remains of ancient Welsh
poetry furnished us with a name for the Cat-stane older still than that
appellation itself. Among the fragments of old Welsh historical poems
ascribed to Taliesin, one of the best known is that on the battle of
Gwen-Ystrad. In this composition the poet describes, from professedly
personal observation, the feats at the above battle of the army of his
friend and great patron, Urien, King of Rheged, who was subsequently
killed at the siege of Medcaut, or Lindisfarne, about A.D. 572.
Villemarque places the battle of Gwen-Ystrad between A.D. 547 and A.D.
560.

The British kingdom of Rheged, over which Urien ruled, is by some
authorities considered as the old British or Welsh kingdom of Cumbria,
or Cumberland; but, according to others, it must have been situated
further northwards. In the poem of the battle of Gwen-Ystrad (see the
_Myvyrian Archaeology_, vol. i. p. 53), Urien defeats the
enemy--apparently the Saxons or Angles--under Ida, King of Bernicia. In
one line near the end of the poem, Taliesin describes Urien as attacking
his foes "by the white stone of Galysten:"

"Pan amwyth ai alon yn Llech wen Galysten."

The word "Galysten," when separated into such probable original
components as "Gal" and "lysten," is remarkable, from the latter part of
the appellation, "lysten," corresponding with the name, "Liston," of the
old barony or parish in which the Cat-stane stands; the prefix Kirk
(Kirk-liston) being, as is well known, a comparatively modern addition.
The word "Gal" is a common term, in compound Keltic words, for
"stranger," or "foreigner." In the Gaelic branch of the Keltic,
"lioston" signifies, according to Sir James Foulis, "an inclosure on the
side of a river." (See Mr. Muckarsie on the origin of the name of
Kirkliston, in the _Statistical Account of Scotland_, vol. x. p. 68.)
The Highland Society's _Gaelic Dictionary_ gives "liostean" as a
lodging, tent, or booth. In the Cymric, "lystyn" signifies, according to
Dr. Owen Pughe, "a recess, or lodgment." (See his _Welsh Dictionary_,
_sub voce_.) The compound word Gal-lysten would perhaps not be thus
overstrained, if it were held as possibly originating in the meaning,
"the lodgment, inclosure, or resting-place of the foreigner;" and the
line quoted would, under such an idea, not inaptly apply to the
grave-stone of such a foreign leader as Vetta. Urien's forces are
described in the first line of the poem of the battle of Gwen-Ystrad,