Not me, alas, but a much more knowledgable member of our List, Francine
Nicholson.
Anything Francine says relative to 'Celtic' matters deserves to be taken very
seriously indeed, and I should very much appreciate hearing more from her
regarding the linkage between Nynia and the ash.
For what it's worth, Ninnid appears as the name of a bishop in the Martyrology
of Tallaght, so the Margam name could conceivably derive from a regularly-formed
masculine name rather than from adaptation of an ash-grove or, as traditionally
supposed, from the name of St David's mother (identified in late sources as
'Nonnita') or Eglwys Nynyd, 'the church of the nuns'.
Regarding Pelynt, I would defer to anything Oliver Padel had to say on the
matter. The 1291 Taxatio lists a chapel there in honour of a female Nynnyta;
Nicholas Orme cites a document of 1422 identifying the parochial patron as a
male Nunit to set alongside Henry's Domesday place-name Plu ('parish' [of]) Nent.
Henry's query identifies an excellent example of what on the one hand is a minefield,
but on the other, the opportunity to explore in detail the processes by which
sanctity was adapted, attributed, understood, and commemorated, as much in the
later medieval period as in the earlier.
Graham Jones
> > In a message dated 8/28/00 4:56:57
PMGMTDaylightTime,[log in to unmask]>writes:> > > St Nynia ('Ninian'). The > >
> latter, I believe, may havesomething to do with the cult of a sacred > ash
> > > tree, and the supposed etymology of this saint's name does not tell us
> if
> > > they were masculine or feminine.
>
> Do you think this might be the same saint commemorated at Eglwys Nunydd
> (Margam) and Pelynt (c. 1100 _Plunent_, Cornwall, 'Nennyd')?
>
> Henry Gough-Cooper
>
> visit the Scottish Place-Name Society website at
> http://www.st-and.ac.uk/institutes/sassi/spns/index.htm
>
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