SPECIMENS OF CORNISH VERSE.

I. Five- (or four) syllabled lines, with occasional six-syllabled, rhyming A A B C C B. From the fragment on the back of Additional Charter 19,491 in the British Museum, late fourteenth century.

Golsow ty cowedh, (5) Hearken, thou comrade, Byth na borth medh, (4) Never be ashamed, Dyyskyn ha powes (6) Alight and rest Ha dhymo dus nes. (5) And to me come near. Mar codhes dhe les; (5) If thou knowest thy advantage; Ha dhys y rof mowes, (6) And to thee I will give a girl, Ha fest unan dek (5) And truly a fair one Genes mar a plek. (5) To thee if she is pleasing. Ha tanha y; (4) Go take her now; Kemmerr y dhoth wrek, (5) Take her to thy wife, Sconye dhys ny vek (5) Refuse thee she will not Ha ty a vydh hy. (5) {181} And thou shalt have her.

It is probable that this metre is intended to be five-syllabled throughout, except that a feminine or double rhyme is occasionally allowable (e.g. powes-mowes), and that the light first syllable of a line may be omitted. This accounts for the two six-syllabled and two four-syllabled lines respectively. In the rest of the poem there are lines of four, five, seven, eight, and even nine syllables. The whole fragment of forty-one lines, though not much earlier than the Ordinalia, is much less regular in rhythm, and is much less syllabic.

II. One of the commonest metres of the Dramas, and indeed of much mediæval verse in other languages, consists of seven-syllabled lines rhyming A A B C C B, or A A B A A B.

From the Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, the second of the Ordinalia, fifteenth century. (Our Lords speech to the Pueri Hebræorum.)

Ow benneth ol ragas bo My blessing be all upon you Ow tos yn onor thymmo Coming in honour to me Gans branchis flowrys With branches and flowers kefrys. likewise. Un deyth a thue yredy A day shall soon come Man talvethaf ol thywhy When I shall repay it all to you Kemmys enor thym yu gwrys. As much honour as is done to me.

This is the metre of the well-known Whitsunday Sequence, Veni Sancte Spiritus (Come, thou Holy Spirit, come).

Note that gwrys (gwres in Modern Cornish) is a monosyllable, and that the ue of dhue is a single vowel=eu. This metre is varied by being made into eight-lined stanzas, rhyming A A A B C C C B.

III. Another very common metre in the Dramas consists of stanzas of eight lines of seven syllables, rhyming alternately. Usually the stanza only contains two rhymes, but sometimes, especially if four lines of the eight are given to one character and four to another, the rhymes of the two quatrains are independent of one another.

From the Ordinale de Origine Mundi, fifteenth century. (Eves speech to Adam after gathering the apple.)

My pan esen ou quandre I when I was wandering Clewys an nyl tenewen Heard on the one side Un el ou talleth cane An angel beginning to sing A ughaf war an wethen. Above me on the tree. Ef a wruk ow husullye He did counsel me Frut annethy may torren Fruit from it that I should break; Moy es Deu ny a vye More than God we should be Bys venytha na sorren. Nor be troubled for ever.

Note the apparent feminine rhymes, torren-sorren, which are really rimes riches in the French style.

The whole Poem of the Passion is in this metre, but is written in lines of fourteen syllables.

IV. Four-syllabled lines, often written as eight-syllabled, rhyming alternately. Thus (Passio D. N. J. C. in the Ordinalia, 1. 35):

A mester whek· gorthys re by O sweet master, glorified be thou, Pan wreth mar tek· agan dysky. When thou dost so sweetly teach us. Asson whansek· ol the pysy, How we desire all to pray, Lettrys na lek· war Thu mercy! Learned and lay, to God for mercy!

The same two rhymes run through a stanza of eight (written as four) lines.

V. Four-syllabled lines in six-lined stanzas, rhyming A A B A A B (Passio D. N. J. C., 169).

Gorthyans ha gras Glory and thanks The Dew ow thas To God my Father, Luen a verci, Full of mercy, Pan danvonas When he sent Yn onor bras In great honour Thym servysi. Servants to me.

VI. Sometimes a mixture of the last two forms of stanza is found extended to ten lines. Thus (Origo Mundi, 1271):

Dyvythys of Come am I Theth volungeth, To thy will. Arluth porth cof Lord remember Yn deyth dyweth In the last day Am enef vy. My soul. Lavar thymmo Tell me Pandra wrama; What I shall do; Yn gwraf ytho I will do it now Scon yn tor-ma Soon in this turn Yn pur deffry. Very seriously.

VII. Mixed seven and four syllabled lines. Sometimes these are only the metre of II., with the third and sixth lines four-syllabled instead of seven-syllabled.

Thus in Origo Mundi, 911, we find:

Ou banneth theughwhy pub prys, My blessing to you always, Mar tha y wreugh ou nygys So well you do my business Prest yn pub le. Quickly everywhere. Gorreugh an fals nygethys Put the false flier Gans Abel a desempys With Abel immediately The yssethe. To sit.

VIII. Sometimes alternations of stanzas of four and seven-syllabled lines are found. A very remarkable and effective set opens the Drama of The Passion. It is in stanzas of thirteen lines, eight lines of four syllables (written as four of eight syllables), rhyming A B A B A B A B, one line of seven syllables with rhyme C, three lines of seven syllables with rhyme D, and a seven-syllabled line with rhyme C.

Thyugh lavara· Ow dyskyblyon, To you I say, my disciples, Pyseygh toythda· Ol kescolon Pray quickly, all of one heart Deu dreys pup tra· Eus a huhon God above everything, who is on high Theygh yn bys-ma· Ygrath To you in this world His grace to danvon send Yn dyweth may feugh sylwys. In the end that ye may be saved. Gans an eleth yu golow, With the angels there is light, Yn nef agas enefow In heaven your souls Neffre a tryg hep ponow Ever shall dwell without pains Yn joy na vyth dywythys. In joy that shall not be ended.

