Home » Meetings » 2000: University College Bangor

SNSBI 2000 Bangor meeting (Bryn Dinas, University of Wales, April 28 – May 01)

This meeting was organised by Dr Hywel Wyn Owen. A report is in Nomima 23, 167–169.

Friday 28 April

Professor Roy Evans, Vice Chancellor of University of Wales, Bangor: welcome
Dr Kay Muhr, President SNSBI: welcome
Professor J. Gwynn Williams: Language and history in modern Wales

Saturday 29 April

Professor Richard Coates: Chit-chat about Ched-/Chad-
Peter McClure: Some unrecognised hypocoristic suffixes in Middle English personal names (-cot, –k, –man, and –cus)
Dr Mary Higham: Harpers’ lands
Dr Gillian Fellows-Jensen: John Aubrey: pioneering onomast
Maggie Scott: Privick — a Scottish place-name
Meredith Cane: Welsh personal names, medieval and modern
Peter Wilkinson: Aspects of personal names
Dr Della Hooke: Place-names and land-use in the Conwy valley and in Ardudwy
Professor Gwynnedd O. Pierce: The Welsh ‘minster’

Sunday 30 April

Dr Diana Saunders: What was the Bromswold?
Dr Peder Gammeltoft: Some thoughts on the effect of Gaelic on place-names of Scandinavian origin in the Hebrides
Dr John Koch: Early Celtic names
coach Excursion to Snowdonia led by Bob Morris
Dr Graham Jones: Woden, Bartholomew, Astaroth — onomastic coincidence or a glimpse of public policy?

The Sunday Excursion

The bus crossed the Menai Suspension Bridge onto Anglesey, skirted the town of Menai Bridge, went in the direction of Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll, and then crossed back to the mainland via the Britannia Bridge. The A487 took us to Caernarfon via Y Felinhli (Port Dinorwig) and on to Bontnewydd and Llanwnda, where we followed the A499 to Clynnog. Here the bus stopped to allow us to visit the Church of St Bueno and Clynnog Fawr. After doubling back a little, we took a minor road to Pen-y-groes to pick up the B4418, passed through Tal-y-sarn, Nantile and Drys-y-coed and at Rhydd-ddu went south along the A4085 to Beddgelert (where there was a short stop). We returned from Beddgelert via Nant Gwynant, Pen-y-gwryd, the Llanberis pass, Nant Peris, Llanberis and at Cwn-y-glo took the B4547 to go down Nant-y-garth and joined the A487 once more and so back to Bangor.

View of Anglesey from Bangor University

St Bueno's Church

On the way to Beddgelert

Beddgelert

Beddgelert Steps

Beddgelert People

Llanberis Pass

Sunset over Anglesey

Poem

A Pleasant Babbling of Bangor
by Peter Kitson

Upon the ridge at Bangor
Onomasts met to confer.
From one’s seventh-floor bedroom
Views of Menai’s bridges loom.
Patrons of the meals are called,
Early, Ceri(s), late, Oswald
(Who found work for willing hands
In exhibiting townlands).
Semi-subterraneous
The hall where dons harangue us;
Assembling there, we welcome
A prime minister’s old Mum.
A culinary head-crest
Bars a babe from bliss so blest.
The first speaker amply charts
(Not a subject for fainthearts! )
Long-diminishing outreach
Of the realm of Welsh in speech.
Next morning’s audience sat
Through some bright Saxon chit-chat.
Winged-pig-stickers’ thews were steeled
For a horror at Lichfield.
A surnamer then refers
To suffix-blends from Flanders.
Sevenpence farthing was conferred
On harpers for king Edward.
Next was screened Aubrey’s long-lost
Place-name list where few were glossed.
Young Maggie was cunning-quick
To scotch false dreams of Privick.
1300’s fashion’s fire
Blazed brightly in Morenfair,
Whom you were most like to see
In Abergavenny.
Wilkes’ son displayed from Mormons
Thirty myriads of Jones.
There lulled the eye after tea
Deforested Ardudwy;
Night-built cots in Conwy saw
A census of sycamore.
A Welsh bass uttered remarks
Interposed with question-marks
Whence bold hearers understood
Deheubarth’s mustered monkhood.
Rain and mist had laved our way
Till sun shone bright all Sunday.
The annual general meeting
Was not a contentious thing.
Next question, What was Bromswold?
Sanders thought we should be told.
A Black Gentile (tied) embossed
Phonology of Tarbost,

Triple-cluster-reduction
Where his sibilant speech shone.
Next report’s from John T. Koch:
International outlook
For what wilder Celts we’ll see
In Oswald’s new century.
From the lecture-hall we skip
For pleasures of a coach-trip;
To restrain the surging throngs,
Ecclesiastic dog-tongs.
Hound-management no less curt
Brings riches to Beddgelert
(Rhyme-slang may communicate
Why the coach thence started late).
When we finally were fed,
Come yn ol i Wernyfed,
False gods, and a goddess too,
Strove with St. Bartholomew
While demons like a screech-owl
In the British tongue could howl
(The height of numeracy
183).
Put fourpence in an alms-chest
And you got health for your beast.
Healths for humans were forthright
On the seventh floor by night,
Furnished with swift-whisked uplift
By an overvocal lift.
Our champion of commerce
His day’s takings did rehearse.
This weekend they were splendid:
In one day two thousand quid.
Place-names drawn in landscape
Put him in this healthy shape.
Connoisseurs of car-tapes pick
Fervour of westwork music.
Boston imparts the concourse
Hypernemetonic force.
Storytellers countersign
Land, sea, air, and O Corrain.
A Borth train-traveller fits
Her life into ten minutes.
Since one weekend’s not lifelong,
Now nears time to close my song;
Prophetic rumour expects
Mixed likes for next year’s prospects:
Pay early and pay often
For fine times in Isle of Man.
The chorus chants until then,
Diolch ‘n fawr i Hywel hen.