Welsh and Gaelic. 585 



the final word being the precise equivalent in sound to 

 the Graelic Uisge, though it cannot be denied that it 

 may come directly from the Welsh Wysg, which also is 

 an old word for water. 



Again, in Wales, on Cader Idris, there still remains 

 the name of a lake, Llyn Cyri (pronounced Curry), 

 a word unintelligible to the Welsh (as Arran is to 

 the Grael), but easily explained by the Graelic word 

 Coire, a cauldron, or Corrie, a word applied to those 

 great cliffy semi-circular hollows or cirques in the 

 mountains, in which tarns so often lie. Other places 

 called Cyri, of like form, are also found in Merionethshire. 



If, then, the earlier inhabitants of Britain were 

 Graelic, they were driven westward into Wales, and 

 northward into the mountains of Scotland, by the 

 superior power of another and later Celtic population 

 that found its way to our shores, and pushed onwards, 

 occupying the more fertile districts of England and the 

 south of Scotland, and possibly even creeping round the 

 eastern coasts north of the Tay, and occupying the 

 lowlands of Caithness. The Grael, including the Picts, 

 would not willingly have confined themselves to the 

 barren mountains if they could have retained a position 

 on more fertile lands. One proof of this as regards 

 Wales is, that as late as the early part of the sixth 

 century all that part of the country west of a line 

 roughly drawn from Con way to Swansea was inhabited 

 by an Erse-speaking people, the Grwyddel * of the 

 Welsh, 2 who were slowly retiring before the advancing 

 Cymry, and their last unabsorbed relics expelled from 

 the coast finally sought refuge with their kindred 



1 Gwyddel literally means dwellers in the Forest, Forestieri, 

 Waldmen, Welsh. 



2 See The Four Ancient Books of Wales,' Skene, vol. i., p. 43. 