IX. In the Drama of St. Meriasek there are no less than ten classes of stanza, counting by the number of lines to the stanza, and these may be considerably multiplied by alternating or mixing seven-syllabled with four-syllabled lines in various orders, and by varying the number of sets of rhymes to a stanza and the order of those rhymes. Perhaps one of the most elaborated (1. 168-180) will serve as a specimen. It is a thirteen-lined stanza of twelve seven-syllabled lines, and one (the ninth) four-syllabled line, with four sets of rhymes, rhyming A B A B A B A B C [four syllables] D D D C.

Gelwys ydhof Conany, Called am I Conan, Mytern yn Bryton Vyan; King in Little Britain; Han gulascor pur yredy And the kingdom very readily Me a beu ol yn tyan. I own all entirely. Der avys ou arlydhy Through the advice of my lords Mones y fannaf lemman I will go now The Duk pen a chevalry, To the Duke the chief of knighthood. Nesse dhymmo yn certan Second to me certainly Par del yu ef Like as he is. Yma maryag galosek There is a mighty marriage Cowsys dhyn rag Meryasek Spoken to us for Meriasek Mergh dhe vyghtern gallosek, Of the daughter to a mighty king, Nynses brassa yn dan nef. There is not a greater under heaven.

It is evident that by varying the number of lines and rhymes to a stanza, varying the distribution of the rhymes, and mixing lines of different length, an almost infinite variety may be obtained, even with only two forms of line.

X. The metres of Jordans Drama of The Creation (1611) do not differ materially in intention from those of the Ordinalia, on which they are evidently modelled. But in this play one begins to find signs of a tendency to a less accurate ear for exact syllabic rhythm. About eighty lines out of the 2548 of which the play consists have eight syllables, about twenty have only six, and in each case these ought to be seven-syllabled. Also there are two cases of three and six of five syllables in what ought to be four-syllabled lines, and there are several cases of nine syllables in a line, and one case of ten. No doubt some of these discrepancies may be accounted for by elisions and contractions not expressed in writing (as is often the case in Latin), and some of the short lines contain diphthongs which may be meant to count as two syllables, but by no means all are explainable by anything but the influence of English, or, as is less probable, a reversion to some such archaic idea of rhythm as that of the Add. Charter fragment.

After this we come to the verses of late Cornish. These are few, poor, corrupt, and illiterate, and for the most part without value for metrical purposes. The strictly syllabic metres of the older Cornish have nearly disappeared, and though the tonic accent is still disregarded when convenient, extra unaccented syllables, as often in inferior, and sometimes in good English verse, are freely introduced by way of anacrusis, etc., in a manner that shows that accent was considered in a sort of way, and that the accents of a line rather than the syllables were counted. John Boson wrote a few lines in three-lined stanzas somewhat after the fashion of the Welsh Triban Milwr, and Lhuyds artificial elegy on William of Orange is another instance of the same. The only poem remaining of James Jenkins of Alverton (printed by Pryce and Davies Gilbert) is a sort of irregular ode, which refuses to be satisfactorily analysed. The lines are all sorts of lengths, they may begin with an accent or they may have one or two light syllables before the first strong beat, the rhymes may be single or double. The principle of the first part seems to be little lines of two beats, varying from three to seven syllables rhyming in couplets. Thus:

Ma léeaz gwréag There are many wives

Lácka vel zéag, Worse than grains [i.e. brewers refuse],

Gwéll gerrés (or gwéll Better left gérres)

Vel kommeres (or vél Than taken, komméres),

Ha ma léeaz bénnen And there are man women

Pókar an gwénen Like the bees,

Ey vedn gwérraz de go tées They will help their men

Dendle péath an béaz. To earn the goods of the world.

Fléhaz heb skéeans Children without knowledge

Vedn guíl go séeanz; Will do [according to] their sense;

Buz mar crówngy predery But if they do consider

Pan dél go gwáry What their play is like,

Ha mádra tá And consider well

Pandrig séera ha dámma, What did father and mother,

Na ra hens [wrans?] móaz dan They will not go to the wood cóoz

Do kúntle go bóoz. {188} To gather their food.



The latter part has lines of four beats, with a very variable number of unaccented syllables, which in reading were probably hurried over rather vaguely. This rhythm may be compared with the new principle (as the author calls it in his preface) of Coleridges Christabel. {189a}

Bosons triplets are mostly of ten-syllabled lines, Lhuyds are generally of eight syllables, but sometimes of nine or even ten and eleven.

Tonkin of St. Just, a tailor, wrote two songs, which are in the Gwavas MS. They are in four-lined stanzas generally of seven-syllabled lines, though as often as not having an extra light syllable to begin with. Thus:

Pa wrîg ev grra trâz war tîr When he [i.e. William of Orange] did put foot on land Ev vê welcombes me ôr gwîr. He was welcomed I know well. Ha devethes dhô Caresk And having come [came] to Exeter Maga saw besca vê pesk. {189b} As safe as ever was fish.

The epigrams printed by Pryce and Davies Gilbert were mostly composed by Boson and Gwavas. Eight-syllabled lines are frequent among them, but they are of little or no value, and are altogether on English models, and not very good models at that.

