28 'A STUDY ON THE INVASION OF BRITAIN, _&C. 



so called in Wales, but it seems that the earlier name of Glas- 

 tonbury was Gwydir ; now the Britons often took their names 

 from those of the places of their birth, or home, or of lands belong- 

 ing to their kindred, as now are wont to do the Welsh Bards and 

 the name Gwydir seems to me to be a token that Glastonbury 

 as Gwydir gave name to the King Gwydir, and that it betokens 

 that he was of the kindred of a Prince of the West of Britain- 



Glastonbury was in early times an island of waterland. 

 ""Youss-Wydir," and it is likely that the early Italian mission- 

 aries who settled there brought with them some choice apple 

 trees, whence it was afterwards called "Ynys Avallon," the 

 Island of Apples. 



" Hirlas," again, the name of the nephew of Casibelamus, 

 although it may seem a queer one for a man, was taken from that 

 of thehighly rated " Hirlas-horn." It means "Long blue," 

 and the Hirlas Mead-horn was so called as it was made of the 

 horn of the buffalo, chosen for its size and the blueness of its 

 hue. Such names as these, of true British shape and meaning, 

 are tokens of truth in the chronicle. 



It is not easy to see the true "British names under the Latin 

 forms in which Geoffrey of Monmouth has put them. 



He calls Hirlas Hirelglas (las is the soft-horn of glas), but 

 whence he got el, or what meaning it can ha?e in the name, I 

 cannot see. Cyhelyn, the nephew of Avarwy, he calls Evelinus, 

 and in his seemingly too free paraphrase of the chronicle, on the 

 tilting match, he names dvarwy as Androgeus ; a name that can 

 hardly oust Avarwy from the triad of the three traitors of 

 Britain. 



I cannot make anything of Androgeus as Welsh, unless the an 

 is the old Celtic definite article an ; which lingered in the British 

 of Cornwall, as it lingei's in Irish, so that the name might be a 

 nickname," Andrwg," The " Bad (man,) '' as the Britons thought 

 him to be. 



He makes Gweyrydd to have been the Ac-vicagus of Csesar, 

 which has been an open question, wanting more attention. 



