mouth of the Llyvni is the huge artificial mound called Dinas Dinỻe, which dates probably before the Roman occupation, the Romans being supposed to have made use of it. Its future seems to be gradual demolition by the waves of the Irish Sea, unless it is to experience the still worse misfortune of being desecrated by the builders of so-called watering-places. It was at Dinas Dinỻe that Lleu spent a part of his boyhood; and in a poem in the Black Book of Carmarthen (p. 272) it is called caer lev a gwidion,[1] or the Fortress of Lleu and Gwydion. The present name, Dinas Dinỻe, is tautological, and means literally 'the City of Lleu's Town;' the word din, 'a town or fortress,' having become obsolete, has here been explained by prefixing its synonymous derivative dinas, 'a town or city.'[2] The reasons for going into these details will appear presently; suffice it for the present to recall the statement that Dinỻe stands for an older Dinỻeu derived from Lleu's name, and meaning Lleu's town. This is proved by various facts; among others, it is indirectly proved by the Dinỻef of the scribe of the Mabinogi of Mâth, as already hinted; also by one of the Stanzas of the Graves, which places the grave of Gwydion
- ↑ Skene, ij. 57.
- ↑ Other old names have occasionally been treated in the same way: thus the word tref, 'town,' is sometimes substituted for din, as in the case of Dinmeirchion, which has become Tre'meirchion, near St. Asaph in the Vale of Clwyd; and similarly the mythic town of Arianrhod is no longer spoken of in Arvon as Caer Arianrhod, but as Tre' Ga'r 'Anthrod. See the Cymmrodor, vi. 163, where other forms are also mentioned: 'Anthrod stands for the latter part of Arianrhod, with a th inserted betwen n—rh, as in penrhyn, cynrhon, pronounced penthryn and cynthron in N. Wales, while in S. Wales they become pendryn and cyndron. For the case of Carmarthen, see p. 160.