Should any one wish to attempt verse-writing in Cornish, it would be best either to use one of the seven or four syllabled (or mixed) metres of the Dramas, using their purely syllabic methods, which undoubtedly work all right in modern Breton, or to extend the same principles, as the Bretons do, to lines of other lengths. The triplets of old Welsh and perhaps of very old Cornish are effective metres, but are not so easy as they look, for it is not enough merely to write rhyming triplets. Lhuyd in his one attempt has produced a peculiar though allowable metre, with lines of all sorts of lengths, and the old specimens, Llywarch Hens Marwnad Geraint ap Erbin, and the Englynion called Eiry Mynydd, are largely in lines of seven syllables, and some of them, such as the Song of the Death of Cynddylan, and the curious ninth-century poem in the Cambridge Juvencus, seem to have also the gair cyrch, that strange little tag to the first line of the triplet, outside of the rhyme but not outside of the assonance or alliteration, which is so marked a characteristic of the four-lined Englyn, while in most of them there are alliterations, vowel correspondences, and internal rhymes, which are not so haphazard as they look. It is well not to attempt to force a Celtic language into a Teutonic mould. Some of the most beautiful metres that the world has ever known are to be found among the works of English poets, but they are no more suitable to Cornish than hexameters, sapphics, and alcaics on strict quantity lines would be to English. It is possible, however, to write ten-syllabled blank verse in Cornish, provided a fair amount of alliteration is used.

One word about inversions of the order of words in poetry. This should be done very sparingly, and it is not easy to lay down very definite rules as to what is allowable and what not. It is best not to deviate from the usual order of words unless one can find a precedent in one of the Dramas. Some inversions, however, are quite allowable. Thus one may put the complement of a predicate, e.g. an infinitive, an accusative, or a participle, at the beginning of a phrase:

bewa ythesaf pub eare (Creation, 1667), living I am always.

banna ny allaf gwelas (Creation, 1622), a drop I cannot see.

defalebys os ha cabm (Creation, 1603), deformed thou art, and crooked.

yn bushes ow crowetha (Creation, 1606), in bushes lying.

gans dean pen vo convethys (Creation, 1618), by man when it is discovered.

worthaf ve sertan ny dale (Creation, 1619), with me, certainly, ought not.

determys ove dha un dra (Creation, 236), determined I am of one thing.

mos then menythe me a vyn (Creation, 1082), go to the mountain I will.

These are all taken from Jordans Creation, and mostly at random from the same page. Still, the less one inverts the normal order of words the better.



CHAPTER XVINOTE ON THE INTERPRETATION OF CORNISH NAMES

One of the practical interests in the study of Cornish is in the interpretation of place-names. As quite ninety per cent. of the place-names of Cornwall are Celtic, and as a very large proportion of these are descriptive names, usually in a fairly uncorrupted state, this gives much opportunity of research. There are, however, certain considerations, grammatical and topographical, which should be kept carefully in mind in attempting to discover the meanings of these names, and it is a disregard of these considerations that has made most of the published works on the subject so singularly valueless. The great majority of Cornish names are composed of epithets suffixed to certain nouns, such as tre, trev, a town; pol, a pool; pen or pedn, head or top; rôs, often written rose, a heath; car, a fort or camp; lan, an enclosure, or a church; eglos, a church; bal, a mine; whêl or wheal, a work (i.e. a mine); chy, ty, a house; park, a field; forth, a creek or harbour; nans, a valley; carn, a cairn or heap of rocks; hal, a moor; gûn, goon, a down; gwêl, gweal, a field; bod, bos, be, a dwelling; les, a court, a palace; carrack, a rock; creeg, a tumulus; crows, a cross; din, dun, a hill-fort; fenton or venton, a spring; kelly, killy, a grove; cos, coose, a wood; mên, a stone; tol, a hole; triga, trigva, a dwelling-place; melan, mellan, vellan, a mill; zawn, zawns, a cove; bron, bryn, a hill; bar, bor, bur, a summit; tor, a hill. These are the commonest of the nouns. The epithets may be:

1. Adjectives, signifying size, colour, position, etc., e.g. mêr, mear, vcar, great; bîan, bean, vean, little; glas, blue; dew, black; gwin, gwidu, widn, white; gwartha, wartha, gwarra, upper; gollas, gullas, wollas, lower, etc., in agreement with the noun.

2. Other nouns in the appositional genitive.

3. Proper names.

4. Adjectives or nouns preceded by the article an, the, or by a preposition such as war, on.

The following points should be considered:

1. The gender of the noun. Of the nouns mentioned above, tre, ros, car, lan, whêl, hal, goon, carrack, crows, fenton, kelly, trigva, mellan, bron, tor, are feminine, so that the initial of the adjective epithet is changed to the second state. This may often, more or less, determine whether the epithet is an adjective or a noun in the genitive. Thus, in the name Tremaine, we may be sure that the second syllable is not an adjective or it would be Trevaine, so the meaning is not, as one would think, the stone house, not a very distinguishing epithet in Cornwall, but probably the house of the stones, i.e. of some stone circle or other prehistoric remains. Sometimes, however, the initial of an appositional genitive, and sometimes that of an epithet of a masculine noun is irregularly changed in composition.

2. The stress accent of the compound. This is of great importance, especially in determining whether an article or preposition intervenes between the noun and its epithet, and also, in the rare cases in which it occurs, in deciding whether the epithet may not precede the noun. The stress accent is almost invariably on the epithet, and it is astonishing to see how even in East Cornwall, where the language has been dead for three centuries, this accentuation is still preserved. If the epithet suffix is a monosyllable, the accent of the compounded word is on the last syllable; if not, the accent is usually on the last but one, but the intervening article or preposition is always a proclitic, and is disregarded as to accent. The same sort of thing happens in English. Thus, even if it were the custom to write Stratfordonavon all in one word, we should know by the accent that it meant Stratford-on-Avon; but one, say some German philologist, who had never heard it pronounced, and knew nothing of British topography and the distribution of surnames, might conjecture that it was Stratfor Dónavon, might compare it with Lydiard Tregoze, Stoke Dabernon, Sutton Valence, or Compton Wyniates, and might build thereon a beautiful theory of an Irish settlement in Warwickshire. Things every whit as absurd as this have been done with Cornish names.

