Llanedeyrn

Llanedeyrn ( cy, Llanedern) is a former village, now a district and community, in the east of the city of Cardiff, Wales, located around 3.5 miles from the city centre. The parish of Llanedeyrn rests on the banks of the river Rhymney and is visible nesting on a hill side above the A48(M), westbound on the approach into Cardiff.

The name

The name used in English "Llanedeyrn" is in fact the perpetuation of an erroneous Welsh form.

In Welsh, the name as it stands is pronounced �anˡe·dəɪrn In English, it is pronounced anˡɛdɪnas if the name were Lanedin, with Welsh �becoming and the difficult, for non-Welsh-speakers, “Edeyrn” becoming an easier “Edin”, perhaps from familiarity with the name of the Scottish city of Edinburgh.

The Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould (The Lives of the British Saints, 1908) states that there has been confusion between the names Edern and Edeyrn, and that Edern is "the Latin Aeternus, but it is commonly written in later Welsh Edeyrn, which is really a different name".
The name “Aeternus”, or “Eternus” means “eternal, everlasting”.

One reason for Edeyrn instead of Edern might have been a belief that it was based on Welsh “teyrn” (“king, prince, lord” in earlier Welsh, though nowadays “tyrant, despot, oppressor”)

Most earlier forms of the name show it be Llanedern �anˡe·dɛrn although a couple do show “Edeyrn”. The meaning is "church (of) Edern".

The local pronunciation when Gwentian Welsh was spoken here (until the early 1900s) was based on Llanedern. It was Llanetarn �anˡe·tarn showing the typical south-eastern change of final-syllable /e/ to /a/ (also a feature of north-western Welsh, in Gwynedd and Ynys Môn) and the provection of /d/ to /t/ at the beginning of a penultimate syllable.

A more standard form of this is Llanedarn (south-eastern provection being a somewhat stigmatised feature in Welsh), and this is the form used by Samuel Lewis in 1834 in his Topographical Dictionary Of Wales. He adds “Llan-edeyrn” in brackets after “Llanedarn”.

John Hobson Mathews (Mab Cernyw), editor of the “Cardiff Records, Being Materials For A History Of The County Borough From The Earliest Times” mentions Llanedern in Volume 5 (1905), in the “Schedule of Place Names”.

“LLANEDERN (the church of Saint Eternus.) A village and parish in the Hundred of Cibwr, three miles north-east from Cardiff, on the main Roman road….”

He remarks further that “Llanedeyrn” is incorrect as it is not the historical form, as too is Llanedarn (which he spells with a final “e” – “Llanedarne”) because it is a colloquial form. “The spellings "Llanedeyrn" and "Llanedarne" are alike erroneous; the first is founded on mistaken etymology, the second a barbarism.”

There are other places in Wales named after the Celtic saint Edern (such as the village of Edern, in Gwynedd, formerly spelt Edeyrn), and Bodedern (“dwelling / church (of) Edern”) in Anglesey.

There are villages too in western Brittany with his name - one named Edern in both Breton and French, and another called in Breton Lannedern (Lannédern in French), an exact equivalent of Cardiff's Llanedern / Llanedeyrn. There is also a village Plouedern (Breton) / Plouédern

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