said to have carried seven and a half persons on his back from Penllech in the North to Penllech in Mona: they were, to wit, Elidyr and his wife Eurgein; Gwyn da Gyueᵭ, or White the good Drink-mate, and Gwyn da Reimat,[1] a designation of doubtful interpretation; Mynach Nawmon, Elidyr's counsellor; Petrylew Vynestyr, his cup-bearer; Aranuagyl, his servant; and Albeinwyn, his cook, who swam with his hands on the horse's crupper: it was he that was reckoned the half-man in the load. It would take too much of our time to discuss all the questions which this curious passage suggests, and I shall only make a remark on one or two of the names. Petrylew Vynestyr means a minister or servant whose name was Petrylew, and this last might be interpreted to mean him of the four lights.[2] Petrylew was therefore the fifth night in the reckoning, that is to say, the last night of the first noinden or half-week, as that would be the one preceded by four intervals of daylight. The cook reckoned as the half-person was the night with which the week began, though the triad in its present form contemplates this as occupying the last place; originally,
- ↑ I guess it to stand for an older reading Keimat: the name would then mean 'G. the good Comrade.'
- ↑ Petrylew is the reading of the Red Book; most of the other MSS. have Prydelaw, Prydelw, or the like, which I cannot explain.
less transparent name is Du Moro, as in the oldest copy of the Triads (Hengwrt MS. 54, p. 53), or Da March Moro Oerucdawc, 'Black, the Horse of Moro Oerveᵭawc,' in the story of Kulhwch (R. B. Mab. p. 124), where the rider of the beast is no other than Gwyn ab Nûᵭ. The Welsh Moro, Moroed, and the French Morois, are probably names of the same mythic place as the Irish Murias, whence the Tuatha Dé Danann brought the Undry Cauldron of the Dagda (p. 257); the name Mureif, borne by a district in the north, given to Urien, also belongs here, as I hope to show in my Arthurian Legend.
