2)i<i s. N" 40., Oct. 4. '56.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



271 



or a, monument to her memory, is, I believe, still 

 to be seen at Christchurch, Oxford. She was, I 

 presume, of Saxon origin. T. B. 



[Frideswide, or Fridiswida, honoured as the patroness 

 of Oxford, is said to have been the daughter of Didanus, 

 or Diilacus, a sub-regulus in these parts, who about the 

 year 727, on the death of his wife Safrida, founded a nun- 

 nery at Oxford for twelve reh'gious virgins of noble birth, 

 under the government of his daughter. Frideswide being 

 buried here, and afterwards canonised, the monastery was 

 dedicated to her memorj', and called almost always by 

 her name. For the life of St. Frideswide consult Cap- 

 grave's Nova Legenda Angliw, fol. Lond., p. clii. b. ; Bri- 

 tannia Sancta, p. 207. ; Butler's Lives of the Saints, 

 Oct. 19.; and Dugdale's Monasticon, vol. ii. p. 134., edit. 

 1819,] 



H^plte^. 



WERE THE SILURES OF IBEBIC ORIGIN ? 

 (2"'» S. i. 17.) 



Permit me to tender Dimetiensis my sincere 

 thanks for his response to the Query, wherein I 

 requested a copy, if possible, of certain undecl- 

 phered inscriptions said to exist in Cardigan Bay. 

 He concludes his remarks by asking for the proofs 

 of my assertion that the Silurians came from 

 Spain. To this I answer, that although we have 

 no authoritative records testifying to that effect, 

 yet the idea is supported by so many concurrent 

 circumstances, and harmonises so well with what 

 we know of the history of those times, that it 

 may perhaps, without impropriety, be regarded as 

 a tolerably established fact. The subject is neither 

 uninteresting nor unimportant ; and it may there- 

 fore be worth while to go into those circumstances, 

 with, however, the utmost possible brevity. They 

 are as follows : — 



1. The statement in Tacitus. Your correspon- 

 dent regards this statement as a mere guess, but 

 Niebuhr thought otherwise. Hear what he says 

 on the matter in his History of Rome (vol. ii. 

 p. 517., note) : 



" Tlieir [the Silurians, Iberian,] origin is not an in- 

 ference which ho [Tacitus] himself draws from these 

 circumstances, [the features, hue, and hair of the Silu- 

 rians], but he looks upon them as proofs of the truth of a 

 current opinion." 



2. The fact pointed out by myself some time 

 since in "N. & Q.," that the Scilly Isles are 

 called by Solinus Silura. This is satisfactory evi- 

 dence that the Silurians inhabited those islands; 

 and as they are 150 miles from South Wales (the 

 head-quarters of that nation), on the direct road 

 from Spain, tlieir presence there can be accounted 

 for only on the supposition that they were left 

 behind by the body of their countrymen when 

 voyaging from Spain to South Wales. 



3. Several places in South Wales have Iberic 

 names. Siluria itself is an Iberic word, and iden- 



tical with Lusones ; which tribe, as it was located 

 on the precise spot whence the Silurians are most 

 likely to have sailed, may reasonably be set down 

 as the parents of the race : (r and s were anciently 

 interchangeable : thus, Fusius and Furius, Vetu- 

 sius and Veturius, are identical. See Livy, iii. 14.) 



4. The renowned story of the Milesian colony 

 to Ireland may be regarded as affording some 

 confirmation to the idea otherwise rendered pro- 

 bable, that a considerable portion of the British 

 aborigines came from Spain. At least, it proves 

 that a tradition to that effect was current among 

 the Britons themselves. 



Dimetiensis says, that he had supposed that the 

 Dimetas inhabited the "Lost Hundred;" where 

 I have located the Silurians. His supposition is 

 doubtless literally accurate ; at the same time I 

 may mention, that the Dimetae, as well as the 

 Ordovices (of North Wales), were subject to the 

 Silurians : and as subjection pre-supposes a con- 

 quest, my statement may perhaps be considered 

 as equally accurate. 



With respect to the Silurians in the Scillies, I 

 may remark, that according to a saintly, but some- 

 what apocryphal authority, cited by Southey in 

 his Common-place Booh, a certain King Mark, 

 who reigned in Cornwall in the fifth century, had 

 subjects who spoke in four different languages. 

 Southey offers some suggestions as to what these 

 four languages were. Plis conclusions are not 

 however either definite or satisfactory ; and I 

 would rather conjecture the languages to have 

 been : — 1. Cornish proper. 2. Cymric, or Welsh. 

 3. Gaelic; and 4. Iberic, which, as above shown, 

 was spoken in the Scillies. 



I have set down the Gaelic as one of the dif- 

 ferent dialects on the following grounds. The 

 Gael, or Gwyddyl, were undoubtedly the real 

 British aborigines ; and when the Cymri con- 

 quered Britain, they fled not only, as is well 

 known, to Ireland and Scotland, but to Anglesea 

 and Cornwall also. This is clear from the follow- 

 ing verses of Golyddan, a Welsh bard of the 

 seventh century : 



" After the expulsion [of the Picts and Scots], they make 



a triumph, 

 And reconciled the Cymry, the men of Dublin, 

 The Gwyddyl of Ireland, Anglesey, and Scotland. 

 Cornwall, and the men of Alclwyd, to their reception 



amongst us." 



It will be well if, in our researches into ancient 

 British history, we constantly bear in mind this 

 diversity of race; for it will doubtless tend to 

 illustrate some points which otherwise would re- 

 main hopelessly obscure. Thus, the fact of the 

 Gaelic race existing in Anglesea, as a separate 

 nation, down to the seventh century, may enable 

 us to assign a satisfactory reason for an action 

 attributed to Rhodri Mawr (a.d. 891), which is 

 otherwise inexplicable. I allude to his transfer- 



