This Last, As Now Pronounced,
Means The Rock Of St. James; But I Have No Difficulty In Admitting,
That Carreg
Yr Arch Iagon may (by the compression of common,
undiscriminating language, and the obliteration of the event from
ignorant minds
By the lapse of so many centuries) be contracted into
Carreg Iago. Cadair yr archesgob is now also contracted into Cadair
(chair, a seat naturally formed in the rock, with a rude arch over
it, on the road side, which is a rough terrace over the breast of a
rocky and commanding cliff, and the nearest way from the above
eminences to the insulated church of Landisilio. This word Cadair,
though in general language a chair, yet when applied to exalted
situations, means an observatory, as Cadair Idris, etc.; but there
can, in my opinion, be no doubt that this seat in the rock is that
described by the words Cadair yr Archesgob." [Still more probable,
and certainly more flattering to Giraldus, is that it was called
"Cadair yr Arch Ddiacon" (the Archdeacon's chair).]
{163} This hundred contained the comots of Mynyw, or St. David's,
and Pencaer.
{164} I am indebted to Mr. Richard Llwyd for the following curious
extract from a Manuscript of the late intelligent Mr. Rowlands,
respecting this miraculous stone, called Maen Morddwyd, or the stone
of the thigh, which once existed in Llanidan parish. "Hic etiam
lapis lumbi, vulgo Maen Morddwyd, in hujus caemiterii vallo locum
sibi e longo a retro tempore obtinuit, exindeque his nuperis annis,
quo nescio papicola vel qua inscia manu nulla ut olim retinente
virtute, quae tunc penitus elanguit aut vetustate evaporavit, nullo
sane loci dispendio, nec illi qui eripuit emolumento, ereptus et
deportatus fuit."
{165} Hugh, earl of Chester.
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