38 LLANDDWYN 



wife gave me the name of it as " Dagrau Adar " 

 Bird's Tears. The all but identical form of the word 

 Dagrau, tears, with the Greek Saicpva of the same 

 meaning, is significant when it is borne in mind that 

 the allied forms (saving Irish, Cornish and Breton 

 peoples of the same race) in all countries separating 

 Greece from Wales, exhibit no such close relation- 

 ship either to the Greek and Welsh forms, or among 

 themselves (Latin, lacrima ; German, Zaehre ; Eng- 

 lish, tear \ with their cognates or derivatives). That 

 all these, with the Sanscrit afru, and Persian zarah, 

 are derived from some common form, is manifest. 

 Further, it is scarcely likely that the close resem- 

 blance between the Greek and Welsh forms can 

 have arisen by independent variation from some 

 earlier common form that resembled these two less 

 than they now resemble one another. The inference, 

 therefore, is that dagr and Saicpv stand nearer to that 

 primitive common form than any of the allied forms 

 occurring in countries separating Greece from Wales. 

 That primitive common form is most likely to have 

 persisted in its least adulterated state in the region 

 where it was first coined, provided the people in- 

 habiting it had not a different tongue thrust upon 

 them through subjugation, and provided they attained 

 to literary expression sufficiently early to fix and thus 

 render permanent that primitive form. It is in the 

 North only that these conditions are fulfilled (Gothic, 

 tagr\ It is, therefore, to be concluded that it was 

 from the neighbourhood of Scandinavia that the 

 bearers of the word that became dagr and Sa/c/av went 

 out to impose their language with their yoke upon 

 the earlier occupants of Greece and Wales. 



