286 Statements concerning Sir Walter Scott 



From the main fact being repeated in the second sentence, 

 it is to be inferred that the first has never been much more 

 legible than it is now. 



Except the suggestion that the I, with a rude stop after 

 it, is a contraction, the only part of the reading I am 

 answerable for is the name of the second brother. 



It was obvious the word must be a personal name, and, 

 trying to complete the reading by the help of a photograph, 

 I made it out to be Finn, allowing for a breakage, a blot 

 of the chisel, between the two first letters. 



Phinn or Finn is a common name enough, but one did 

 not expect it on Welsh ground ; and then it dawned upon 

 me that Finn is the Gaelic form of the Welsh Gwynn, both 

 meaning white or fair; and Gwynn ap Nudd is so very 

 well-known a person, through the Welsh tales, that even 

 Mr Skene at one time regarded him as mythical. Two sons 

 of Nudd Hael's are among the Welsh saints, probably these 

 two brothers, as killed fighting the heathen. The names are 

 quite different, but are probably sobriquets. Dingad, meaning, 

 I suppose, battle-fort, is married to a daughter of Llew 

 Loth; and Gwynn, in perhaps the most interesting poem in 

 the Four Ancient Books of Wales, calls himself the lover 

 of the daughter of Lud. The name given her there, 

 Crerdyllid, seems a corruption of Trefrian, lady of the land ; 

 her christian name seems to have been Tonwy, "wave- 

 born." A similar error may be seen in Crailing for 

 Traverlinn. 



The place where Sir Walter met the brown-clad man, who 

 twice over vanished suddenly when approached, must appar- 

 ently have been what a native of the country would have 

 described as the turn of the Yair road below the shepherd's 

 cottage at the Craig. It is about a mile from Ashiesteel, 

 being a little farther than the bridge over the Tweed, from 

 which it is separated by the haugh. It has all the features ; 

 two straight stretches of highroad separated by a sort of 

 elbow, no heather, and no underwood, but scattered birch 

 trees. The only other highroad that could be meant would 

 be that from Elibauk, and that mainly runs through pasture- 

 land, which Sir Walter at least would not have called forest. 

 The Craig cottage is now superseded by the lodge at the 

 gate, which now marks the road through Yair as private. 



