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TEMPERANCE MEETING AT BARRY…

THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN! SAILORS'…

ROYAL ANTEDILUVIAN OllDER…

!DARING THEFT AT MAESTEG,

BRIDGEND NOTES.I

LICENSING DAY AT BRIDGEND.

[No title]

BRIDGEND PETry SESSIONS,

LLANTWIT-MAJOR NOTES.I

THE DERIVATION OF "CAERNARVON."

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THE DERIVATION OF "CAERNARVON." In the last issue of the Carnarvon, and Denbigh Herald an interesting leaderette i9 published on the derivation of the word "Caernatvon":—"The writer in the 'Welsh, llevlew says the Herald, gives the name of the citadel in the vernacular as Caer- yn-ar-Fon," and Anglicizes it as "the fort opposite Mona." Another writer in the SOUTH WALES STAR confidently remarks :—" It is nothing of the kind. Every Welsh scholar will say that the fort' would never be Caer' in Welsh, but Y Gaer.' Caer' would be a fort,' and therefore could never be applied by itself as a place-name. For instance, we say Caerfyrddin, but that means Myrddin's fort,' the word Myrddin thus parti- cularising the fort. It is obvious, therefore, that such is not the derivation of Caernarvon. The true explanation is that the old name was Caer- saint-yn-ar-Fon (' the fort of the saints opposite Mon ')' It woud have been more satisfactory if this critic had supplied us with his authority for the introduction of the word saint" into the name. "Seiont" we know but who were these saint" ? And how came they to fall out of the word.' On this point a correspondent writes to us as follows :—" The Caer' (fm-t) has nothing what- ever to do with the name of either the county, or the county town opposite Anglesey. In the old British tongue earn' signified a rock or heap of stones, and modern Welsh attaches the same mean- ing to the term. We have, accordingly, earn (rock), ar' (opposite) Fon' (Anglesey) and hence Carnarfon.' That is to say, the rock Twthill, that faces the island of Mona and formed a distinctive mark on the Snowdonian side of the Menai Straits untold ages before Edward 1. ever thought of building a fortress on the site."

ORIGINAL POETR Y.

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