¹ Es Sitt, The Lady; birket, pool, as in Birket sitti Miriam, Pool of the Lady Mary, the Arab name for the Pool of Bethesda where the ‘angel went down . . . and troubled the water’, in John’s gospel.

² lyn, an anglicization of llyn, a water. Cf. Lynton?

³ It has already been noted that the treble goddesses, the Deae Matres of antiquity, may have given the name mamau, mothers, to the fairies in Wales.

⁴ Because the Welsh au approximates to the English ei in height, the words mamau (mothers) and ffynhonnau (fountains) rhyme with elements in the English words naiad, grey-eyed and triad, and with the Latin ae in nymphae (nymphs) and silvae (of a woodland).

⁵ ‘One man, by water, restores to us our state’ (i.e. continues to restore). As a certain amount of ‘unshared background’ directed me here, I shall relate as follows: Some thirty-five years ago, in Wales, the water-supply of the house in which I was staying, was, on Christmas Eve, diverted at the source, which made it necessary for my friend, Mr Rene Hague, and myself to go by night to where the mountain-stream was deliberately blocked and to free the water. On our return journey Mr Hague remarked ‘Duo homines per aquam nobis restituerunt rem’. He then told me of the famous line of Ennius adapted by Virgil. In writing my text I found that Mr Hague’s impromptu variation (with the singular number restored) was exactly what I required. Cf. Ennius. Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem. ‘One man by delaying restored to us our state.’ Cf. Virgil. Unus qui nobis cunctando restituis rem, ‘You who alone by delaying restore to us our state.’