les croix dressées et les églises edifiés que son zêle religieux fit elever plus tard.' St. Cadoc, who thus first brought Christianity into Brittany, was, I believe, the son of St. Woolos (Newport, Mon.). Other Welsh Saints, too, are common to Brittany and Wales. Though they owe much to Wales, it appears to me the modern Bretons are not grateful. They seem to me to put down all their blessings to Irish monks. Maybe they regard the present Welsh as a degenerate race that has deserted its ancient faith. To make good my case, I suppose I must prove St. Cornelius was a British Saint. The only thing I can think of is that near Bridgend there is a small parish named Cornelly. About two miles from Mont St. Michael I went to another little village named Crucuno, pronounced Cru- · cuney. I could get no information of the meaning of the word beyond Cru now has a secondary meaning 'elevation' or small hill from a Crux, having always been elevated on such. With ourselves we sometimes hear the big mouthful, Cornelius, cut down to Corney, e.g., Corney Jones."

LLANVIHANGEL CRUCORNEY CHURCH.

The Church is generally supposed to be dedicated to St. Michael and to have been built in the 14th century. Style, Early English. The oldest portions of the building are the north and south walls of the Chancel and the western wall of the Nave. The weather-worn appearance of this western wall inside the tower seems to point to the tower being added at a later date. The South Porch also is an addition.

The Chancel retains its original waggon roof of oak, three windows (Early English), and a large perpendicular window, a later insertion, on the south side, beneath which is the piscina. The eastern wall had to be re-built in 1886. The Altar Stone, measurements 7ft. 5in. by 3ft. 6in. by 54in., was in that year found buried in the Church and restored to its original position. The stainedglass eastern window is considered one of Kemp's best.

The Nave, being much out of repair in 1835, instead of being restored, was then wholly pulled down. Old people have told me the walls were so well built that it was hard work to get them down. With them was destroyed an oak roof, admitted to have been the finest roof in this part of Monmouthshire, which had been allowed to get into a ruinous condition. The Nave was then re-built with nondescript windows, deal roof, and a ceiling, flat, plastered, whitewashed. A three-decker pulpit and desk, and great square pews allotted to the chief houses in the parish, completed this work when

the old Font had been banished (fragments of this may be seen in the Vicarage garden) and a new font-, like a great egg-cup, substituted. In 1887 the Nave was re-seated with oak benches, free and unappropriated, the plaster on walls removed and these rough pointed. The present windows were inserted between 1887 and 1897. These are perhaps a little more ornate than the original windows probably were, but in this I was overruled and the dripstones over them are also perhaps a mistake. The flat whitewashed ceiling still remains, but I am not without hope we may some day get a roof more like the original.

The South Porch was doubtless an addition of later date. In 1897 the plaster and whitewash of 1835 was removed from the roof of the Porch and a fine specimen of an oak roof discovered and restored.

The Tower, as stated above, appears to have been built some time after the Nave. There is in it provision for the hanging of five bells. Of these only two remain. The small bell is probably much the older maybe, older than the tower itself. The big bell is a very beautiful tenor and was cast at Chepstow. There is a legend that the Church lost the other three bells under the following circumstances. One Nicholas Arnold lived at Llanvihangel Court about 1690. He was a village tyrant, seldom left the village, and was hated by the inhabitants. On one rare occasion, when he started for London, the bells were rung. The Squire, hearing them on the road to Abergavenny, turned back, had the bells taken down, and sent them into Breconshire.

The Registers, with some gaps, go back to 1640. There is a fine Chalice (1674), gift of John Arnold, with his arms engraved. There is a Tithe Barn between the Vicarage and the Churchyard. An old man of this parish once told me that when he was a boy he was employed by the Vicar in harvest time to visit all the corn fields in the parish and put "a green twig" in every tenth sheaf. The Vicar's cart followed and carried these sheaves to this barn.

A. R. BLUNdell.

The rev. gentleman was heartily thanked for his highly interesting paper.

LLANVIHANGEL CRUCORNEY AND THE SKIRRIDS.

BY JAMES WOOD, M.A., F.S.A., ETC.

"It is said that Llanfihangel Crucorney means 'the Church of St. Michael and the Angels at the corner of the crag.' This involves three errors. There is nothing in the name about an Angel other than St. Michael himself. In 'Mihangel' the 'ng is the aspirated form of 'g,' which here replaces eh.' Therefore, though the last five letters spell 'angel" they have nothing to do with it in this case. In composition after 'Llan,' the initial 'm' becomes 'f' (incorrectly written 'v' which does not occur in Welsh); just as the initial of Mair (Mary) appears as 'f' in Llanfair. The railway from Abergavenny to Pandy runs in a valley which, from near Llanfihangel station, carries the water of the Cevenni southward into the Usk, and in the other direction carries the Honddu northwards into the Monnow. This valley separates the Sugarloaf (Pen-y-fal) and the other spurs and outliers of the Black Mountains from the lower range of hill forming the eastern flank of the valley, and stretching from Skirrid fach, east of Abergavenny, to Campston Hill, east of Pandy. This range of hill was formerly known as Bryn Corneu (pronounced Cornee), or the hill of the peaks.' Corn' (in English horn') represents what in the north is called a pike'; such as the Langdale pikes in Westmoreland. So the highest point of the Brecon Beacon is 'y fan corn-du' or the point of the black horn.' We may compare the Alpine, Matterhorn, Weisshorn, etc. On this range of hill again there was a Crug.' This appears in the ancient boundaries, as stated in the Liber Llandavensis, of Llanfetherine, which was co-terminous in part with Llanfihangel, and included a large part of the range. The Crug' should therefore be sought on the boundary, and probably near the head of Nant-y-grug, due east of the present Llanfihangel Church. Crug' (pronounced Creeg) is a barrow, tumulus, or hillock, generally artificial; and then usually sepulchral. Only last week I visited the Crug-yr-Avan, on the Glamorgan hills, which has lately been opened and proved to be sepulchral. The word must not be confounded with craig' a rock. frequently appears as Crick, as in Crickhowell, which is Crughywel. Llanfihangel Crucorney is therefore The Church of St. Michael on the Hill of the Peaks.' According to Professor Rees, there were, in Wales and the Marches, 94 churches and chapels dedicated to St. Michael, of which 13 occurred in Monmouthshire. Of the peaks which I have mentioned, the highest is the Skirrid fawr (The Great Skirrid), which derives its name from Ysgariad,' i.e., separation or parting, owing to the great fissure on the summit,

