CARMARTHENSHIRE. THE members of the Cambrian Archæological Association who attended the Meeting at Llandeilo Vaur in 1855 will remember with pleasure their visit to Dolaucothy House and their hospitable reception there by Mr. and Miss Johnes, and their examination of several interesting inscribed stones now deposited in front of the house, and which formerly stood at Pant-y-polion. PLATE XLIV. FIG. 1. The most important of these stones is THE GRAVE-STONE OF PAULINUS. In its present condition the inscription on this stone is not so perfect as it was in Bishop Gibson's time, when the whole was legible, as follows: SERVATVR FIDÆI PATRIEQ SEMPER AMATOR HIC PAVLIN VS IACIT CVLTOR PIENT SIMVS ÆQVI. (Gibson's Camden, ii. p. 27; ditto Ed. ii. 1722, vol. ii. p. 746. Gough's Camden, iii. p. 139.) My figure shows the present state of the stone, some portion of the letters in the four bottom lines having become defaced. Sufficient however remains to prove the correctness of the reading given by Bishop Gibson, if we except the last three words, which we must now take on credit. It will be seen that the inscription is entirely in Roman capital letters (about 3 inches high), with a tendency to the character termed Rustic by palæographers, which is especially visible in the letter F in the top line. The conjunctions of the letters E and R, V and A, and A and E in the top line, and A and V in the third line, will be noticed, especially the reversed form of the first E (1), to accommodate it for conjunction with the next letter R. Moreover, in its original state, the V and L in the word 'cultor,' the M and V in the word 'pientissimus,' and the A and E in the last word 'æqui,' are represented as conjoined, the second stroke of the V in cultor' forming the down-stroke of the L, and the first and last strokes of the M being oblique (M), so as to adapt the last stroke for the first stroke of the adjoining V. In addition to this, the form of the L and I at the end of the third line, and the prostrate form of the I at the end of the fourth line, as given by Gibson, merit notice; the whole being of a debased Roman character, free from the slightest admixture of British or Saxon forms. This is important to be noticed in connexion with the history of the stone and the person commemorated by it in such glowing terms. A guardian of the faith, an unchanging lover of his country, and a true friend of justice, we need scarcely wonder that such a man should have left a fame behind him not easily to be effaced, and which has, as usual, been evinced by his name having been given to the locality of his labours; Pant Polios, corrupted into Pant-y-Polion, being the spot where the stone originally stood: the saint himself being commemorated on November 22nd, under the name of Polin Esgob. The entire inscription, as suggested by Rees in his Essay on the Welsh Saints (p. 188), consists of two hexameter lines 'Servator fidei, patriæque semper amator and which belong to a period when Latin versification was more corrupt than at the time of the departure of the Romans from Britain. The last syllable of patriæque is an error in prosody, unless the author intended the u for a vowel, and so formed the end of the word into a dactyl. In the second line he appears to have had for his model the poets before the Augustan age, who frequently omitted the final s and allowed the vowel preceding to assume its natural quantity; the last u in Paulinus is therefore short. The u in pientissimus must have been quiescent, in which case the vowel before it would be short, as in pietas, from whence the word is derived.' (Rees, 1. c.) From the notices of Paulinus in the lives of St. David written by Giraldus Cambrensis and Ricemarchus1, and the life of St. Teilo written by Galfridus, we learn that St. Paulinus or Pawl-Hen or Polin was originally a North Briton, and that he probably resided for some time in the Isle of Man. His next residence was at Caerworgorn in the monastery of Iltutus. He afterwards founded a similar institution at Ty-gwyn ar Dâf, the White House on Tave, in Carmarthenshire, of which he is styled the bishop, and which became famous and was attended by SS. David, Teilo, and others. In the life of St. David by Ricemarchus St. Paulinus is described as having been the disciple of St. Germanus, to have been a scribe, and to have taught St. David to read, who in return miraculously cured Paulinus of blindness. (Rees, Lives of Cambro-Brit. Saints, pp. 