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district in Roman times. Within the limits of the Norman Atiscross was a marshy tract called Englefield. This word has nothing to do with Tegeing; it may have been a reminiscence of the Northumbrian inroad. Ordericus Vitalis (born in 1075) knows nothing of Englefield or of Atiscross; of the Welsh Tegeingl he would naturally be ignorant.

"As time went on, and as we approach the date when Mr. Phillimore's studies in Flintshire topography commence, the name Atiscross is found to have died out, leaving to our own times a debatable spot where the cross of Ati is said to have stood. The recovery and increase of Welsh influence, which must have been considerable during the over-lordship of Owain Gwynedd, brought the Welsh name of the district into prominence. The old name of Atiscross had fallen into disuse. The Normano-English wanted a new name. Tegeingl' was not translatable; but there being within the district a place called Englefield, led to the idea that both words were connected. The adoption of Englefield by the nonWelsh as an equivalent for Tegeingl was the next and most natural step. But it would probably be wrong to consider its geographical limits as coterminous with those of the Domesday hundred of Atiscross, and equally wrong to treat them as similar to those of the old Tegeingl. Causes that led to the disuse of 'Atiscross' also limited the application of its Welsh equivalent, Tegeingl'.

"One important factor amongst many, the existence of which we can now but dimly conjecture, was the establishment of a strong Norman family at Mold. Mold does not appear in Domesday unless under some unidentifiable name, so that its rise to importance was a little subsequent to 1086. Once fixed there, its barons soon began a re-arrangement of the map of Flintshire. Owain Gwynedd, the ablest chief who ever wielded power in North Wales, saw the vital importance of the Norman settlement, and the danger to Tegeingl. Early in his chiefship (1144) he made a desperate effort to uproot it; but the barons of Mold were not to be dispossessed. The practical effect was to cut the ancient Tegeingl into two unequal halves, the northern of which has alone come within Mr. Phillimore's purview.

"But the clear evidence we possess of the extent of the ancient hundred of Atiscross; the indisputable fact that Owain Gwynedd, at the time of his death, held possessions between Mold and Chester; and the equally authentic fact that in 1254 the ecclesiastical divisions of Flintshire differed from those existing in 1291, go to prove (so far as a chain of circumstances can prove anything of which there exists no direct and incontrovertible evidence) that Tegeing was the name of the present county of Flint, minus the political addition of English Maelor. If Mr. Phillimore can break this chain of reasoning, let him do so. 'If', to adopt his own words, 'he can overthrow the authorities I have adduced, I shall be prepared to admit that he has moved up his alphabetical ladder, and has got somewhere nearer the A, B, C, of Welsh topographical

study. I have carried him a little beyond 1291. I trust he will endeavour to penetrate the darkness that covers the other side of Domesday.

"As to the question of priority in the decipherment of the name Deceangl upon the pigs of lead in the Chester Museum, I need say no more than that I can assure Mr. Phillimore that both inscriptions had been examined before his arrival. Has he yet made sure of his reading, Deceancl? I have since learnt that there used to be a pig of lead of the date of Vespasian at Eaton Hall. Has it been removed to the Chester Museum? And if not, could it not be examined for the name of the tribe whose tribute it formed? It might solve all difficulties.

"Mr. Phillimore will, I trust, not consider me discourteous if I observe that I am going to leave him the last word, should he think it proper to reply to the present communication. I have said pretty well all I could say, leaving unsaid only a few minor points which would strengthen the argument I have set forth, at, I am afraid, unconscionable length. I am very busy just at present, and am unwilling to enter further into what is an arduous though pleasant controversy. I have shot my bolt, and having done so do not wish to skulk away, under the shadow of anonymity, from a thrashing if Mr. Phillimore wishes to make the attempt. I therefore beg to subscribe myself yours, etc.,

"EDWARD OWEN."

CAMBRIAN ARCHEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION.

HOLYWELL MEETING, AUGUST 1890.

SUBSCRIBERS TO LOCAL FUND.

RECEIPTS.

His Grace the Duke of Westminster, K.G.

J. Scott Bankes, Esq., Soughton Hall

T. Bate, Esq., Kelsterton, Flint

Chas. Brown, Esq., The Folly, Chester

E. Bryan, Esq., Holywell

W. H. Buddicom, Esq., Penbedw, Mold

J. Carman, Esq., Holywell

C. J. Croudace, Esq., Holywell

P. B. Davies-Cooke, Esq., Gwysaney, Mold

A. H. Spencer-Cooper, Esq., Springfield, Holywell
H. A. Cope, Esq., Saithaelwyd, Holy well

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W. J. P. Storey, Esq., Mostyn

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Henry Taylor, Esq., Curzon Park, Chester

James Williams, Esq., Castle Hill, Holywell

Tickets sold (Colonel Batters, £1 18.; Miss Chapman,

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Reviews and Notices of Books.

