his kingdom to Merlin Emrys, he proceeded to the north, a part of the island supposed at one time to have been the abode of the dead, a notion attested by so late an author as the Greek writer Procopius in the 6th century. Further, the district in the north to which Vortigern is made to go is called Gwynnwesi,[1] a derivative used probably as the plural of Gwynwas, which would mean the White or Blissful Abode. The compound, analysed into Gwas Gwyn,[2] of the same meaning, occurs in another story, which represents a solar hero, called Caswallawn son of Beli, going in pursuit of his mistress, Fflûr daughter of Mygnach the Dwarf, who was carried away by the Romans, according to one account to Rome, and according to another to Gwasgwyn. He recovered her after a great battle with the Romans, who, to avenge their defeat, afterwards invaded Britain under Julius Caesar:[3] another reference to the same mythic expedition of Caswallawn's makes him and his host settle permanently in Gwasgwyn.[4] Now Caswallawn belongs to Welsh mythology, but his name happens to be the same as that of the historical man Cassivellaunus of Caesar's narrative, and Gwasgwyn,
- ↑ San-Marte, in his Gildas et Nennius, p. 55, adopts the reading Guunnesi, but there are diverse others all consistent with an original Guennuessi, which may also have had the shortened form Gunnuessi.
- ↑ Compare the use of gwas in speaking of an abode or mansion in Heaven in the Bk. of Taliessin, Skene, ij. 110; see also p. 11 above. Probably the Gwysmeuryc of the Welsh version of Geoffrey, ij. 194b, derives its gwys from a very different origin, as the Latin version has Westimaria, p. 57, and Westmarialanda, p. 66.
- ↑ The Triads, i. 53, 77, ii. 58, iii. 102: see also San-Marte's Geoffrey, p. 253, note.
- ↑ Ib. i. 40, ii. 5.
