Forts and Foxes: Two English Loan-Words in the Book of Taliesin

The English loan-words bwrch 'perimeter wall or rampart' and ffoxas 'foxes' are remarkable, i. for occurring in a single line in Armes Prydein while being recorded nowhere else in Middle Welsh; ii. for representing entities for which there were already sufficient words in the language; and iii. in the case of ffoxas , appearing with its Old English plural termination rather than any Welsh equivalent. It is argued that each was borrowed with a specialized sense: that bwrch represents a metonymic development from Old English burh as applied to an Alfredian fortified town, and that ffoxas as a term of abuse was not invented by the Welsh but reproduces a nickname adopted for themselves by the English officials against whose extortions the poem is a protest. The possibility that an image in La3amon's Brut (an early Middle English verse chronicle) is connected with the passage is reviewed with some scepticism.