LLOKGBORTH OF LLYWARCH HEN'S ELEGY. 55 



edition of the Poems of the British Bards of the Sixth 



Century.* 



In the " argument " prefixed to the elegy, this cele- 

 brated Celtlc scholar, after having referred to the coast of 

 Comwall as peculiarly favourable for the landlng of the 

 Saxon invaders,t adds : " It was there, in A.D. 501, that 

 two shlps, under the command of Porta, landed ; and the 

 invaders, in honour of their leader, called the place Port's 

 Mouth, ix. the harbour of Porta." 



He then gives it as his opinion, that Llongborth is 

 the same with Portsmouth ; and that the young noble, 

 slain at the landlng of Porta, was Geraint ab Erbin. In 

 confirmation of this opinion, he imagines he findsin Llong- 

 borth, a literal translation of Portsmouth ; taking Llong 

 to be a form of Llwnc which he translates, " Mouth." t 



We pass over the geographlcal error of placing Ports- 

 mouth in Cornwall, which evidently arose from the assumed 

 connexion of the event with the Cornish Prince, and merely 

 observe that in the elegy itself. Geraint is described as a 



" Warrior brave from the woodlands of Devon ;" 

 and it is well known that the Dijvnaint of the British, as 

 well as the Dumnonium of the Romans, included a large 

 part of West Somerset. 



According to the best Welsh authorities I have been 

 able to consult, Llwnc, signifies the Swallow, the Giilht, 

 and not the Mouth. But even though the etymology were 

 ever so unobjectionable, the explanation of Llongborth, 



* Poemes des Bardes Eretons du VI« Siecle, &c., par Th. Hersart de 

 la Villemarque. Paris, 1850. 



t « II y avait sur la cote, ä la pointe de la Cornouaille, un endroit 

 favorable aux descentes des Saxons." p. 1. 



: «Jeretrouvedans Longborth, ou plutot Longport (comme on l'a 

 primitivement öcrit) la traduction exacte de Portes-Muthe." p. 2. 



