d'ar gêr ! ***** à la maison ! ***** back home !

Saint David's Head

Octapitarum

* forum du site Marikavel : Academia Celtica 

Extrait de la carte Ordnance Survey : Map of Roman Britain.

* Rivet & Smith; p. 430 : 

SOURCE

- Ptolemy II, 3, 2 : Oktapitaron akron (= OCTAPITARUM PROMONTORIUM), var. Oktapotaron (= OCTAPOTARUM)

DERIVATION. Little can be offered. Rhys (1904) 231 thought the name non-Celtic. It might have as a first element a form of Celtic *octo- 'eight ' (Old Irish ocht, Welsh wyth, Breton eiz), for which a possible explanation is offered below. The element Octo- in two Octodurum names (one now Martigny in Switzerland, the other a polis of the Vaccaei in Hispania Tarraconensis) has been related to the root which gave Irish octe, ochte 'angustia', but this again is only a possibility. Pokorny in ZCP, xxi (1940), 113-14, after mentioning the Greek mountain name Titaros (= Titaros) from a root *kuit-aro-s (*kueit- weiB sein, hell sein') and the fact that this is not represented in Celtic, speculates about an Illyrian root *pit- 'Fichte, Harzbaum', perhaps present in the Corsican river-name Pitanos ( = Pitanos), with cognates in Greek Pitus, Albanian pise 'Fichte'. In this case a Mediterranean connection of this kind is perhaps attractive, if the name were given (like that of other British promontories) by a seafaring people, and then preserved in Greek tradition; a reference to a promontory by its 'fir-trees' (or others) would be natural enough.

IDENTIFICATION. St David's Head, Pembrokeshire. The figure of eight might conceivably refer to the group of islets known collectively as the Bishops and Clerks; alternatively the narrow passage between them and Ramsey Island, or that between Ramsey and the mainland (Ramsey Sound), might be in question.

- Ordnance Survey : Map of roman Britain.

* ALF Rivet & Colin Smith : The Place-Names of Roman Britain. Batsford Ltd. London. 1979. 

- Ferdinand Lallemand : Pythéas le Massaliote.

* forum du site Marikavel : Academia Celtica 

hast buan, ma mignonig vas vite, mon petit ami

go fast, my little friend