Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

SOME BRECONSHIRE PLACE-NAMES By STEPHEN J. WILLIAMS, M.A., D.LITT. Professor Emeritus, University College of Swansea THE need for an historical dictionary of Welsh place-names has long been felt. The importance of this engrossing subject to the philologist, the student of local history and folk-lore, and to every one interested in the testimony to our national heritage, need hardly be stressed. There have been, of course, many writers who have attempted to explain the origin and meaning of place-names, mostly in the manner of popular etymologists. But the late Sir Ifor Williams, in his excellent little book on Welsh place- names in general (Enwau Lleoedd, Gwasg y Brython, 1945), devoted the first chapter to giving scholarly warning to would-be interpreters of names of the boggy nature of this field of inquiry. It must therefore be with great circumspection, not to say trepidation, that one should attempt to find a path through such treacherous ground. Many place-names have been discussed in various publications by scholars, and studies of names occurring in some localities and counties remain unpublished in research dissertations. I am very much indebted to the late Professor Lloyd-Jones's Enwau Lleoedd Sir Gaernarfon (1928), Sir Ifor Williams's Enwau Lleoedd, Mr. R. J. Thomas's Enwau Afonydd a Nentydd Cymru (1938), and to many etymological notes in various periodicals. Professor Melville Richards has made a very extensive study of the subject and the publication of the first part of a Dictionary of Place-names by him is eagerly awaited. The great majority of place-names in Breconshire are of Welsh origin. There are abundant examples of the use in proper nouns of common words descriptive of natural features, such as aber, allt, banc, blaen, bron, bryn, bwlch, cae, cefn, crug, cwm, garth, gelli, glan, glyn, gwaun, nant, pen, rhyd, tir, ystrad. In general these are the first element in a name, with the traditional Welsh spelling and pronunciation preserved, and in the discus- sion that follows it seems unnecessary to give more than their English equivalents. Where an anglicised form of a name is commonly used (e.g. Wye, Usk) this is shown in brackets after the Welsh form. Aberbran aber 'confluence' + bran 'crow,' denotes the junction of the tributary Bran and the river Wýsg (Usk). Very many streams and rivers have (for various reasons) been named after animals. A dark-coloured swift-running stream might easily be named 'bran.' On the other hand,