3. The position and general features of the place. Thus when we find that a rather important town is situated at the innermost point of a bay called in Cornish (cf. Bosons Pilchard Song) Zans Garrak Loos en Kûz, we may doubt whether its name signifies the holy head or headland, and not the head of the bay. In this case there is a slight complication, because there is actually something of a headland about the Battery Rocks, and the town arms are St. John Baptists head in a charger; but when we find that Tremaine is some ten miles, as the crow flies, from the nearest point of the coast, we may be quite justified in doubting whether Pryce is right in calling it the town on shore or sea coast.

The following specimens of names about whose meaning there can be no doubt, will serve as examples of the construction of Cornish place-names:

1. Epithet following noun.

a. Masculine. Porthmear (in Zennor), the great porth or creek. (Murrays Handbook says that it means the sea-port, but Murrays interpretations are intricately and ingeniously wrong-headed).

b. Feminine. Trevean, the little town. Tre signifies town in the modern Cornish and old English sense, a farmhouse with its out-buildings. It is the commonest of these generic prefixes. In Brittany, though it is occasionally found, its place is usually taken by Ker (Cornish Car, Welsh Caer), probably the Latin castrum, a fortified town or camp, a difference which has its historical significance.

2. Epithet preceding noun.

Hendrea, the old town (in Sancreed). Note that this is Héndrea, not Hendréa. Note also the change of initial in tre.

3. Intervening particles.

a. The definite article. Crows-an-wra, the witchs cross. (Murray says that it means the wayside cross, but gwragh, gwrah, gwra, Breton gwrach, certainly means a hag or witch, and the change of initial after the article shows that the noun is feminine.) Chy-an-dowr, the house of the water.

b. Preposition. Tywardreath, the house on the sands; Tywarnhaile (=Ty war an hayle), the house on the tidal river. Note that the syllable war in these words is unaccented. In Trewartha, the upper house, the accent is on war, so that even if we were not accustomed to the epithet wartha we should know that war is here not a preposition.

4. Appositional genitive without article.

Chytan, the house of fire; Chypons, the bridge house; Pentreath, the head of the sands; Portreath (=Porth-treath), the creek of the sands.

Nancemelling (=Nans-mellan), the valley of the mill.

5. Proper names as appositional genitives:

Trejago, the house of Jago (or James).

Chykembra, the Welshmans house.

Gûn-an-Guidal (or Anguidal Downs), the down of the Irishman.

In West Cornwall, especially in Penwith, where the spoken language lingered latest, there is a greater tendency to the use of the article an than in the more eastern part of the Duchy. Sometimes the article is prefixed to the noun itself. Thus, Andrewartha (=an dre wartha), the upper town, in Gwithian, now called Upton, but inhabited by a family of the older name; Angarrack, the rock, between Hayle and Gwinear Road; Angove, the smith, and Angwin, the white, family names; Angrouse, the cross, in Mullion; Angear, the castle; Annear or Ennor, the earth; Angilley or Anguilly, the grove. {196}

Generally when the article comes between the generic noun and some other word the latter is a noun also, an appositional genitive, but occasionally it is an adjective, as in Ponsanooth (in Perran Arworthal and Gluvias), which is probably Pons-an-nowedh, the new bridge. The generic prefix Pleu or Plou, parish, so common in Brittany, is altogether unknown in Cornish place-names of to-day, unless, as some hold, Bleu Bridge in Madron means the parish bridge, and is a partial translation of Pons-an-bleu, but the word is common enough in Cornish, and the names of parishes called after saints frequently began in Cornish writings with Pleu (plu, plui)Pleu East, St. Just; Pleu Paul, St. Paul; Pleu Vudhick, St. Budock. Though the word occurs in the expression tîz pleu, people of [his] parish, in the tale of John of Chy-an-Hur, the three parishes mentioned there, St. Levan, St. Hillary, and Buryan, are called by their ordinary English names. The prefix lan, originally an enclosure (cf. the English lawn), but later used to signify a church with its churchyard, is still frequently found, with occasional variants of la, lam, and land, but it is nothing like so frequent as the Welsh equivalent llan. In earlier days it was more common in Cornwall than it is now, and a number of parishes which now have the prefix Saint appear in the Domesday Survey with Lan.

* * * * *

The family names of Cornwall, omitting those of the few great Norman houses, Granvilles, Bevilles, Fortescues, Bassets, St. Aubyns, Glanvilles, etc., which do not concern us at present, fall into at least four classes.

1. Names derived from places.

By Tre, Pol, and Pen, Ye shall know Cornishmen.

or as Camden more correctly expands it at the expense of metre:

By Tre, Ros, Pol, Lan, Car, and Pen, Ye shall know the most Cornishmen.

And he might have added many more prefixes. It is probable that many of these names originated in the possession of the estates of the same names.

Of this class are such names as Trelawny, Rosevear, Polwhele, Lanyon, Carlyon, and Penrose. To the ordinary Saxon they sound highly aristocratic, and are introduced into modern up country novels in a way that is often amusing to a Cornishman, and no doubt many of them do represent the names of families of past or present gentility, for in Cornwall, as in the Scottish Highlands, armigerous gentry were and are very thick on the ground, and a very large number of Cornishmen of every class and occupation might write themselves down gentlemen in the strict heraldic sense if they only knew it. But some names of this class are derived from very small landed possessions, and some probably, as similar names in England, from mere residence, not possession.

