The Ancient Welsh Bardic Poetry E-Book

William F. Skene

• Herausgeber: William F. Skene
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

It is these four: the Black Book of Caermarthen; the Book of Aneurin; the Book of Taliessin; and the Red Book of Hergest, that are here termed the four ancient books of Wales, and it is with the ancient poems contained in these four books that we have now to do.
Undoubtedly it is in these four books that the most ancient. texts of the poems are to be found.
The contents of these books remained little known till the publication of the Archæologia Britannica in 1707, by Edward Lhuyd, who had examined all the collections which were accessible, and the account which he included in his work attracted some attention towards them, but none of the poems were printed till the middle of the century, when the publication of the poems of Ossian by James Macpherson, and the sudden popularity they acquired, gave a temporary value to Celtic poetry, and led to a desire on the part of the Welsh to show that they were likewise in possession of a body of native poems not less interesting than the Highland, and with better claims to authenticity.

Leseprobe

William F. Skene

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Table of contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I. THE POEMS CONTAINED IN THE FOUR ANCIENT BOOKS OF WALES.

CHAPTER II. THE LITERATURE OF WALES SUBSEQUENT TO THE TWELFTH CENTURY.

CHAPTER III. SOURCES OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF WALES.

CHAPTER IV. STATE OF THE COUNTRY IN THE SIXTH CENTURY, AND ITS HISTORY PRIOR TO A.D. 560.

CHAPTER V. STATE OF BRITAIN IN A.D. 560 WHEN GILDAS WROTE, AND KINGS OF THE LINE OF DYFI.

CHAPTER VI. MANAU GODODIN AND THE PICTS.

CHAPTER VII. THE RACES OF BRITAIN AND THE PLACE OF THE PICTS AMONG THEM.

CHAPTER VIII. THE CELTIC DIALECTS AND THE PROBABLE CHARACTER OF THE PICTISH LANGUAGE.

CHAPTER IX. THE CELTIC TOPOGRAPHY OF SCOTLAND, AND THE DIALECTIC DIFFERENCES INDICATED BY IT.

CHAPTER X. CUMBRIA AND THE MEN OF THE NORTH.

CHAPTER XI. RECENT CRITICISM OF MYTHOLOGICAL POEMS EXAMINED.

CHAPTER XII. RECENT CRITICISM OF HISTORICAL POEMS EXAMINED.

CHAPTER XIII. TRUE PLACE OF THE POEMS IN WELSH LITERATURE.

CHAPTER XIV. RESULT OF THE EXAMINATION OF THE POEMS, AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION.

I. HISTORICAL POEMS CONTAINING ALLUSIONS TO EVENTS PRIOR TO A.D. 560. A. POEMS REFERRING TO EARLY TRADITIONS.

I. THE RECONCILIATION OF LLUD THE LESS. BOOK OF TALIESSIN LIV.

II. THE DEATH-SONG OF CORROI, SON OF DAYRY. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XLII.

III. THE DEATH-SONG OF EROF. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XL.

IV. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XLI.

V. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XLVI.

B. POEMS REFERRING TO ARTHUR THE GULEDIG.

VI. THE CHAIR OF THE SOVEREIGN. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XV.

VII. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XXXI.

VIII. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXX.

IX. GERAINT, SON OF ERBIN. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XXII. RED BOOK OF HERGEST XIV.

C. POEMS REFERRING TO GWYDYON AP DON AND HIS GWYDDYL AND THE BRITHWYR.

X. DARONWY. BOOK OF TALIESSIN X.

XI. THE PRAISE` OF LLUDD THE GREAT BOOK OF TALIESSIN LII.

XII. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XIV.

XIII. THE BATTLE OF GODEU. BOOK OF TALIESSIN VIII.

XIV. BOOK OF TALIESSIN I. RED BOOK OF HERGEST XXIII.

XV. DEATH-SONG OF DYLAN SON OF THE WAVE. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XLIII.

XVI. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XXXV.

XVII. RED BOOK OF HERGEST XXII.

D. POEM REFERRING TO GWYDDNO AND GWYNN AP NUDD.

XVIII. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XXXIII.

E. POEMS REFERRING TO EARLY TRADITIONS WHICH BELONG TO A LATER SCHOOL

XIX. THE CHAIR OF CERIDWEN. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XVI.

XX. THE DEATH-SONG OF UTHYR PENDRAGON. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XLVIII.

XXI. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XLV.

XXII. THE PRAISE OF TALIESSIN. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XII.

XXIII. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XXXVIII.

F. POEMS RELATING TO CITIES OF THE CYMRY AND THEIR LEGENDARY HEROES.

XXIV. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XV.

XXV. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXI. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XIV.

XXVI. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN VIII.

XXVIII. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXV.

XXIX. THE VERSES OF THE GRAVES. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XIX.

II. HISTORICAL POEMS CONTAINING ALLUSIONS TO EVENTS SUBSEQUENT TO A.D. 560. G. POEMS REFERRING TO WAR BETWEEN SONS OF LLYWARCH HEN AND MWG MAWR DREFYDD.

XXX. NAMES OF THE SONS OF LLYWARCH HEN. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XXXIX.

XXXI. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XXX.

XXXII. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XXXIV.

