in an eighth century charter of Æthilheard of Wessex,[1] is beyond all doubt a continuation of that in the Itinerary. That, however, does not quite decide the question of site, as there may have been not a few localities entitled to the same interesting appellation.
The God's Mounds, Fetishes and Symbols.
What, it may now be asked, can have been the meaning of calling the god by a name signifying the Chief of the Mound? The answer must depend a good deal on what was meant by the word which I have thus far rendered 'mound.' Now the Irish word cruach might mean a heap of anything, and it is attested in the more restricted sense of a rick of hay or the like; the Welsh crûg admits of much the same use, but it is especially employed in the case of artificial mounds or tumuli; and so it appears in a great many names of places, such as that of Crûg Hywel, Anglicized Crickhowel, the name of a village near Abergavenny, and the Wyddgrug, which seems to have meant the Burial Mound: the town so called is in Flintshire, and it is found formerly named Mons Altus,[2] modern English Mold. Let us now look at some of the synonymous terms: one of these is tommen, usual in North Wales, and well known as applied to a tumulus at Bala, which served till lately as the rallying-point of the great open-air services of the Calvinistic Methodists; but a more promising word is gorseᵭ, which while etymologically meaning any high station or position,
- ↑ Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus, No. lxxvi.
- ↑ The feature so called is said by Pennant to be partly natural and partly artificial: see his Tours in Wales (Carnarvon, 1883), i. 35-6.
