Nick and others,
This is probably a red herring, but is it conceivable that "Sixpenny" just
means "six hills"? (The numeral ia believed to be the root of the first
element of "Soissons", from the Gaulish tribal name "Suessiones".)
Martin Counihan
On Fri, 16 Aug 2013 14:07:11 +0100, Nick Corbett
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Think I've worked out the landscaoe meaning of the Pensax names.
> Owen & Morgan PN Wales (Gwasg Gomer) describe the W. topographic
> compound "penmaen" (this is Pen -hill(top), hill(end) + maen -
> rock/stone)
> in the following terms:
> "rocky outcrop, promontory, cape".
> The best known of these names is maybe Penmaenpool, Meirioneth.
> This compound is very similar in structure to the compound we have with
> Pensax WOR , which is Pr W Pen + -sax meaning "rock". I think both
> compounds will have the same landscape meanings, but haven't got maps
> for WOR and DOR
> to check.
> (I still see -sax as a borrowing by British from Lat - "non Saxo sed
> saxa" as it were - but you could also posit an undiscovered Celtic
> cognate of Lat. saxa with the
> same meaning. It would have disappeared because of hopeless confusion
> with the ethnonym).
> The lost Cornish Pensousen (form not to hand) is discussed in CPNE under
> Zowson. This was the name of a coastal
> headland just to the W. of St. Ives. As I mentionned in my previous
> Pensax post, the 2nd el. here sems to be a plural.
> For the landscape feature, we could compare Owen & Morgan's Penmaen
> Dewi/St David's Head PEM.
>
> I've also lately stumbled (from OS maps, so no forms to share with you)
> Rhiwsaeson GLA (1 mile E. of Llantrisant).
> Three's a hillfort here and what looks like a precipice.
> And Graig-y-Saeson, Monmouthshire (nr. Basaleg). There's a hillfort
> here, but the hill seems less dramatic.
>
> To summarize, Pensax, Sixpenny etc. represent examples in England of a
> recurrent British and Welsh hill-name.
> Thanks for reading this post.
> cheers Nick
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