2. Patronymics. These are the equivalents of the English names ending in son or s, of the Welsh names beginning with ap (=mab, son), and the Irish and Scottish beginning with mac or O. They fall into five classes.

a. The Christian name used as a surname without alteration, as Harry, Peter, John, Rawle, Rawe or Rowe (for Ralph or Raoul), Gilbart and Gilbert, Thomas or Thom, Davy, Bennet, Harvey, Tangye, etc.

b. The diminutive of the Christian name, as Jenkin, Hodgkin, Rawlin, Tonkin, Eddyvean (=Little Eddy), Hockin (Hawkin, i.e. Harrykin), etc.

c. The Christian name or its diminutive in its English possessive form, as Peters, Johns, Rogers, Jenkins, Rawlings, Roberts, etc.

d. Patronymics formed as in English, German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages by adding son, as Johnson, Jackson, Wilson, etc. When these occur in Cornwall they are probably often of English origin.

e. Patronymics formed with the prefix ap (for mab, son), apocopated (as in the Welsh names Probert, Pritchard, Price, Bevan, Bowen) to a p or b. It is possible that to this class may belong Prowse, Prawle (Ap Rowse, Ap Rawle), Bown (Ap Owen?), Budge (Ap Hodge?), Pezzack (Ap Isaac).

The Christian names from which patronymics are formed are not as a rule very peculiar. There are the usual names of the well-known saints, Peter, Paul, Mitchell (Michael), John, James (or in its Cornish form, Jago), Thomas, Matthew, Francis, Dunstan, Bennet, Andrew, Martin, and the rest, the common general Christian names, Harry, William, Robert, Roger, etc., and some less common ones, such as Julyan, Vivian, Nicholas (Nicol, Nicholl, etc.), Colin, Jeffry, Jasper, Gilbert, etc., and names of Cornish saints, Keverne, Key, Gluyas, Ustick (probably adjectival form from Just). Besides these there are a few from old British, or of Breton or Norman introduction, Harvey (Hervé), Dennis, Rawle, and Rawlin (Raoul, Raoulin, Rivallen), Tangye (Tanguy, a quite common name in Brittany, from St. Tanguy, one of the entourage of St. Pol of Leon), Arthur, David or Davy (as representing the Welsh saint, not the King of Israel), Sampson (representing the Bishop of Dol, not the Israelite hero), Jewell (Breton Judicael or Juhel). Some names take a variety of forms. Thus Clement is found as Clemens, Clemments, Clements, Clemo or Clemmow, Climo, Climance, etc., Ralph (Radulphus, Rudolph, Randolph, Rollo) is found as Ralph, Rapson, Rawe, Rawle, Rawlin, Rawling, Rawlings, Rabling, Randall, Rowe, Rowling, Rowse, etc. There are also certain names which have a resemblance to Spanish names, Pascoe, Varcoe, Jago, Crago, Manuel, etc., but no theory of Spanish influence is necessarily to be built upon them, as they are otherwise explainable. As the Cornish had got beyond the matriarchal stage of culture before historic times, we do not find family names derived from names of women, but no chapter on Cornish nomenclature can omit that very remarkable and peculiarly Cornish name Jennifer, which is beyond any doubt a local form of the name of Guenivere, the wife of Arthur. A more Frenchified form is still found in Brittany, and the Cornish form goes back to time immemorial. At one time the name of an equally celebrated Queen of Cornwall was used as a Cornish Christian name, for Ysolt de Cardinham possessed the advowson of the church of Colan in the thirteenth century, but except as a modern revival, of which the present writer knows only one case connected with Cornwall, this name is no longer found. Another not infrequent Christian name is Hannibal, from which possibly may come the surnames Hambly, Hamley, and Hamblyn. The name is too old in Cornwall to have originated in any theory about the Phnicians and the tin trade of the Cassiterides, for it is found in times when no one troubled himself about either, but its origin is decidedly a puzzle.

3. Names derived from trades or occupations. Some of these are only English, Smith, Wright, Carpenter, Brewer, Paynter, etc., but others are real Cornish, as Marrack, knight; Angove, the smith; Drew, druid, magician (and perhaps An-drew, the druid, when it is not merely a patronymic); Tyacke, farmer; Sayer and Sara, possibly Saer, carpenter; Hellyar, hunter; Cauntor (Lat. Cantor), singer.

4. Nicknames or names derived from personal peculiarities, such as Black, White, Brown, Grey, Green, which are mostly found in English, though one finds Angwin, the white, and Winn, white; Glass and Glaze, blue; Couch, red; Floyd (cf. Welsh Lloyd), grey; Glubb, moist, wet; Coath, Coad, and its English Olde or Ould; Baragwaneth, wheat-bread, etc. Also names derived from names of animals, Bullock, Cock, Fox, or its Cornish Lewarne (unless that is Le-warne, the place of alders), Mutton (though this may be a place-name also), etc. One does not see why a man should have been called Curnow, the Cornishman, in a country in which such an epithet could not have been very distinguishing, but that name is not at all uncommon, nor is Andain or Endean, the man, which is still less distinguishing.

This is only a slight sketch of a considerable range of investigation, but the subject would require a book to itself, so that it is impossible here to do more than indicate the direction in which students of Cornish nomenclature should work. But in the investigation of place-names in any language one must always allow for corruption and alteration in the course of centuries, and in a Celtic country for the Celticising of names of non-Celtic derivation. Thus the well-known Welsh name Bettws is probably the old English bede-house (prayer-house), Gattws, less common, is gatehouse. The terminations aig, sgor, bhal, dail, ort, so common in the Hebrides and West Highlands, are Gaelic forms of the Norse vik, skjr, val, dal, fjord, and many names in those parts are altogether Norse, spelt Gaelic fashion, and have no meaning whatever in Gaelic. Probably the Cornish place-name Bereppa, Barrepper, Brepper, Borripper, of which instances occur in Gunwalloe, Penponds, Mawnan, and elsewhere, is only the French Beau-Repaire, and there are probably many other names of French derivation. Dr. Bannisters Glossary of Cornish Names is of so eminently uncritical a character as to be of little use. Though he had a wide knowledge of separate Cornish words, he was no philologist, and did not seem to understand how to put his words together. Had he only given the situation of the placesthe name of the parish would have been something towards ithe would have left a basis for future work. As it is, the whole work needs to be done over again. Of course one need hardly say that out of such a large collection of names a considerable number of the derivations are quite correctly stated, but those are mostly the easy and obvious ones, and even easy ones are often wrong, and it was quite useless to encumber the glossary with the hopeless derivations of eighteenth-century writers. But the interpretation of place-names is not so simple as it looks, and it is easier to criticise other peoples derivations than to find better ones, so that one may admire Dr. Bannisters industry while one deprecates the recklessness of many of his conclusions.



