[Caradoc Was Canonised By Pope Innocent III.

At the instance of Giraldus.]

{109} This curious superstition is still preserved, in a debased form, among the descendants of the Flemish population of this district, where the young women practise a sort of divination with the bladebone of a shoulder of mutton to discover who will be their sweetheart. It is still more curious that William de Rubruquis, in the thirteenth century, found the same superstition existing among the Tartars.

{110} Arnulph, younger son of Roger de Montgomery, did his homage for Dyved, and is said, by our author, to have erected a slender fortress with stakes and turf at Pembroke, in the reign of king Henry I., which, however, appears to have been so strong as to have resisted the hostile attack of Cadwgan ap Bleddyn in 1092, and of several lords of North Wales, in 1094.

{111} Walter Fitz-Other, at the time of the general survey of England by William the Conqueror, was castellan of Windsor, warden of the forests in Berkshire, and possessed several lordships in the counties of Middlesex, Hampshire, and Buckinghamshire, which dominus Otherus is said to have held in the time of Edward the Confessor. William, the eldest son of Walter, took the surname of Windsor from his father's office, and was ancestor to the lords Windsor, who have since been created earls of Plymouth: and from Gerald, brother of William, the Geralds, Fitz-geralds, and many other families are lineally descended. The Gerald here mentioned by Giraldus is sometimes surnamed De Windsor, and also Fitz-Walter, i.e. the son of Walter; having slain Owen, son of Cadwgan ap Bleddyn, chief lord of Cardiganshire, he was made president of the county of Pembroke.

{112} Wilfred is mentioned by Browne Willis in his list of bishops of St. David's, as the forty-seventh, under the title of Wilfride, or Griffin: he died about the year 1116.

{113} Maenor Pyrr, now known by the name of Manorbeer, is a small village on the sea coast, between Tenby and Pembroke, with the remaining shell of a large castle. Our author has given a farfetched etymology to this castle and the adjoining island, in calling them the mansion and island of Pyrrhus: a much more natural and congenial conjecture may be made in supposing Maenor Pyrr to be derived from Maenor, a Manor, and Pyrr the plural of Por, a lord; i.e. the Manor of the lords, and, consequently, Inys Pyrr, the Island of the lords. As no mention whatever is made of the castle in the Welsh Chronicle, I am inclined to think it was only a castellated mansion, and therefore considered of no military importance in those days of continued warfare throughout Wales. It is one of the most interesting spots in our author's Itinerary, for it was the property of the Barri family, and the birth-place of Giraldus; in the parish church, the sepulchral effigy of a near relation, perhaps a brother, is still extant, in good preservation. Our author has evidently made a digression in order to describe this place.

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