In his description of a Blak Montayne, the antiquarian John Leland refers to a massif extending between Carmarthen and Monmouth i.e. what is now considered to be the Brecon Beacons in the wider modern sense of that term, thus including the Black Mountain far to the west and the intervening high ground. There is a suggestion too that the names Hatterrall Hill and Mynydd y Gader may also once have been used to apply to the entire range of the Black Mountains though the former later became confined to the vicinity of its eastern ridge. The latter is now recognised in Pen y Gader-fawr (Pen y Gadair Fawr) and Gader Fawr (Gadair Fawr); names applied to the hill at SO 229288. Cadair, mutated to 'gadair' and anglicised as 'gader', means 'seat' or 'chair' in Welsh.