[Spellyans] 'As white as snow, as white as milk' in Cornish

[Nicholas Williams]

I don’t recall your having mentioned this to me.

In the song the girl has
bedgeth gwin
blew mellen
pedn du.

There is certainly a crux here.
Bedgeth gwin is most likely to mean ‘pale face’.
Blew mellen can only mean ‘fair hair’.

Pedn du would naturally mean ‘dark hair’, in the same way that cloigeann dubh in Irish means ‘dark hair’.

I am not convinced by your suggestion, Ray. 

Nicholas

> On 29 Jun 2016, at 11:55, Ray Chubb <ray at spyrys.org> wrote:
> 
> I have put this point to Nicholas in the past but he didn't agree. It would be interesting to see what the rest of you think.
> 
> In the song 'Delkiow Sevi' the maid in question has a 'bedgeth gwin' until the end of the song where she succumbs to the man's advances when she has a 'pedn du'. Surely 'bejeth gwynn' in this instance means a virtuous face and when she has a 'penn du' at the end of the song she has a dark i.e. immoral head.

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