How blue is your valley?

Were the Ancient Celts colour blind? Place names suggest they were.

Different languages label colours in different ways. White and black are words that exist in all languages but if there is a third colour name it is always red. The fourth and fifth colours can be green or yellow, but only languages that have six different colour words will have one for blue.

All The Colours, Including Grue

Languages without blue will use green instead. These languages are called grue languages.

Unlike their modern versions the old Celtic languages (Welsh, Breton, Cornish, Cumbric, Gaelic) were grue languages. For example, the word glas found in all four of these languages meant grey or green or blue or silver or turquoise. In place names it is used for the colour of the sea, of the sky, of grass, of metal, of stone, of a sword, of hedges, or of a valley.

The word is supposed by some Celtic scholars to be derived from Greek: glaukos, indicating the different colours of the sea: Glaucus was a sea deity.

In most cases if glas refers to water it is ‘blue’ and on ‘land’ it is green - if you can decide which is which, of course.

CARN GLAZE CAVERNS

Here are a few examples:

BOLAZEC/BOTGLAZEC (Brittany): bot/bod and glas, ‘green dwelling’

BRYN-GLAS (Wales): bryn and glas, ‘green hill’

CAEGLAS (Wales): cae and glas, ‘green valley’
CARNGLAZE (Cornwall): carn and glas, ‘blue rock(s)’

ENEZ GLAS (Brittany): enez and glas, ‘green island’

GLASCOMB (Wales): glas and cwm, ‘green hollow’

GLASGOW (Scotland): glas and cau, ‘green hollow’

KERLAZ (Brittany): ker and glas, ‘blue village’ (it is next to the sea)

PENTREFOELAS (Wales): Blue hill at the top of the village

POLGLASE (Cornwall): pol and glas, ‘blue pool’

PWLLGLAS (Wales): pwll and glas, ‘blue pool’

Comments

What really links place names in Brittany, Cornwall and Wales (apart from a few hundred Celtic saints)?

Place Name Elements in Breton, Welsh and Cornish (with examples and English gloss) BRETON CORNISH WELSH ENGLISH EXAMPLES C=Cornwall; W= Wales aut , alt, aod alt, als, aulz allt hill, slope, cliff Duault (22), Nansalsa (C), Allt-golau (W) ael ael ael summit, brow, ridge Hirael (35), Aelbryn (W) aval aval, avallen afal, afallen apple Availles-sur-Seiche (35), Rosevallen (C), Dolafallen (W) aon, aven auon, awan afon river Pont-Aven (29); Arrowan (C), Aberavon (W) arcae - argae dam, embankment Erquy (22), Argae Alwen (W) ard, art, arz are, ard, arth ardd hill, elevation Arzon (56); Trenarth (C), Pennard (W) arz, arzh art, arth arth bear Île-d'Arz (56), Carn Arthen (C), Aber-arth (W) ascorn - asgwrn, esgyrn bone/s Coatascorn (...

The legend of Saint Gwen of Brittany and Dorset

The church of Whitchurch-Canonicorum in Dorset is dedicated to Saint-Candida (a.k.a Saint-Wite). Below the east window there is an altar tomb with three openings which allowed devotees to reach inside the shrine in the hope of a miraculous cure for whatever ailed them. On the top of this there used to be a 14th century coffin built into a slab of local marble. When the local vicar opened it in 1848 he found a stone box. Inside the stone box he discovered a Saint's relics. When the coffin was examined again in 1899 another vicar found teeth, a lot of bones resembling those of small, forty year old woman and an inscription: Here lie the relics of Saint Wite What was even more extrordinary about this find was that all relics such as these had been destroyed during the Protestant Reformation. The only other collection of saint's remains still extant were those of St Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey. Perhaps this shrine looked mo...

Why all the Ermine?

The ermine ( Mustela erminea ) a.k.a. stoat or short-tailed weasel is the national emblem of Brittany. Its much sought after white winter coat was used for the cloaks, crowns and caps of the aristocracy. Ermine The eleven 'ermine spots' which form the pattern in the top left corner of the Breton flag represent the way the black-tipped tails were hung on the white fur. This heraldic ermine canton was a feature of the arms of the Dukes of Brittany. Breton flag with ermine canton The story goes that Anne de Bretagne, the last independent Breton ruler and the wife of two successive French kings, saw a group of hunters chasing after an ermine. When the ermine reached the edge of a muddy lake the ermine decided to stand up to his attackers rather than risk soiling his beautiful white fur. ANNE DE BRETAGNE Anne, it appears, was so impressed that she saved the ermine and adopted it as the emblem of her dynasty along with the mott...

QUIMPER-VANNES

Search This Blog