It

which is one of its geological curiosities. The Lesser Skirrid (Skirrid fach) takes its name in relation to its brother peak, though it has no fissure of its own. Archdeacon Coxe (1801) said that the Skirrid has been called St. Michael's Mount, and others have repeated his statement. I have found no authority for it. Llanfetherine deserves a short notice. It is properly Llan-Gwytherin (not LlanMerin, as Professor Rees supposed), a name which occurs again in Denbighshire, where Gwetherin-ap Dinged founded the church in which St. Winifred is reputed to have been buried. Dingad, his father, is commemorated at Dingestow, near Monmouth (formerly Dingatstow), while St. Winifred's spiritual father and instructor, St. Beino, after education at Caerwent, settled under the benefaction of Ynyr Gwent, at Llanfeyno (the Church of St. Beino), north-east of Llanthony. The connection between these dedications in the south and the north deserves further investigation."

Mr. Wood having seen Mr. Blundell's paper added, some days after the meeting, the following remarks to his former contribution, which are here printed for further elucidation:

"I agree with Mr. Blundell that there is much to be said as to the connection between Wales and Brittany, and to show you that I have been working on those lines I send you a cutting with a recent note of mine on St. Wennol, showing how he left Gwent for Brittany, and how, 500 years after, his memory was brought back to Wonastow. But I can by no means agree with Mr. Blundell's suggestion as to the derivation of Crucorney. The first syllable can have nothing to do with crux or cross. There is no name in which such a change occurs. Cross always appears as cross' ('groes in composition as in 'Bwlch-y-groes'), in which 'oe' equals 'oy,' so it could never become 'u.' It did become 'e,' as in "Gresford,' near Wrexham, which was 'y' (Groesffordd). Corney' I cannot connect with 'Cornelius.' Mr. Blundell suggests that that name may occur in Cornely, near Bridgend. But those places (for there are two) are frequently mentioned in the Neath and Margam Charters, and were Cornelau' that is the plural of Cornel,' a corner or angle, and these were, in fact, the north-west and southwest corners of Ogmore Down. There is no known dedication to St. Cornelius in Wales. There was one in the diocese of Bayeux,in Normandy, and there it is important to notice that the name became St. Cornier. The '1' does not disappear, but becomes 'r.'

"I know nothing of the Carnac instance mentioned by Mr. Blundell; but it looks suspiciously as if the Bretons had invented a dedication account for a name. This has happened often enough in Wales. Cornely there may have had the same origin as in

Glamorgan. A spring at some corner may have got the name, a cross may have been set up to mark the spring, and so the "ffynnon cornelau and Cross Cornelau' suggested a dedication for the church when it came, and from that of course would follow the legends. But I am, contrary to my wont, being led into speculation of the possible. In the case of Crucorney' no such speculation is open when we have documentary evidence that the hill was ' Bryn corneu,' and on it was a crug."

GEOLOGY OF THE SKYRRIG.

A word or two as to the geology of the Skyrrig. The "Hereford Visitor" who reported our meeting observes "that the geological formation is old red sandstone with patches of cornstone at the northern and southern extremities of the summit. For geological references to Skyrrid Fawr the Transactions for 1868, p. 40, may be consulted, "Symonds' Records of the Rocks," p. 234, and "Memoirs of the Geological Survey," No. 232, 1900, pp. 16, 17, 18.

To this brief reference may be added the following notes by the Rev. H. E. Grindley, on the

GLACIAL DAM AT LLANVIHANGEL.

"On the 1-inch Ordnance Drift Map a patch of glacial sand is marked around Llanvihangel station running out as a spur from the west side across the valley at a height of 500-550 feet. It is mapped as extending about three-quarters of a mile across the valley and three furlongs north of the station and four furlongs to the south, up and down the valley. In the deepest part of the railway cutting north of the station the solid rock is exposed, capped by a considerable thickness of sand, and coarse river drift. A little east of the cutting the deposit reaches the height of 547 feet, O. D., and thence all along its north boundary forms an escarpment facing a stretch of levelflood-plain whose surface cannot be much above 420 feet O. D. This escarpment is covered with wood and seen from the road between the village mill and the railway is steep enough to resemble an artificial embankment. Southward the surface of the ground slopes gently with the usual billowy outlines of fluvio-glacial deposits traceable but not strongly evident. At the eastern end of this mass of drift, and on the left hand side of the main road to Abergavenny, is a marked depression in the grounds of Llanvihangel Court, suggestive of an old river bed. About half a mile south of the Court the bank bounding this depression on the east takes a curve towards the axis of the main valley, and seems lost in the mass of