ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1274 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1274 ************************************ 9 Sep 1998 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked our opinion of your client's Welsh name , meaning "Cerridwen the Fair of the Stone Giant". Here are some quick comments. We had already received a question about this lady's name from another herald who she is consulting by e-mail [3], and she has submitted a third question to us directly. We wrote to hr for clarification, and she told us that she's no longer interested in . She's now interested in a French name, . We're sending you this reply for your own information. is the name of a supernatural character in a Welsh tradition loosely associated with the Arthurian cycle [1]. In many years of research, no one in the Society has found any evidence that any real person used the name or any of its variants. The name is popular in the Society because of its use in modern fantasy fiction and neo-paganism, and because it was so widely used, the SCA College of Arms decided that it would register it; but it is not a period name. is a fairly common Welsh epithet in period, which does mean "fair". We found several examples recorded from the 13th century through the end of our period, in various spellings. Depending on the period your client wants to re-create, we would recommend different spellings. In the 12th century, for example, the expected Welsh-context spelling of the root word would be ; but as a woman's byname, it would become . The change from initial to is an example of "lenition", a softening of the initial letter in a word that is required by Welsh grammar in some circumstances. In the 14th or 15th century, the appropriate spelling is [2]. The word should be dropped. When there is a descriptive epithet in a medieval Welsh name, like , the definite article "the" is not include. It's tacitly understood [4]. The second byname, doesn't capture the meaning your client intended. "rock" and "giant" are both nouns; one noun can't modify another. The word means "the", not "of the". Before we can suggest the grammatically correct phrase, we need to know exactly what the lady intends the phrase to mean. Does she mean "from a place called 'Stone Giant'", or "from a large stone that resembles a giant", or something else? One possibility that would be fairly good re-creation is a name that means she lives near "the giant's stone". While we don't know a Welsh placename with this meanins, we think it is a reasonable construction. We know several period Welsh places named after giants, either using the personal name of a giant in Welsh legend or the word for "giant". For example there is a mountain associated in folklore with a giant named ; it is called "the chair of Idris". There is a town called "town of the giants" [6]. Given these example, we think it is perfectly reasonable that a place could have been called "the stone of the giant". Multiple bynames (descriptive surnames) were rare in Welsh. Almost all women mentioned in period Welsh documents are identified by nothing more than a given name and single byname, usually a patronymic (e.g. ) but sometimes an epithet like "Angharat the Fair". Locatives (bynames based on placenames) are particularly unusual. When Welsh names were recorded in English or Latin documents, more complicated combinations of bynames were more common. A lady known in Welsh as might be recorded by an English scribe as is grammatically wrong. The article should not be connected to the next word with an apostrophe, and the article should before a word beginning with a consonant. is used only before a word starting with a vowel. [5] Jones, Heather Rose (aka Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn), "Names and Naming Practices in the Merioneth Lay Subsidy Roll 1292-3", in Known World Heraldic Symposium Proceedings, 1991 (SCA: Laurel, Maryland, 1991). [6] _Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru_ (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, several dates). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -