Rock Face

       Names given at birth often have a special meaning to those in the family. Some are names well known by all, such as my own great-grandfather, on my mother's side, named George Washington Ewen. Some not so well known, such as Myrna, given to my own mother. She was always asked "how do you spell that"?

      Well, now the son of Dingad (JD-1) was given the name Rhiwallon (JE-1). The meaning given in the delightful text by Peter Sager, p. 454, called "Pallas Wales", is rock face. Who would want to name their kid after a rock? Surely there is another meaning or purpose for this name? 

       If you remember that in the last post, the field of Dingad (JD-1) is named as late as 1584, which is around 630 years from his name calling. This geographic location was near the townland of Selattyn (Porkington) and surrounded by a number of folks, and by "...the mountain there...". Hum, what was this all about? Needless to say, it took a while to find this image:

    Well, what about this, Selattyn is right smack in the middle of the image, and off to the northwest is a hill with a tower. A local tower is usually placed at the highest point of land and would suggest that the hill was "the mountain there" as described with "Eryn Dingad" (JD-1). Further research indicated that the mining of lead, tin, and copper was done here since the Roman days, and a rock query still exists. In addition to all this, the dotted circles show the path of Offa's Dyke as it winds its way through this area leaving Selattyn on the eastern (Mercian) side of this great fence. [ As stated earlier in several previous posts, my Jones family road this fence throughout their pages of history.] 

      Anyway, here his Rhiwallon (JE-1) as the fifth generation down from the top. His wife was named Lettice (JE-2).

      The copy of the image shown above is found in No Through Road, "The AA Book of Country Walks", published 1975 by Drive Publications Limited for The Automobile Association, England. Book 1, "Walking in Britain", discusses Offa's Dyke Path, An earthwork along the frontire of Anglo-Saxon England starting page 134 to page 137. The complete image appears on page 135. [For a discussion of this text see post of February 24, 2022]

       The book by Peter Sager was first published as a German edition by DuMont Buchverlag GmbH & Co., Koln, 1985.

      By the way, there must have been a rock face somewhere among the hills.