including among them that of an ox-stall or enclosure for cattle. Taking this as coming near the true explanation, it at once suggests itself that Creuwyryon in the Mabinogi of Math ab Mathonwy is the same place, for creu or crau also meant an enclosure for animals, not even excluding swine. In Irish the word is cró, an enclosure, a hut or hovel. The passage in the Mabinogi relates to Gwydion returning with the swine he had got by dint of magic and deceit from Pryderi prince of Dyfed, and runs thus in Lady Charlotte Guest's translation: "So they journeyed on to the highest town of Arllechwedd, and there they made a sty (creu) for the swine, and therefore was the name of Creuwyryon given to that town." As to wyrion or wyryon, which we find made into wrion in Corwrion according to the modern habit, it would seem to be no other word than the usual plural of wyr, a grandson, formerly also any descendant in the direct line. If so, the name of an ancestor must have originally followed, just as one of the places called Bettws was once "Bettws Wyrion Iddon"; but it is possible that "Wyrion" in Creu- or Cor-Wyrion was itself a man's name, though I have never met with it. It is right to add that the name appears in the record of Carnarvon as Creweryon, which carries us back to the first half of the fourteenth century. There it occurs as the name of a township containing eight gavels, and the particulars about it might, in the hand of a man familiar with the tenures

of that time, perhaps give us valuable information as to what may have been its status at a still earlier date.

In the next number I hope to be able to say something of the versions of the lake legends which are extant at Drws y Coed and elsewhere, and I should be exceedingly thankful for any correction or any scrap of information bearing on this subject from any other part of the Principality. Nothing will be published without duly acknowledging whence it comes. If space should allow of it, some remarks will be added at the end on the general character of this kind of folk-lore, its place in Celtic mythology, and what it has in common with the legends of other nations. But I expect that the legends, when brought together, will to a great extent explain one another, and leave me little to do by way of explaining them.

A CELTO-SLAVONIC SUFFIX.

THE Britannic languages-Welsh, Cornish, and Breton-have among their substantives some which Welsh grammarians call Collectives and Singulatives. As the reader knows, Collectives are substantives which have a plural force without a plural ending; and the Singulatives, i.e., those forms which are employed to designate a single object, have this peculiarity-they appear to be formed from the Collective. These Singulatives end in -in (now written -yn) for the masculine, and in -en for the feminine.

Examples: Welsh :—

Cornish :

Breton :

Adar, birds; aderyn, a bird.
Plant, children; plentyn, a child.
Derw, oaks; derwen, an oak.
Gwenyn, bees; gwenynen, a bee.'

Gwyth, arbores; guiden, arbor.
Deyl, folia; delen, folium."

Kaol, des choux; kaolen, un chou.

Stered, des étoiles; stereden, une étoile.

Faô, des hêtres; faôen, un hêtre.

Gwenan, des abeilles; gwenanen, une abeille.3

Most Welsh grammarians record these facts under the heading, "Formation of the Singular from the Plural", and

1 Rowland's Welsh Grammar, 4th edit., p. 33. 2 Zeuss2, p. 297. 3 Le Gonidec, Grammaire bretonne, ed. La Villemarqué (prefixed to the Dict. breton-français), p. 17. It will be seen that Cornish and Breton have only the suffix -en; in Breton, singulatives in -en are always feminine. Hingant, Éléments de la grammaire bretonne, p. 12, n,

the Breton grammarians express themselves in the same way. The enormity of this theory does not strike them, and they look for no historic or organic explanation of this curious parallelism. However, an old Welsh grammarian, J. Davies, in his Antiquae Linguae Britannicae Rudimenta,1 had (as we are reminded by Zeuss, p. 295) caught a glimpse of, and formulated, a perfectly natural explanation, which we proceed to develop here.2

The explanation of these forms in yn and -en is very simple; and that it did not present itself to the mind of the Welsh and Breton grammarians (J. Davies excepted), is due to the fact that the language has no longer any consciousness that these forms are diminutives. It is what has occurred, for instance, in French, in the case of such words as soleil from *"soliculus", sommeil from *"somniculus", abeille from “apicula", grenouille from "ranuncula", aiguille from “acicula”, etc. It is the case in German as regards mädchen, veilchen, etc. -diminutives of which the primitive has become almost or entirely obsolete, and which have by usage acquired the full force of the primitive which they have displaced. The same phenomenon occurred in Latin, as is seen by such words as annulus, oculus, puella, etc. The simple term is readily supplanted by the diminutive, especially when the former is a monosyllable; and then the language uses the derivative-originally diminutive without any recollection of the particular signification it bore when first formed.

1 Pp. 61-2 of the Oxford reprint in 12mo., 1809.

2 It is scarcely worth observing that to this class of nouns must be added those which, ending in -yn, masc.; and -en, fem.; "throw off these terminations when the plural termination is added” (Rowlands, p. 32). Example

Merlyn, pony (masc.)

Merlen, pony (fem.); pl., merlod.
Meddwyn, a drunkard; pl., meddwon.
Llysŵen, an eel; pl., llyswod, etc.

Now Welsh has among its suffixes of diminution -yn for the masc. and -en for the fem. These enable us to understand the nature and the origin of the so-called Singulatives.

Bachgenyn, a little boy; from bachgen, a boy.
Merlyn, a little horse; from merl, a pony.

Miaren, a little bramble; from miar, a bramble.

The suffix -en, which forms feminine nouns, is the feminine form that regularly corresponds to -yn masc., as is seen by the adjectives which admit of internal flexion; e.g., gwyn m., gwen f., white, etc. Cornish and Breton have lost this diminutive suffix.

It is by this suffix that the "Singulative" is most satisfactorily explained. It is easy to see that the "Collectives" are old plurals preserved in the language, while the Singulative is the singular strengthened by the suffix of diminution. The forms of the singular, the endings of which were not so heavy as those of the plural, were found too light, when these very endings had been worn away. The language felt the necessity of giving them ballast, and the example of other languages (compare the French, German, and Latin words quoted above) shows that the diminutive endings are frequently used for this purpose. The hypocoristic tendency, the instinct which leads to the formation of familiar names and terms of endearment, aids greatly in this work of regeneration of the simple substantive. These diminutives once created, the language had a sufficiently clear consciousness of the difference between the singular and the plural to make it necessary, for the most part, to add the new plural ending to these old plurals, which had become, in a manner, petrified as collectives.

An analogous phenomenon, in which the suffix, too, is the same, appears in the Slavonic languages; and of the origin of this, again, the Slavonic grammarians (such of them, at

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