APPENDIX

THE DAYS, MONTHS, AND SEASONS IN CORNISH

§ 1. The Days of the Week, Dedhyow an Seithan.

Sunday Dê Zîl.

Monday Dê Lín.

Tuesday Dê Mergh.

Wednesday Dê Marhar.

Thursday Dê Yew.

Friday Dê Gwener.

Saturday Dê Sadarn.

It will be seen that, like the Welsh and Bretons as well as the Latin nations, the Cornish derived the names of the days directly from Latin, and did not, like the Teutonic nations, translate them in accordance with primitive ideas of comparative mythology.

§ 2. The Months of the Year, Mîsyow an Vledhan.

January Mîs Genver.

February Mîs Whevral.

March Mîs Mergh.

April Mîs Ebral.

May Mîs Mê.

June Mîs Efan.

July Mîs Gorefan.

August Mîs Êst.

September Mîs Gwengala.

October Mîs Hedra.

November Mîs Deu.

December Mîs Kevardheu.

§ 3. The Four Seasons of the Year, Pajer Termen an Vledhan.

Spring Gwainten.

Summer Hav.

Autumn Kidniav.

Winter Gwav.

§ 4. Festivals and Holy Days, Dêdh Goilyow ha Dedhyow Sans.

Christmas Nadelik.

New Years Day Bledhan Nowedh.

Epiphany / Twelfth Day Degl an Stêl / An Dawdhegvas Dêdh.

Easter Pask.

Low Sunday Pask Bîan.

Ascension Day An Askenyans.

Whitsunday / Pentecost Zîlgwidn / Pencast.

Palm Sunday Dê Zîl Blejyow.

Ash Wednesday Dê Marhar an Losow.

Maundy Thursday Dê Yew Hamblys.

Good Friday Dê Gwener an Grows.

Holy Week Seithan Sans / Seithan Mêr.

Purification / Candlemas Degl Marîa an Golow.

Annunciation / Lady Day Degl agan Arledhes / Degl Marîa en Mîs Mergh.

Visitation Degl Marîa en Gorefan.

Assumption Degl Marîa en Hanter-Êst / Ewhelyans Marîa.

Nativity of B.V.M Genesegeth Marîa.

Midsummer Day / Nativity of St. Golowan (i.e. The Lights or John Midsummer Fires) / Genesegeth Jûan Bejedhyor.

Lammas Day / Harvest Home Degoledh s (pron. dêgldz meaning, Corn Feast).

All Saints Day Halan Gwav (i.e. the Kalends of Winter).

All Souls Day Dêdh an Enevow.

Ember Days An Pajer Termen.

Whit Monday Dê Lîn Pencast.

Trinity Sunday Dê Zîl an Drinjes.

Corpus Christi Day Degl Corf Crîst.

Michaelmas Day Degl Sans Myhal hag l an Eleth.

LIST OF SOME MODERN BOOKS AND ARTICLES RELATING TO CORNISH

1. The Ancient Cornish Drama. Edited and translated by Mr. Edwin Norris. Oxford, University Press, 1859. 2 vols. 8vo. [This contains the Trilogy known as the Ordinalia (see p. 27), followed by notes and a most valuable Sketch of Cornish Grammar, and the Cottonian Vocabulary, arranged alphabetically].

2. Pascon agan Arluth: the Poem of the Passion (see p. 26). [With a translation and notes by Dr. Whitley Stokes.] Philological Societys Transactions, 1860-1. 8vo.

3. Gwreans an Bys: the Creation of the World, a Cornish Mystery. Edited, with a translation and notes, by Whitley Stokes. Philological Societys Transactions, 1864. 8vo.

4. Lexicon Cornu-Britannicum: a Dictionary of the ancient Celtic language of Cornwall, in which the words are elucidated by copious examples from the Cornish works now remaining; with translations in English. The synonyms are also given in the cognate dialects of Welsh, Armoric, Irish, Gaelic, and Manx, showing at one view the connection between them. By the Rev. Robert Williams. Roderic, Llandovery, 1865. 4to.

5. A Collection of hitherto unpublished Proverbs and Rhymes in the ancient Cornish Language: from the MSS. of Dr. Borlase. By William Copeland Borlase. Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, 1866. 8vo.

6. A Cornish Glossary. By Whitley Stokes. [Additions of about 2000 words to Williamss Lexicon, with some corrections]. Transactions of the Philological Society, 1868-9.

7. Beunans Meriasek: the Life of St. Meriasek, Bishop and Confessor. A Cornish Drama. Edited, with a translation and notes, by Whitley Stokes. Trübner & Co., London, 1872. 8vo.

8. The Cornish Language. A Paper read before the Philological Society, March 21st, 1873. By Henry Jenner. Philological Societys Transactions, 1893.

9. Traditional Relics of the Cornish Language in Mounts Bay in 1875. By Henry Jenner. Philological Societys Transactions, 1876. 8vo.

10. The History and Literature of the Ancient Cornish Language. By Henry Jenner. A Paper read before the British Archæological Association at Penzance, August 19th, 1876. British Archæological Journal, 1877. 8vo.

11. Copy of a MS. in Cornish and English from the MSS. of Dr. Borlase. Nebbaz Gerriau dro tho Carnoack. By John Boson. Edited by W. C. Borlase. Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, Nov. 1879. 8vo.

12. An English-Cornish Dictionary. Compiled from the best sources. By Fred. W. P. Jago. Luke, Plymouth; Simpkin, Marshall, & Co., London, 1887. 4to.

