Sir John Rhys ( June 21, 1840 to December 17, 1915) was a native of Wales, and scholar of the Celtic language. He became the first Professor of Celtic at Oxford University, in 1876. He also maintained an interest in improving the educational system in the British Isles, and was knighted in 1907. Some of his books include:
Lectures on Welsh Philology (1877)
Celtic Britain (1882 )
Celtic Heathendom (1886).
Lectures on Welsh Philology (1877)
Celtic Britain (1882 )
Celtic Heathendom (1886).
Of interest to us now is a footnote in his book, Celtic folklore: Welsh and Manx, (1901).
His purpose in this book is to illuminate the medieval Welsh stories in the Mabinogian, which he accomplishes by gathering recent tellings of old folk tales. In one instance there is a puzzling translation of the Welsh, a place name, which he glosses in this manner:
This is commonly pronounced 'Y Gath Dorwen,' but the people of the neighbourhood wish to explain away a farm name which could, strangely enough, only mean ' the white-bellied cat'; but y Garth Dorwen, 'the whitebellied garth or hill,' is not a very likely name either.
His purpose in this book is to illuminate the medieval Welsh stories in the Mabinogian, which he accomplishes by gathering recent tellings of old folk tales. In one instance there is a puzzling translation of the Welsh, a place name, which he glosses in this manner:
This is commonly pronounced 'Y Gath Dorwen,' but the people of the neighbourhood wish to explain away a farm name which could, strangely enough, only mean ' the white-bellied cat'; but y Garth Dorwen, 'the whitebellied garth or hill,' is not a very likely name either.
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