554 Rev. Mr Williams on one Source of the 



Cum. 1 "hir" (vid. Ow. Diet.), "long.'" The Triads have recorded three lines, which 

 they attribute to King Arthur, and which some antiquaries may wish to see as 

 the only literary composition of that famous monarch : — 



Sev-ynt fy nhri Cad-varchog, 



Mael hir a Llir Lliiydog, 



A cholovn Cymru Caradog. 



Hi sunt mei tres Pugnse equites, 



Mael pro-cerus ac Lear, copiis instructus, 



Atque columna Cambria? Caradog, 

 Pulvinar and Pdlvinus, " a pillow and bolster." Some of the older scholars ac- 

 knowledged pulvinar to be a change of letters from pluvinum, root plumae, fea- 

 thers; but in Cum. plumae are pliiv, whence pluvinar, without any change. In 

 Cornish with a different termination, but from the same root, it was Pluvog. 

 Again, by a change similar to that in the Latin, the common name in Wales is 

 Pilwg, Engl, Pillow. 

 Planta, a Latin word, single in form, but double in meaning. In one sense it comes 

 from planum, flat, and means the sole of the foot. In another sense, it means a 

 young sucker, which, if detached from the parent tree, and again committed to 

 the earth, will itself become a tree. In the first sense it has only one derivative, 

 " plantaris," used by Statius and Valerius Flaccus, to describe the feet wings 

 of Mercury. The other has a numerous offspring, and has entered deeply into 

 the composition of the English language. Now the Cum. " Plant" means " off- 

 spring, children" (see Ow. Diet.), root, plan, " a scion or shoot," whence the verb 

 planu, " to plant, to set shoots." One might imagine that the Cumrian meaning 

 was before Virgil's eyes when he wrote the following line : 



" Hie plantas tenero abscindens de corpore matrum ;" 

 literally, " one separating the children from the tender bosom of their mother." 

 Qu^ro, and Qileso, I seek. Thus Festus, " Quaeso ut significat idem quod rogo, 

 ita quaesere ponitur ab antiquis pro quaerere, ut apud Ennium libro secundo : 



" nautisque mari quaesentibu 1 vitam," &c. 



From this observation, and from the practice of the classical writers, we find 

 that quaero, in the sense of seeking, had ceased to be used by the Romans 

 long before their settlement in„Britain. But the Cum. ceisio, and ceiso (vid. Diet.), 

 still means " to seek, to go after, and fetch," and has its own noun cais, " both 

 a petition and an attempt." Quaeso and ceiso are in utterance the same word. 

 Quis, Who ? Cum. Pwy ? This interchange of the p and qu, refers to a period still more 

 remote than that in which the r and s were mutually interchanged. We know 



1 It is a constant practice to represent the Latin S, by the Cum. H, and vice versa, e. g 



Serus, hwyr. 

 Sag-um, hyg and hygan. 

 Sal, Halen. 



Sol, Haul, &c. 



2 See H. Llwyd's Brit. Etym. p. 283. 