13. A Glossary of Cornish Names: ancient and modern, local, family, personal, etc. 2000 Celtic and other names, now or formerly in use in Cornwall. . . By the Rev. John Bannister. Williams & Norgate, London; J. B. Netherton, Truro, 1871. 8vo.

14. Articles in the Revue Celtique.

Vol. i. p. 332. The Bodmin Manumissions. By Dr. Whitley Stokes.

Vol. iii. p. 85. Cornica. Durdala, Dursona; Cornish in the Vatican [John of Cornwalls Merlin]; Cornish Life of St. Columba [mention of a letter from Nicholas Roscarrock to Camden, referring to such a work]. By Dr. Whitley Stokes.

Vol. iii. p. 239. Le dernier écho de la Langue Cornique. By the Rev. W. S. Lach-Szyrma. [An account of the present writers Paper on Traditional Relics of Cornish in Mounts Bay, with additions.]

Vol. iv. p. 258. Cornica. Fragments of a Drama. [Text and translation of the Add. Charter fragment (see p. 25)]. Cornish Phrases. [From Andrew Borde (see p. 30)]. By Dr. Whitley Stokes.

Vol. xiv. p. 70. Les Glosses de lOxoniensis posterior sont elles Corniques? p. 301. Les mots Druic, Nader, dans le Vocabulaire Cornique. By Prof. J. Loth.

Vol. xviii. p. 401. Études Corniques I. [On the pronunciation of d, t, s, z, j, etc.]. By Prof. Loth.

Vol. xxiii. p. 173. Études Corniques II. Textes inédits en Cornique moderne. [Genesis iii., St. Matth. iv., ii. From the Gwavas MS., with a French translation and notes]. By Prof. Loth.

Vol. xxiii. p. 236. Études Corniques IV. Remarques et corrections au Lexicon Cornu-Britannica de Williams. By Prof. Loth.

Vol. xxiv. p. 1. Études Corniques V. Les Dix Commandements de Dieu. [The versions of Boson and Kerew in the Gwavas MS., with a French translation and notes]. By Prof. Loth.

Vol. xxiv. p. 155. Notes aux textes inédits en Cornique moderne. [Notes, in English, on Prof. Loths edition of Genesis iii., St. Matth. iv., ii., in vol. xxiii.]. By Henry Jenner.

Vol. xxiv. p. 300. Some Rough Notes on the present Pronunciation of Cornish names. By Henry Jenner.

15. Articles in Archiv fur Celtische Lexicographie.

Bd. i. p. 101. Glossary to Beunans Meriasek. By Dr. Whitley Stokes.

p. 161. Collation of Norriss Cornish Drama. By Dr. Whitley Stokes.

p. 224. Cornique Moderne. [The dialogues of Andrew Borde, and William Bodenors Letter; with restored texts, translations, and notes.] By Prof. Loth.

16. Grammatica Celtica e monumentis vetustis tam Hibernicae linguae quam Britannicarum dialectorum Cambricae Cornicae Aremoricae comparatis Gallicae priscae reliquiis. Construxit I. C. Zeuss. Editio altera. Curavit H. Ebel. Berolini, 1871. 4to.



Footnotes:

{0a} Cf. Ista sunt nomina corrodiorum et pensionum in Anglia et Cornubia quæ sunt in dono Regis Angliæ. Harl. MS. 433, f. 335, temp. Ric. iii.

{0b} The Bretons of to-day habitually speak of Brittany as notre petite patrie, and France as notre grande patrie, and none have fought and died for France more bravely than these. As soldiers (and still more as sailors) they are to France what the Highlanders are to Britain, and avenge the atrocities of 1793 in the same noble fashion as that in which the Gaels have avenged the horrors of Culloden and its sequel. Loyalty is in the blood of Celts, whether to clan, or to great or little Fatherland.

{0c} If that learned wise man should see this, he would find reason to correct it in orthography, etc.Nebbaz Gerriau.

{6} The Britons of the Kingdom of the North (Cumberland and Strathclyde) probably spoke the progenitor of Welsh, which they perhaps brought south with them, displacing the South British in Gwynedd and Powys, and later in South Wales, when they also drove out the Goidelic intruders.

{7} In September 1903, at the end of the Congress of the Union Régionaliste Bretonne at Lesneven in Finistère, the present writer made a speech in Cornish, perhaps the first that had been made for two hundred years, and rather to his astonishment he was fairly well understood by the Bretons. It is true that all were educated men, but only one of them had studied Cornish.

{10a} Descript. Cambr., vi.

{10b} Cf. Where the great vision of the guarded mount Looks toward Namancos and Bayonas hold.

{12} Clarendons account of the Cornish troops in the Great Rebellion gives the impression that there was no lack of piety among them at that time.

{17} Probably the well-known Sir John Maynard, whose MSS. are now in Lincolns Inn Library. He represented a Devon constituency at one time.

{19} In Tonkins notes to Carews Survey (Lord de Dunstanvilles edition) passages which occur in Pryce are referred to pages of my Archæologia Cornu-Britannica.

{39} The motto of Harris of Hayne, Car Dew dres pub tra, is mentioned in Bosons Nebbaz Gerriau, and is part of stanza 23 of the Poem of the Passion.

{50} The remarks added here in brackets are those of the present writer.

{54} In compound words the accent is always on the qualifying part, and if that is a monosyllable and comes last, the accent is therefore on the last syllable. This is common in place-names.

{55} It seems likely that in the very peculiar intonation of Zennor, Morvah, Towednack, and the country part of St. Ives the true intonation of Cornish may be best preserved. But this is mere conjecture.

{56} The modern Cornish pronunciation of the word trade, in its local and rather contemptuous sense of ropes ends, dead mice, and other combustibles (as Cornishman once denned it), shows the sound of this vowel fairly well.

