Talk:Dewi

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[edit] "Ancient God"?=

Citation needed indeed. I doubt very much that Dewi was an ancient god; what is more likely to have happened is that Dewi Sant has been adopted by one or more Neopagan groups, who have attributed to him a pre-Christian origin. Some kind of evidence or attestation is required for Wikipedia to be able to say so definitely, however! QuartierLatin1968 El bien mas preciado es la libertad 23:42, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Agree there. Never heard of y ddraig goch being called Dewi until a few years ago, and even then it was on one website, without reference.DewiMorgan 19:32, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] St David/Y Dewis Sant/Merlin/Merddyn/Taliesin

Here's some more unreferenced stuff, which I won't post because I feel it's definitely falling into the realm of unreferenced Original Research.

The idea that the Welsh have two names for "David" is probably bogus, and comes from misunderstanding caused by the fact that St David was called, in Wales, "Dewi Sant". Nobody else at that time used the name to mean David. He started it, but Dafydd was already well entrenched at the time.

Perhaps St David was not Dewi Sant, but something like "y dewis sant" (the saint of choice), and the conflation with David was an English mistake.

The English church records mention St David. The Welsh ones speak of Dewi Sant - both indicate that he is the same person, uncle of Offa/Arthur.

The Mabinogion speaks nothing of such a saint, but gives Taliesin the bard, uncle of Offa.

English folklore mentions Merlin as Arthur's uncle instead.

So - saint, bard, wizard - is it likely that the three are one and the same? Or that the actions three different legendary traditions have had some cross-feed so that similar characters get attributes from the other traditions?

All the above is alleged by my father, and I have no references whatsoever. I'm pretty sure at least half of it is incorrect, but would be interested to see which parts (if any) bear up to scrutiny. DewiMorgan 19:32, 6 May 2007 (UTC)