To what extent are the cantrefi and cymydau still used? Would someone in Caernarfon say they were driving over to somewhere in Eifionydd, for example?
by SilyLavage
To what extent are the cantrefi and cymydau still used? Would someone in Caernarfon say they were driving over to somewhere in Eifionydd, for example?
by SilyLavage
23 comments
They barely exist. Sometimes you might see a border of a modern county traced along a historical boundary, and maybe while you are hiking you might find a marker stone if you’re very lucky, but they are rare.
Some of the names have been preserved in odd places, like Aberffraw, but not many.
They arent really used by people for every day use. People just use the name of the nearest town/village to locate places.
They are still used for administrative purposes though.
The equivalent (townlands) in Ireland are far better known. Most areas are known by the name of their townland (or the anglicised form of it). By contrast, knowing cantrefi in Wales is an academic pursuit rather than a living thing. That’s not to stop people from pushing for a revival of their use though. I’d love to see them used more often.
School, church, local community group etc names. the older the more likely. Unlikely for regular people to use, historic counties and modern county council borders more likely.
The truth is as well, if you need detail to the level of a cantref then you might as well specify the town. Everyone knows say Gwynedd, a few people will know meirionydd, only locals would know a certain cantref and would still be unlikely tbh. Couldn’t tell you what cantref I’m from without a map.
Some of them still exist in the names of rock climbing guides from the climbers club and other publishers. They make sense as geographical regions.
Eifionydd was still in use in the late 80s
Last year’s Eisteddfod was Eisteddfod Llyn ac Eifionydd. I’d say they’re both still used, but I can’t say I’ve heard of most of the rest tbh, which is a shame!
As everyone says, many of them are well out of use.
However some of the areas live on in general place names, modern names of areas or modern regional descriptions.
E.g. Magor, Ogmore, Usk are all towns with the regions named after them; and Morgannwg is often used to describe the “South Glamorgan” area.
The South Wales Argus always refers to ‘Gwent’, which drives some of the local contributors nuts.
Some more than others. There are some telltale signs on that map that some of the names will never have had wide currency:
* Is/Uwch + the name of a stream – these are just subdivisions of cantrefi where they preceded the cymydau
* Perfedd – this just means “middle”: again, it’s about subdivision of a larger area
* English/French names, e.g. Tir Ralph – this usually means that the alleged cwmwd is actually a Norman lordship
* Staying with Tir Ralph, that weird Brycheiniog thing where the alleged cymydau cut across the borders of the cantrefi: Norman lordships, obviously
* I could pick on Tir Ralph again, but Powys Wenwynwyn/Fadog is a better example. Names of relatively late historical figures. Gwenwynwyn and Madog were rulers of parts of Powys in the 12th-13th century. This made as much impact on the idea of Powys as any German can remember which parts of Thuringia were in which Ernestine duchy. Really in Powys, there simply weren’t cantrefi, but only cymydau.
If you’ll excuse a digression, there’s another thing I don’t really like about that map: it’s a bit maximalist: yes, Gwynedd at the height of its power did control the Perfeddwlad (literally, the middle country), that is the four cantrefi of Rhos, Rhufoniog, Dyffryn Clwyd, and Tegeingl. But they really aren’t Gwynedd proper. Likewise it’s a bit dodgy showing Penllyn and Edeirnion as part of Powys, Gŵyr as part of Morgannwg, Ewias and Ergyng as parts of Gwent, and Rhwng Gwy a Hafren as a thing (rather than a description of an absence of a kingdom-level structure) at all. And Deheubarth was more of a personal union controlling a collection of kingdoms – Dyfed (which, as everyone who’s read the first branch of the Mabinogi knows, had seven cantrefi, not just six: Daugleddau and Rhos should be separate), Ceredigion, Ystrad Tywi (the Cantref Mawr/Bychan pair), and Cydweli.
But digression/rant over, and all the exceptions aside, there are names among the cantrefi/cymydau that do make sense and people would know exactly where you meant. Llŷn is perhaps the most obvious one for being definitively current with no bardic air to using it at all.
And there are some that I wish people would use more: wouldn’t it be useful to have a word for that bit of Glamorgan from Bridgend to Neath, which isn’t Cardiff, isn’t Valleys, and isn’t Swansea? Gorfynydd – literally, beyond the mountain, which I suppose it is from a Valleys perspective – does just that.
O ‘mhrofiad i ma’ pobol yn dal i uniaethu tipyn â Llŷn, Efionydd a Meirionnydd (yn yr ardaloedd rheiny).
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In my experience there remains a strong local attachment to ‘Llŷn’, ‘Eifionydd’ and ‘Meirionnydd’.
Obselete apart from Ynys Mon.
Not really, but some still exist in common use (amongst those that remember) in the old country system: S,W and Mid Glamorgan (Morgannwg), Gwent, Dyfed, Powys, Gwynedd and Clwyd (from Dyffryn Clwyd)
Some names occur in modern day places of course, but the ancient cantrefs are long, long out of use (and memory)
Some of the areas are still known by the same names in Welsh, mostly in Gwynedd: Eifionydd, Llŷn, Arfon, Penllyn and Ardudwy, for example. Meirionnydd, though, has become somewhat confused with the later county, Merionethshire, which covered a much wider area. Thus while the Bala area might be referred to as Penllyn, in Welsh, it is also typically regarded as part of Meirionnydd.
Outside of the North-west, Gwŷr / Gower is obviously still going strong in both languages. Wentloog is still a thing in English, although it’s typically used to refer to the coastal lowlands these days rather than the entire cantref of Gwynllwg.
The names of Cantrefi and Cymydau also live on in loads of place names, of course, from Ewyas Harold in Herefordshire to Senghennydd in Caerphilly and from Newcastle Emlyn in Carmarthenshire to Rhos on Sea in Conwy. Some institutions are named for them too: Wrexham Maelor Hospital, Ysgol Penweddig in Aberystwyth, Ysgol y Creuddyn in Penrhyn Bay.
You’ve goth the likes of Llanarmon yn Iâl, but Iâl probably lives on more significantly over the Atlantic.
Forgive the interruption/mostly off-topic question: but does anyone know what that font is called? (The one that’s used for WALES in the image)
I grew up in the Conwy Valley and loads of people used Creuddyn (not just for the school).
Perhaps uniquely among the north-east cantrefi, Maelor Saesneg is still in common use.
It’s a bit hit and miss. I’m from Glamorganshire and some are still used but not officially, others are used but translated into English (e.g. Need = Neath). Weirdly I know all of the ones which neighbour my hometown, but not the one for my hometown itself.
Does the fact that placenames like Betws yn Rhos,
Llanelian yn Rhos and Llandrillo yn Rhos (Rhos on Sea) count?
Well my wife and I were married at Swyddfa Ardal Meirionnydd, Dolgellau , in 2021, so it still seems to linger within Gwynedd at least.
There are a few in the, but the county border updates make it different
Should totally bring back Dyfed.