{57} Care must be taken in this case to avoid that _ sound given to the English _a_ in London twang (_e.g._ ldy for lady).

{59a} The combination ao in Irish is pronounced t. Thus caol, narrow, is cul in the Highlands and kîl in Ireland.

{59b} The word bewnans, life, formed from the root bew, was often written bownans in late Cornish and probably pronounced boonans. Similarly bowjy (=bewgh-ch), cow-house, must have been bewjy. This last, which is one of the surviving Cornish words, has its ow at present sounded as in now. This change has happened not infrequently in place-names.

{63} The word en, in, in quite late Cornish, was apparently sounded et, which is a solitary case of the disappearance of n in a monosyllable.

{64} Cf. the s or z of azure, treasure, sure, pleasure, sugar, in English.

{65} Dr. Whitley Stokes, in a paper of additions to Williamss Cornish Lexicon (Philol. Soc. 1868), gives it as his opinion that the th of the MSS. should not be written dh at the end of a word, and that Williams, in doing so, was wrongly following Welsh analogy. But there is an evident tendency in late Cornish to end words in z for s, v for f, g for k, and a considerable number of words which Williams ends in dh end in the corresponding z in Breton, so that one is more inclined to follow Williams in this matter, though there is a good deal to be said both ways.

{70a} C before a broad vowel, k before a thin vowel, and q before a w.

{70b} The ch and j are used for an earlier t and d in a few words, through intensification of the thin sounds of the latter. See Chap. I. § 2.

{73} See Chap. IV. § 2.

{76} There is also a doubtful form mescatter, from mescat.

{78} The change of initial of the masculine plural is by no means universal in the MSS., but it is not infrequent, and is the rule in Breton (with a few exceptions), so it seems fair to conjecture that it was the Cornish rule also.

{80} Note how a masculine ending in a affects the initial of the adjective as if it were a feminine.

{81} It sometimes happens (as Dr. Stokes points out) that if the first noun is feminine, the noun in the genitive has its initial in the second state, in fact it is treated as an adjective qualifying the preceding noun, e.g. bennath Varya, the blessing of Mary; carek Veryasek, the rock of Meriasek; fynten woys, a well of blood, but as this also happens at times when the first noun is masculine (e.g. cledha dan, Cr. 964), it probably only means that mutations were rather loosely used. The last two are genitives of material.

{86} Note that when a syllable is added to a word ending in gh, the g is omitted.

{94} Idn, to qualify a noun; omen, used by itself. Thus, idn dên, one man; nen hag Ol, One and All. Wnnen is an alternative form of the latter.

{96} It has been held that this apparent singular, which is used after numerals in Welsh and Breton also, is really a genitive plural. In the Gaelic languages, in which the case-inflections of nouns still exist, the genitive plural is usually (though not universally) the same as the nominative singular, except in Manx, where it is only distinguishable from the nominative plural by its article, but except in the cases of da, two, fichead, twenty, ceud, a hundred, and mile, a thousand, which precede nouns in the singular, the plural follows numerals in those languages.

{119} There is, however, some blight confusion in late Cornish MSS. between this use of re, and the auxiliary form with wrîg. The difference of sound in cases of verbs beginning with g or c would be very slight.

{133} Spelling assimilated to that of this grammar.

{135} It will not be necessary to add the pronouns to every tense.

{136} The remarks on the use of the different forms of this tense apply mutatis mutandis to the other tenses. See also Chapter XIV. § I.

{140} See Chapter XIV.

{144} Kegy, kehegy (in St. Meriasek), are ke, kehe, with jy or gy (=dî), the personal pronoun added.

{149} Older yn. When this is followed by a possessive pronoun of the first or second person the n is dropped, and the possessive pronoun takes the form which follows a preposition ending in a vowel, em, eth. When the definite article would follow the two coalesce and en=en an.

{153} na=ni + a (nag before a vowel), ought only to be used with interrogatives, but the later writers of Cornish did not always do as they ought.

{154} In Jordans Creation, 1. 599, Myhall sera thewgh gramercy, though Keigwin and Dr. Stokes both read my hall=I may, one is inclined to find this form of swear, and to translate it Michael! sir, grammercy to you! Compare the English use of Marry! (for Mary!) or Gad! (for God!) without by before them. It is written all in one word and spelt the same as the name of St. Michael in the same play. It is no more of an anachronism to make Eve swear by St. Michael than (in Res. Dom., 1387) to make St. Thomas swear by St. Mary.

{156} Vengeans yth glas! is used by the wife of the smith who makes the nails for the Cross in the Drama of The Passion (1. 2716).

{164} The spelling and mutations corrected.

{165} The spelling and mutations corrected.

{166} The spelling and mutations corrected.

{167} The spelling and mutations corrected.

{180a} Probably the apparent eight syllables in line 6 of the Poem of the Passion may be accounted for in this way, and one should read levarow as larow; cf. in the Breton of Treguier, laret for lavarout, and the late Cornish lawle for lavarel. In English the first would be no rhyme.

{180b} It may be that the Cornish ear for rhymes was like the French, and that the explanation is to be sought in a theory like that of the rimes riches and the consonne dappui of modern French. In French chercherrocher is a better rhyme than aimerrocher (in each case with the accent on the last syllable).

{181} The numerals denote the number of syllables to each line. In the original a long z is used for dh and th.

{188} The spelling of one of the original MSS. has been preserved here, except that, in order to avoid confusion as to the number of syllables, the final mute _e_ is omitted. In this _ee_î_, _ea__ê_, _oo__ô_.

{189a} I have only to add that the metre of Christabel is not properly speaking irregular, though it may seem so through its being founded on a new principle, namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. (Preface to 1816 edition of Christabel.)

{189b} Spelling adapted to that of this grammar.

{196} Cf. the Arabic article al prefixed to place-names in Southern Spain, and to nouns of Arabic derivation in Spanish.

THE END