2G6 Notes on Welsh Legend. By Miss Russell. 



Much as the history has been lost through the intentional obscurity of 

 the bards, whose style is much to be deplored, the part which has been 

 preserved about Gwynn ap Nudd is perfectly clear, and represents him as 

 a mortal warrior, in conversation with Gwyddno, who if the name of 

 Gwaelod, the Sunken, for his territory, is really a transposition of Gwaedol, 

 Wedale, would be a country neighbour of his or his father's. They meet 

 after a battle before Caer Yaudwy, supposed from several indications to be 

 the Roman station of Cramond, near Edinburgh. 



It is Finn, the Gaelic form of Gwynn, which appears rudely and faintly 

 sculptured on the stone ; the father appears first in the form " Nudi," after- 

 wards as " Liberali." The Highlanders called Arawn, Angus, under which 

 form he appears in the Morte d' Arthur. 



The Mabinogion, the prose stories in which they make such a wonderful 

 figure, contain large contributions from Scandinavian sources ; none such 

 are perceptible in Geoffrey of Monmouth, which is one strong reason for 

 thinking that his history really was written by Tyssilio, long before the 

 Norman period in England. 



To return to the still flowing springs of Minchmoor ; it seemed probable, 

 on first observing the name, that the Wurlns Burn, which rises in the 

 Welshie Law, intersects the alleged line of the Catrail, and joins the 

 Yarrow near Yarrow church, at Duchoir or Dewchar (though the lower 

 part is called the Whitehope Burn, after being joined from the west by the 

 larger stream of that name) that the Wurlns Burn indicated the old dedi- 

 cation of the Du Choir or Black Church, to St Gorloes or Urlose, who is a 

 favourite saint in Brittany. But after giving and taking much trouble about 

 it, I was convinced that the only saint of the name known, was a Breton 

 abbot of the 11th century, and practically out of the question. On which 

 it became evident that there was at least a possibility, in the circumstances, 

 of its being the sobriquet of Uthyr Pendrngon himself — Gorlois, apparent!}' 

 meaning the Blue One ; the corresponding Gorm is well-known as an epithet 

 in the Highlands. 



It is worth remarking, that in the latest of the three old Welsh poems 

 which mention him, he is connected with a defended sanctuary, which the 

 Dewchar Church is likely enough to have been at some time. 



Pendragon Castle, which is mentioned both by Geoffrey and Mallory, is 

 still the name of a rock-site near the village of Cotheiston, on the Tees, in 

 Yorkshire; at least Mr Morritt mentions it in a letter to Sir Walter Scott. 

 (Life of Scott, vol. II., p. 10). 



The Welsh idiom has led to the territorial name being regarded as a 

 title. Uthyr altogether has been the victim of language ; the bit of early 

 realism which has found its way into some copies of Nennius, saying that 

 Arthur was called the son of Uthyr-Terror, " because he was cruel from a 

 boy," is very remarkably disproved by the short poem which is a lament 

 for Madoc, a son of Uthyr, of whom nothing seems to be known, but that 

 he was lamented as the joy of the garrison of the Boman Wall — "Mur 

 Menwyd." The description is that of a man with inexhaustible spirits ; but 

 Arthur himself is essentially genial and hospitable, though very high-handed. 