PABELL DOFYDD, sef Eglurhad ar Anianyddiaeth Grefyddol yr Hen Dderwyddon Cymreig. Gan OWAIN MORGAN (Morien). Caerdydd: argraffwyd gan Daniel Owen a'i Gwmmi (Cyfyngedig). [The Tabernacle of God (as Regulator), or an Explanation of the Religious Philosophy of the old Welsh Druids. By Owen Morgan (Morien). Cardiff: printed by Daniel Owen and Co. Limited.]

THE late Mr. Thomas Stephens of Merthyr, as is very well known, was engaged, a little before his death, in collecting materials for an essay on Welsh bardism. To pick out of the mass of myth, invention, speculation, custom, which goes by the name of "Bardism", the genuine traditions, the real recollections, which it contains, is a work that needs urgently to be done. No one was more fitted than Mr. Stephens to undertake such a work; but he died before he could finish or even fairly begin it.

The writer of Pabell Dofydd deals not merely with bardism, but with Druidism and ancient Welsh mythology and religion. But though he affects, in some measure, to discuss these difficult subjects as a student, he really writes as the enthusiastic expounder of a system into which he has been initiated. His enthusiasm interests us, and his style has the merit of being clear and easy. But when we ask whether "Morien" shows himself, in Pabell Dofydd, fitted for the work he has undertaken, we are bound to answer that he has taken no pains to make himself acquainted with what has been brought to light in recent years by competent scholars in the field of Welsh antiquities, and that his book is in general wholly untrustworthy.

In names like cyllell (knife) and cwlltr (ploughshare), which come undoubtedly from the Latin cultellus and culter, but which "Morien" derives from the Welsh callestr (flint), our author finds evidence that the " Cymry speak now the same language their ancestors did before the discovery of iron"; so that we are thus carried back, he says, "thousands of ages into the mist of the world's morning." He has no doubt that cromlechau were Druidical altars ("probably the first altars that God saw raised upon the earth"), although many of them are still covered with mounds of earth or of stones, and all were probably originally covered, or were intended to be. The three upright stones which sustain the horizontal stone of the cromlech were meant to stand, he says, for the three strokes in the mystic sign representing the Divine Word. What

then, is to be said of the many cromlechau in which the sustaining stones number more than three? The Coelbren y Beirdd, or bardic alphabet, was proved by Mr. Thomas Stephens to have been an invention of the fifteenth century; but "Morien" evidently takes it to have been in use among the Cymry in that Age of Stone which

he makes so remote.

Nearly all that other nations of antiquity knew, they learnt, according to "Morien", from the ancient Britons; but they generally corrupted that which they so received. Tau is but a corruption of the Welsh word tad (father). We get the same name corrupted in the Egyptian Thoth. Similarly, Odin and Woden are, "Morien" says, undoubtedly corruptions of the Welsh Gwyddon; and he quotes "the learned Higgins", who says that Pythagoras is a Welsh name, and signifies to explain the system of the universe ! Lucan mentions a Gaulish divinity whom he calls "Hesus". In "Hesus", Professor Rhys rightly recognises "Esus", a Celtic god, of whom he gives us a most interesting account. “Morien", on the other hand, identifies him with Hu Gadarn, a well known character in Welsh mythology, and explains huan (an old name applied to the sun) as annedd Hu (Hu's dwelling), with how little. probability, let those who know anything of Welsh consider. Similarly he fatuously explains "Teusates", the name of the war-god of the Gauls, as "Duw yn dad" (God as father).

"Morien" would have avoided many pitfalls into which he has fallen if he had consulted Professor Rhys' Hibbert Lectures, in which the scientific treatment of the rich treasures of Welsh mythology has for the first time been attempted. Our author ignores the statements of Cæsar and Tacitus, who may be taken to have known something about the Druids, and who have told us that they offered up human sacrifices, and practised cruel rites, in groves. Our author says, on the contrary, that "Druidism, like Christianity, taught peace and brotherly love"; and that "as to its teaching and influence for good, it was so glorious that there is nothing like it except the Gospel itself." The Druids, according to "Morien", inculcated a singularly pure religion and a highly developed and poetical system of philosophy. The Greeks borrowed this religion and philosophy from the Cymry; but their bards, "by their childish tales hid under bardic flowers the doctrinal notions concerning the Divine attributes which they had received from the learned Hyperboreans (Britons), and made of those several attributes gods and goddesses." Then, in course of time, they ascribed human weaknesses to them, so that the Greek gods and goddesses became the subjects of jest and scorn to some of the bards themselves. The Druids, on the other hand, retained the purity and simplicity of their religion, and "the Celiaid (worshippers of the god Celi) flowed from every part of the world to the Welsh festivals, as the Hebrews did to their own feasts at Jerusalem. "Is it not possible", Morien asks, "that God gave to the stock of Japheth (namely the Cymry) shadows more literal of the great truths of the Gospel than were

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