Welsh Journals

Cemmes is in Dyfed, yet it holds a position distinct from the rest of that land. Even to this day it belongs ecclesiastically not to St. David's and Dyfed, but to Cardigan and Ceredigion. Even to-day, speak to the good folk of Puncheston, and they will talk to you of the inhabitants of Newport, Nevern, and Mo)dgrove, and the rest as the dwellers beyond the mountains," and as quite distinct from themselves. Centuries ago the Dimetians fought with the Cymry for the possession of Cemmes, and lost it: so that all that fair land between the Teifi and the Gwaun passed into the hands of Cunedda's stock. In the middle of the ninth century, its distinctive character seems to be recognised in the fact that a certain Cian of Nevern is specially men- tioned under the year 865, in the Annales Cambria?. It is not hard to believe that there was a distinction of race between the dwellers in Cemmes and those in sur- rounding provinces. One might suspect from the Mabinogion that they were not Cymric, not even Bry- thonic, but Goidelic or Irish. Cooped up in that ultimate corner of the land, it may be reasonably supposed that some remnant of that Goidelic race existed, till very late, which once had domineered the whole South of Wales, and perhaps the whole South of Britain; associated, it may be, with a still older race of men, making a last display of independence before their final assimilation in the compound Welsh nation of modern times. For note that the chief saint of Cemmes was an Irishman — Brynach the Goidel and how that, in all probability, under such forms as Llan- Uawer, Llanychllwydog, Llanychaer, and the like, the forgotten names of other Irish missionaries lie hid. Dewi, whom they say was of Cunedda's stock, and was therefore a Brython and a CYlllro, has no church of ancient foundation in the land of Cemmes, although his chief church was only twenty miles away. Llan- llawer, Llanychllwydog, and Llanychaer are assigned to him indeed, but that probably only because their real founders have been long forgotten. It was among