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with a slingshot and she fell into a pool that became Dubh’s pool—Dubhlinn, now the more popular name given to Ireland’s capital city. The usual name in Irish, however, is Baile Atha Cliath, the town of the hurdle ford. In early times an artificial ford of hurdles was constructed across the River Liffey around which the city was built.
[I] A warrior of the Red Branch who is described as “a man who never earned the thanks of anyone.” The name Doéltenga signifies “backbiter,” and this is precisely his role, to stir up trouble. He is present at “The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel” and at “Bricriu’s Feast” to ensure dissension among the guests.
As the Anglo-Saxons established themselves in the island of Britain and began to push the native Celtic inhabitants westward, Dumnonia emerged as an independent kingdom for several centuries. Its eastern border with the Saxons fluctuated almost yearly following the Celtic defeat at Charford in Hampshire by Cerdic the Saxon in a.d. 521. From Hampshire into Dorset the Celtic borders receded westward to Devon, where, for a time, they stabilised. Indeed, in the place-name Devon (Defnas) we have a vestige of the name of Dumnonia, and in that name is traced the Celtic aborigines—the Dumnonii. Mid-Somerset had been annexed by the end of the seventh century, and Exeter fell to the Saxons in a.d. 710. Gereint was then ruler and he was the recipient of a famous letter addressed to him by Bishop Aldhelm (ca. 640–709). Aldhelm, who became canonised, was bishop at Sherborne and wrote a denouncement of the Celtic Church, arguing for the new Roman doctrines. Over a hundred years before the poem Y Gododdin mentioned a Geraint “of the south” taking part in the raid against the Anglo-Saxons at Catterick (Catraeth) In 721–722, the Dumnonians rallied briefly and won a victory over the West Saxons at Camel. But defeats in 825 and 838, the latter at Hingston Down, near Callington, caused Dumnonia to disappear. The Celts were then confined beyond the Tamar into the kingdom of Cornwall.
A fortified place, a word common to all the Celtic languages, including continental Celtic. Dynas in modern Welsh. Lyon, in France, was named Lugh’s fort, Lugdun(um), the “um” being a Latin ending. Each king or champion had a dún. Many of these
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