lled Caer Seiont; but the neighbouring modern
town which has gathered around Edward's new castle on the actual shore,
the later metropolis of the land of Arfon, became known to Welshmen as
Caer-yn-Arfon, now corrupted into Caernarvon or even into Carnarvon.
Gray's familiar line about the murdered bards--'On Arvon's dreary shore
they lie'--keeps up in some dim fashion the memory of the true
etymology. Caermarthen is in like manner the Roman Muridunum or
Moridunum--the fort by the sea--though a duplicate Moridunum in South
Devon has been simply translated into English as Seaton. Innumerable
other Caers, mostly representing Roman sites, may be found scattered up
and down over the face of Wales, such as Caersws, Caerleon, Caergwrle,
Caerhun, and Caerwys, all of which still contain traces of Roman
occupation. On the other hand, Cardigan, which looks delusively like a
shortened Caer, has really nothing to do with this group of ancient
names, being a mere corruption of Ceredigion.

But outside Wales itself, in the more Celtic parts of England proper, a
good many relics of the old Welsh Caers still bespeak the
incompleteness of the early Teutonic conquest. If we might trust the
mendacious Nennius, indeed, all our Casters and Chesters were once good
Cymric Caers; for he gives a doubtful list of the chief towns in
Britain, where Gloucester appears as Cair Gloui, Colchester as Cair
Colun, and York as Cair Ebrauc. These, if true, would be invaluable
forms; but unfortunately there is every reason to believe that Nennius
invented them himself, by a simple transposition of the English names.
Henry of Huntingdon is nearly as bad, if not worse; for when he calls
Dorchester 'Kair Dauri,' and Chichester 'Kair Kei,' he was almost
certainly evolving what he supposed to be appropriate old British names
from the depths of his own consciousness. His guesswork was on a par
with that of the schoolboys who introduce 'Stirlingia' or 'Liverpolia'
into their Ovidian elegiacs. That abandoned story-teller, Geoffrey of
Monmouth, goes a step further, and concocts a Caer Lud for London and a
Caer Osc for Exeter, whenever the fancy seizes him. The only examples
amongst these pretended old Welsh forms which seem to me to have any
real historical value are an unknown Kair Eden, mentioned by Gildas,
and a Cair Wise, mentioned by Simeon of Durham, undoubtedly the true
native name of Exeter.

Still we have a few indubitable Caers in England itself surviving t