584 Welsh and Gaelic. 



version did not extend to the inhabitants of the moun- 

 tains of Wales, where the early Church still continued 

 to flourish among the Gwyddel. This throws an in- 

 teresting light on the circumstance that so many of the 

 churches in the western part of the mainland of Wales 

 and in Anglesea were dedicated to Gaelic saints, where 

 the Grwyddel still ruled the land. The names, also, of 

 many of the rivers in England and even in Wales have 

 a Gaelic and not a Welsh origin, complete or in com- 

 bination. Thus, all the rivers called Ouse, Usk, Esk 

 ( Uisge), the Don, and others, derive their names from 

 the Gaelic. 



Again, it is a characteristic of rivers often to retain 

 the names given them by an early race long after that 

 race has been expelled, and thus the Gaelic Uisge 

 (water) has not in all cases been replaced by the archaic 

 Welsh word Givy. This old Welsh word we constantly 

 find in a corrupt form, as in the Wye, the Medway, the 

 Tawe, the Towey, and the Teifi, the Dyfi or Dovey, and 

 the Dove ; or the water of the rivers is expressed in 

 another form by the later dwfr or dwr, as in Stour, 

 Aberdour, &c. In both languages river (Afon or 

 Avon) is the same. 



In his chapter on the Ethnology of Scotland, 1 Mr. 

 Skene remarks that ' Uisge in Gaelic, and Wysg in 

 Welsh, furnish the Esks, Usks, and Ouses, which we 

 find here and there ; ' but it seems to me that these 

 names, common both in England and Scotland, have, 

 as now pronounced, more of a Gaelic than a Welsh 

 twang, and afford a hint of the early occupation of 

 England and Wales by the Gael. In Anglesea, by the 

 side of Afon Alaw, the river of the water-lilies, there is 

 a farm called Tyddyn Wysgi the farm by the water 

 1 < Celtic Scotland,' vol. i. p. 215. 



