Llan (placename)
Llan () and its variants (; ; ; Irish and ) are a common element of Celtic placenames in the British Isles and Brittany, especially of Welsh toponymy. In Welsh, an (often mutated) name of a local saint or a geomorphological description follows the "Llan" morpheme to form a single word: for example Llanfair is the parish or settlement around the church of (Welsh for "Mary"). Whereas, Goidelic toponyms end in "-lann". The various forms of the word are distantly cognate with English "land" and "lawn" and presumably initially denoted a specially cleared and enclosed area of land. In late antiquity, it came  to be applied particularly to the sanctified land occupied by communities of Christian converts. It is part of the name of over 630 locations in Wales and nearly all have some connection with a local patron saint. These were usually the founding saints of the parish, relatives of the ruling families who invaded Wales during the early Middle Ages. The founder of a new "llan" was obligated to reside at the site and to eat only once a day, each time taking a bit of bread and an egg and drinking only water and milk. This lasted for forty days , Sundays excepted, after which the land was considered sanctified forever. The typical "llan" employed or erected a circular or oval embankment with a protective stockade, surrounded by wood or stone huts. Unlike Saxon practice, these establishments were not chapels for the local lords but almost separate tribes, initially some distance away from the secular community. Over time, however, it became common for prosperous communities to either become monasteries forbidden to lay residents or to become fully secular communities controlled by the local lord. In the later Middle Ages, "llan" also came to denote entire parishes, both as an ecclesiastical region  and as a subdivision of a commote or hundred. Place names in Cumbria. The Cumbric language was spoken in Cumbria and elsewhere in The Old North up until the Early Middle Ages and as such, some place names in Cumbria and surrounding counties have a Brythonic origin. The historic name "Llan Lleenawc" may have been in this region, and named for either "Laenauc", a father of "Guallauc", or "*Lennóc", a saint-name. Place-names in areas bordering Cumbria. In addition, "*landā-", the earlier Brittonic word ancestral to "llan" occurs in Vindolanda, the name of a Roman-era fort. Place names  in Scotland. Some place names in Scotland have Pictish and Cumbric elements such as "aber-" and (also spelled "lum-", "lon-" and "lin-") that are cognate with those in other Brittonic languages. The Gaelic form "lann" ("enclosure, churchyard") also occurs, and its existence in Pictland may represent adoption into Gaelic of the Pictish usage.