122, 424.) From the same life we further learn that St. Paulinus was at the synod of Llandewi Brevi for the confutation of the Pelagian heresy, generally assigned to the year A.D. 519, and that it was by his advice that St. David was summoned to attend the synod. (Rees, Camb. Br. Saints, pp. 137, 411, 440.) St. Paulinus is moreover the patron saint of Capel Peulin, a chapel subordinate to Llandinga, Carmarthenshire, called Capella Sancti Paulini in one of the charters of the abbey of Strata Florida, and which is very near to Llan Dewi Brevi, the scene of the synod above mentioned. See also the Cambrian Biography,' and the Cambrian Register,' iii. 38, in which ( " 1 See Arch. Camb., i. 117. latter work the inscription is supposed to commemorate a Roman general and not a British saint! The account of this stone given above is taken from my article in Arch. Camb., 1856, p. 249. The reader will doubtless remember the stone at Port Talbot also bearing the name of Paulinus, figured in my 26th plate; whilst another bearing the same at Llandyssilio appears in Plate LIII, fig. 3. PLATE XLVI. FIG. 3. THE TALORUS STONE AT DOLAUCOTHY HOUSE. This stone originally stood at Pant-y-Polion, and is now preserved at Dolaucothy House. It is a portion of a Romano-British grave-stone, and has suffered mutilation since it was examined and drawn as it appears in Gough's Camden, ii. p. 505. It is there given as follows: TALOR ADVENT MAQVERAG— The terminal I in each of the three upper lines are represented as having been prostrate. It is to be regretted that so much of the stone has been broken off and lost. The letters are more debased in their character than those of the Paulinus inscription; the form of the F and the mode in which the second I in the word Filius in the last line is written in juxtaposition with the preceding L merits notice in a palæographic point of view. (J. O. W. in Arch. Camb., 1856, p. 251.) PLATE LI. FIG. 5. ROMAN STONE AT DOLAUCOTHY HOUSE. This figure represents the fragment of a Roman stone inscribed P [Passus] CXXV in good Roman capitals nearly 2 inches high, now at Dolaucothy House. I have not however heard where it originally stood. " The figures of the preceding Dolaucothy stones were made from rubbings sent me by the late Rev. H. L. Jones, taken on the occasion of the Llandeilo Meeting of the Cambrian Archæological Association in 1855. (J. O. W. in Arch. Camb., 1856, p. 252.) 1 In Dr. John Jones's History of Wales, pp. 53 and 321, the author proposed to read this inscription '† Alor adveni Marcieni filius-Alfred the son of Edwin defeated. This Alfred was Earl of Mercia, who invaded South Wales in 981 and was defeated in this place by the princes of North and South Wales.' M PLATE XLVI. FIG. 2. This stone forms the cill of the west door of the church of Cynfil Gayo, near Dolaucothy House. It is a slab of indurated schist, and portions of the face have scaled off, defacing the most interesting portions of the inscription. It bears in the form of its letters a striking resemblance to the Talorus stone at Dolaucothy House. The name in the upper line appears to have commenced with a long-tailed letter, possibly P or R, followed (perhaps with the intervention of another letter) by an E; the next curious shaped letter resembling at first sight an F, but which I rather consider to be a g of the debased form, as it disagrees with the F at the beginning of the second line, and the short middle bar is very indistinct and may be accidental. The second line is to be read FILIVS NV ... INTII. (J. O. W., in Arch. Camb., 1856, p. 321.) Prof. Hübner (p. 30, No. 84, not 48) gives the reading Regin... filius Nu[v]intii,' after Rhys, quem sequor; Rhys, quem sequor;' but Prof. Rhys (Arch. Camb., 1876, p. 244) reads the last word as Nu [v]inti. In the drawing sent me by the Rev. H. L. Jones the final duplicated I is not given, but in the rubbing it appeared clear. PLATE XLIII. THE LLECH EIUDON, NOW AT GOLDEN GROVE. The earliest notice which I have been able to meet with concerning this stone is contained in Gough's edition of Camden (vol. ii. p. 508; Ed. ii. vol. iii. p. 141), where the letters of the inscription alone are given, without any representation of the stone itself. It was first mentioned in the Archæologia Cambrensis by the late Rev. J. Jones (Tegid), N. S. vol. v. p. 303, where the inscription is given in the following manner :— eJHJO n The stone itself is mentioned as standing alone in a