56 PAPERS, ETC. 



which this hypothesis involves, could not fall to prove 

 unsatisfactoiy, inasmiich as It cannot, upon consideratlon, 

 be tliought at all probable, scarcely possible, that a 

 British Prlnce, when einging tlie praises of bis friend 

 and companion in avnis, would have adopted and translated 

 the name which was given by their enemies to the place 

 where he feil, to do honour to bis foe. 



Surely there must have been a British name for the 

 harbour of Portsmouth before the landing of Porta ; and 

 that, whatever it might have been, would be used by 

 Llywarch Hen on this occasion, and not the translation of 

 a Saxon name. Portsmouth is undoubtedly the Mejacr 

 \ifjiijv of Claudius Ptolema3us ; the Portus Magnus of the 

 Romans. The first part of the word is, evidently, con- 

 nected with the harbour, and not with the name of the 

 Saxon invader. 



A strong argument in favour of Langport as the site of 

 the ancient British town of Llongborth, is presented in the 

 fact that there is no other place in the kingdora whose 

 name so closely resembles it in sound.* And as we have 

 Seen that, at one time, it might have been a harbour for 

 ships, the two names are identical, not only in sound, but 

 likewise in signification. 



Standing as it did, according to our hypothesis, on the 

 extreme end of an jestuary, it would be at least within 

 sight of the foaming waters of the rushing tides of the 

 Severn, and its position would thus agree with the only 

 other reference to the death of Geraint, in the litera- 

 ture of that period. It occurs towards the close of the 



* In Domesday Book it occurs in the form of Lanporth, and on one 

 of the coins of At.ielstane, LONEPORT. Vide the Rev. T. F. 

 Dymock's Paper on Somersetshire Coins, in the Pro. of the Soc, 1849-50. 

 p. 16. 



