Anglesey

[Boreades]

There's a weird addendum to the Seiriol story: Seiriol was 'fair' apparently because when going to meet Cybi he'd have his back to the sun whereas Cybi was known as Cybi Felyn meaning Cybi the Tanned on account of facing the sun on his journeys.

It crossed my mind that there might be another meaning. In the same vein as the Romans complained, the Celts liked talking in riddles. Meaning the Celts prided themselves in talking allegorically.

One was from the old-school, that faced the sun in homage. The other had turned his back on the old pagan solar worship.

Insight or bollocks?

[Mick Harper]

Inappropriate since Cybi is a sybil and a moon goddess.

[Boreades]

Appropriate since Cybi (the moon) is dark compared to the sun.

[Mick Harper]

Bollocks.

[hvered]

The lighthouse at Ynys Seiriol has black and white bands rather than red and white as is usually the case!

[hvered]

Another possible area of dragon-lore for your forthcoming dragon book which has the added merit of a maritime connection is the case of the Orkney trows. A trow is a type of cargo or fishing boat associated with the River Severn and a smaller version is peculiar to the Fleet lagoon behind Chesil Beach, which is apparently sea-worthy enough to cross the Channel.

In the Orkneys and Shetland islands the trow is a sort of troll or fairy, believed by folklorists to have originated as a draugr from Norse mythology. The trow/draugr is said to inhabit burial mounds or fairy hills and, typically, time itself is extended so that people returning from the mounds find their families and friends are long since dead, which may well be the case where long distance journeys are concerned.

There is a good deal of confusion surrounding the Orkney trow's habitat and habits, e.g. the Trow then split into two distinct subspecies: the land Trows and the water Trows. According to legend, both species were originally one. At some point in time there was a civil war between two factions. The losing side was banished from land and forced to make a new life in the sea, resulting in a new race of Sea Trows.

[Boreades]

Indeed, I have spent many hours in the Llandoger Trow, in Bristol, near the old city centre docks. Researching, err, the local beers. But I knew it would come in useful one day!

A trow was a flat-bottomed barge, and Llandogo is a village 20 miles (32 km) north-west of Bristol, across the Severn Estuary and upstream on the River Wye in South Wales, where trows were once built.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llandoger_Trow

The Wye Valley is an interesting place. We're told that ..

The first evidence of the exploitation of iron and coal in the (Wye) valley is found in the Roman period, with iron working known from sites at Monmouth, Trellech and elsewhere

.. almost as though the natives didn't know what coal was until the Romans showed them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wye_Valley

[hvered]

The usual meaning of trow is 'trust' as in believe/ think and is probably related to true. The word Druid is, apparently, similarly related to true, truth and tree.

There's a type of Arab fishing and cargo boat called a dhow where traditionally the planks are stitched rather than nailed together. The Ferriby boats dug out of the Humber mud and said to be Bronze Age were also constructed this way. Could trow and dhow be from the same stable?

[Boreades]

They could. "Kingdom of the Ark" by Lorraine Evans proposes almost exactly that.
i.e. the Ferriby boats are Egyptian.

[Mick Harper]

She means of course that the Egyptian boats are British.