field on the farm of Glan Sannan in the parish of Llanvynydd, near Llandeilofawr, Carmarthenshire. It is called by the common people Llech Eidon, and the tradition is that a saint of that name was buried beneath it. The correct reading of the inscription was subsequently given by me in Arch. Camb., 3rd Ser. vol. i. p. 64, and in the same volume (p. 303) it is further noticed as bearing a strong resemblance to the cross at Carew in the style of its ornamentation; and it is further observed that with the exception of the loss of the summit, which was probably cruciform, it is in excellent preservation. In the third volume of the third Series of this work (p. 318) it is further recorded that this stone, which had been visited by the members of the Cambrian Archæological Association whilst standing in its original situation on a small carn of stones in a field near Abersannan, 'had been removed by the Earl of Cawdor to the lower or American garden at Golden Grove, and erected with all suitable precautions in an admirable situation. It can now be seen to its very base; being firmly fixed in a stone socket, and the socket of the cross on the top has been filled with cement, to obviate the action of frost. A bronze plate, fixed in the turfy mound against its eastern side, commemorates its ancient site and its removal. We would recommend his lordship to place a rude unhewn stone upright on the original spot, to show that it was a monumental site, for though this sculptured stone is too valuable to have been left in so exposed a situation, still the carn at its foot has yet to be explored, and such a stone as we allude to would sufficiently preserve the identity of the spot. While upon this topic, we may express a conjecture that, perhaps, the name Eiudon may prove to be a contracted form of two words SCI and VDON' Previously to the removal of the stone from its original situation I had visited, drawn, and rubbed it, and with the view to the identification of its site (which, unless marked in the manner suggested above, will soon be lost, as the carn of stones will doubtless be gradually dispersed and carried away), it may be worth recording its precise site. After passing through a lane running close to the small new church built by Mr. Green, with its square tower, we entered another road at a mill, and crossed the Sannan brook by a bridge at a distance of about 100 yards to the N.W. Here a lane runs parallel to the Sannan on the western side of the latter, and after traversing it for about half-a-mile we came to Glansannan farmhouse; nearly opposite to which, on the eastern side of the Sannan, is a lane running eastwards, at right angles to the Abersannan lane. We waded through the little river and traversed this lane for a short distance, and found the stone in a small triangular enclosure at the south end of the third field on the south side of this cross lane. We learned on the spot that the tradition was that a battle had been fought there between the Romans and Britons, and that the stone had been erected to the memory of a Roman soldier, which we of course reasonably doubted. As the stone stood in the field the lower portion of the ornament was buried, only the upper row of the bottom square compartments on the inscribed side being visible. Its height above ground was then 5 feet 10 inches, but now that the whole of the worked part is seen it is rather more than 6 feet; the width, at about 1 foot from the top, is 1 foot 9 inches. The inscribed side faced the north in its original position. I am indebted to the Rev. James Allen for rubbings of the stone and photographs of the inscribed side, from which (together with my own rubbings and drawings) the accompanying engraving has been executed. This photograph was made after the letters had been whitened with chalk, and represents the loop of the initial e as complete, although my own drawing shows it slightly open; the whole however clearly reads elu don The letters are four inches in height and are of a rude minuscule character. The • 1 I can find no saint of this name. Is it possible that the stone may commemorate the warrior and Saint Iddon ab Ynyr Gwent, who made a grant to Llandaff of Lanarth with all the landes there and Llantelio Porth-halawg and certain lands at Llantelio Cressenny, all in thankfulnesse to God for a victory obtained against the Saxons, and who appears to have been contemporary with St. Teilo.' Rees, Welsh Saints, p. 234. |