CHAPTER IV. 

 THE ALAN OR ALAUXT. 



About his car there wente white Alatin's 

 Twenty and more, as great as any steer. 

 To hunt the lion or wilde boar 

 And followed him, with muzzle fastly bound, 



Cliaun-r. The Knight* Tale. 



I have not been able to discover the ancient British name for 

 the broad muzzled pugnaces of Britain. The classical writers 

 merely termed them Pugnaces or Bellicosi, or else in accord- 

 ance with their uses, classed them under the molossian group. 



As we find the word "mastin" used in the Armpric as well 

 as in the ancient Erench and Italian languages, it is possible 

 that it was the ancient Galic name for the breed. The \Yelsh 

 word for the mastiff is gafcrlgi, (pronounced gavaelgi) from 

 gafael, to seize, lay hold, or grasp, a most expressive denom- 

 ination for the breed, and we have the word in English, gaff, 

 a hook to seize salmon. The name gafaelgi occurs in the 

 celebrated Mabinogion ii.-2i5, which was written in the i-fth 

 century, in which the breed is characterised as " cedenog 

 gafaelgi," i.e. the shaggy mastiff. It is worthy of remark that 

 the Welsh have no ancient word to denote the bulldog, the 

 denomination " Ci Tarw " being a translation of the English 

 term, and is quite modern. The Welsh words for a bull or 

 cow being " bu," " buch," " buw," and " buwch," synony- 

 mous to the Latin bos, and evidently primarily derived 

 from the voice of the animal. 



