Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire are adjoining historical agricultural counties in South West Wales. Welsh Corgis were cattle herding dogs; the type of herding dog referred to as "heelers", meaning that they would nip at the heels of the larger animals to keep them on the move. The combination of their low height off the ground and innate agility of Welsh Corgis would allow them to avoid the hooves of cattle. The term "Corgi" means either cur dog or dwarf dog ("cor" = dwarf, "gi" = lenitive of "ci", dog) in the Welsh language, which was not intended as an insult to the dog's size, rather as a purely descriptive term. Different tales have been told of the Corgi's origin: some believe that the two modern breeds evolved from a shared ancestry, while others attribute the import of the Pembroke Welsh Corgi to Flemish weavers starting around the 10th century. Further theories on the origin of the Pembroke variety suggest that they may have originated from central European herding breeds from the area around modern Germany. Depending on the time period when these dogs were imported to Wales, they could have been either Deutsche Bracken, or Dachshund.