The Anathemata
Rite and Fore-time (continued)
She must marl her clear cascade-locks in dawdling Stour’s English bed
and she
must glen her parthenogenic waters a shorter cut by Gwenfrewi’s well, before she comes to Wirral.1 a
Before, trans-Solway
and from over Manannan's moroedd, the last debris-freighted floes echeloned solid from Monapia to Ynys Fôn2
discharged on Arfon collesb
what was cargoed-up on Grampius Mons.c
Off the ‘strath’ into the ystrad
out of the ‘carse’ on to the traeth,3
Heaped amorphous
out of Caledonia
into Cambria4
bound for Snowdonia
transits Cumbria.
Long, long, long before
(fifty thousands of winter calends?
David Jones notes
1 Gwenfrewi, in English, Winefred, whose sacred well gave the English name Holywell and the Welsh name Treffynnon (homestead+spring) to that site a mile-and-a-half only from where the estuary of the Dee divides the two nations.
2 Manannan mac Lir, in Welsh Manawydan mab Llyr, the sea god; moroedd, seas, mor-roithe. Monapia, the name of the Isle of Man in Pliny. Ynys Fôn, un-iss von, O as in vote, the Island of Mona, Anglesey.
3 The elements ‘strath’ and ‘carse’ in Scottish place-names have a correspondence with ystrad, us-trad (vale, flats) and traeth, ae as ah-j-eh (shore, estuary) in Welsh ones.
4 Caledonia is sometimes made to mean the Highlands, but here I use it as a synonym for Scotland and in particular for the Southern Uplands, because it was from this southern area that geological deposits of the Ice Age and certain legendary and historical deposits of the sub-Roman age came to Wales. For instance, in spite of medieval pseudo-history, ‘King Cole’ has no relationship with Colchester, but is the Coil hen guotepauc of Harleian MS. 3859 and is to be associated with the district of Kyle in Ayrshire. In 1912 in Camberwell a Miss Williams said to me, ‘On my father’s side I am descended from Coel Hen Godebog’. It is the boast of many old Welsh families.
additional notes
a Wirral is the area near Chester where the Dee opens out and enters the sea.
b Arfon is that part of the Welsh mainland nearest to Anglesey. It includes Snowdonia. colles is Latin for hills or mountains..
c Grampius Mons is the site of a Roman victory over a tribe of the northern British in 83 or 84 CE. Its location in Scotland is uncertain.
see also
See page 67 for ‘parthenogenic’.
comments
DJ is still telling the story of how the ice floes moved in creating the present geology of Wales and the north west of England.