XXXIII. RED BOOK OF HERGEST XI.

H. POEMS RELATING TO GWALLAWG AP LLEENAWG.

XXXIV. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XXXII.

XXXV. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XI.

XXXVI. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXXVIII.

I. POEMS RELATING TO URIEN REGED.

XXXVII. RED BOOK OF HERGEST XVII.

XXXVIII. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXXI.

XXXIX. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXXII.

XL. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXXIII.

XLI. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXXIV.

XLII. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXXVI.

XLIII. THE SATISFACTION OF URIEN. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXIX.

XLIV. THE SPOILS OF TALIESSIN, A SONG TO URIEN. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXVII.

XLV. RED BOOK OF HERGEST XII.

J. POEMS RELATING TO URIEN AND HIS SON OWEN.

XLVI. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XVIII.

XLVII. THE AFFAIR OF ARGOED LLWYFAIN. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXXV.

XLVIII. THE DEATH-SONG OF OWAIN. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XLIV.

K. POEMS RELATING TO THE BATTLE OF ARDDERYD.

XLIX. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN I.

L. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XVII.

L. THE GODODIN POEMS.

LI. BOOK OF ANEURIN I.

LII. BOOK OF ANEURIN II.

LIII. BOOK OF ANEURIN IV.

LIV. BOOK OF ANEURIN V.

LV. SONG TO ALE. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XX.

M. POEMS RELATING TO CADWALLAWN.

LVI. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XLIX.

LVII. BOOK OF TALIESSIN L.

LVIII. RED BOOK OF HERGEST XV.

N. PREDICTIVE POEMS RELATING TO CADWALADYR.

LIX. THE OMEN OF PRYDEIN THE GREAT. BOOK OF TALIESSIN VI.

LX. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XLVII.

LXI. BOOK OF TALIESSIN LIII.

O. POEMS CONNECTED WITH POWYS.

LXII. SATIRE OF CYNAN GARWYN SON OF BROCHWAEL. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXIII.

LXIII. RED BOOK OF HERGEST XVI.

P. POEMS WHICH MENTION HENRY, OR THE SON OF HENRY

LXIV. A DIALOGUE BETWEEN MYRDIN AND HIS SISTER GWENDYDD. RED BOOK OF HERGEST I.

LXV. A FUGITIVE POEM OF MYRDIN IN HIS GRAVE. RED BOOK OF HERGEST II.

LXVI. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XVI.

LXVII. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XVIII.

LXVIII. RED BOOK OF HERGEST XX.

LXIX. RED BOOK OF HERGEST XIX.

LXX. RED BOOK OF HERGEST XXI.

III. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS FROM THE BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN. Q. POEMS ATTRIBUTED TO OTHER EARLY BARDS.

LXXI. MEIGANT. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN II.

LXXII. CUHELYN. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN III.

XXIII. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN IV.

LXXIV. THE CYNGHOGION OF ELAETH. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XX.

LXXV. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XXI.

ANONYMOUS POEMS ON RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS.

LXXVI. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN V.

LXXVII. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN VI.

LXXVIII. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN VII.

LXXIX. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN IX.

LXXX. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN X.

LXXXI. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XI.

LXXXII. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XII.

LXXXIII. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XIII.

LXXXIV. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XXV.

LXXXV. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XXIX.

S. POEMS RELATING TO YSCOLAN.

LXXXVI. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XXVI.

LXXXVII. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XXVII.

IV. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS FROM THE BOOK OF ANEURIN. T. POEM CONTAINING ANCIENT PROVERBS.

LXXXVIII. BOOK OF ANEURIN III.

V. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS FROM THE BOOK OF TALIESSIN. U. POEMS RELATING TO THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TALIESSIN.

LXXXIX. THE FOLD OF THE BARDS. BOOK OF TALIESSIN III.

XC. HOSTILE CONFEDERACY. BOOK OF TALIESSIN VII.

XCI. THE CHAIR OF TALIESSIN. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XIII.

XCII. SONG TO THE WIND. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XVII.

XCIII. SONG TO MEAD. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XIX.

XCIV. SONG TO THE GREAT WORLD. BOOK OF TALIESSIN LV.

XCV. SONG TO THE LITTLE WORLD. BOOK OF TALIESSIN LVI.

XCVI. JUVENILE ORNAMENTS OF TALIESSIN. BOOK OF TALIESSIN IX.

XCVII. THE ELEGY OF THE THOUSAND SONS. BOOK OF TALIESSIN II.

XCVIII. THE PLEASANT THINGS OF TALIESSIN. BOOK OF TALIESSIN IV.

XCIX. BOOK OF TALIESSIN V.

C. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXVII.

V. POEMS RELATING TO JEWISH HISTORY.

CI. THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXII.

CII. THE ROD OF MOSES. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXIV.

CIII. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXIX.

CIV. BOOK OF TALIESSIN LI.

W. POEMS RELATING TO LEGENDS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.

CV. THE CONTRIVED WORLD. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXVI.

CVI. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXVIII.

VI. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS FROM THE RED BOOK OF HERGEST. X. POEMS ATTRIBUTED TO LLYWARCH HEN.

CVII. RED BOOK OF HERGEST V.

CVIII. RED BOOK OF HERGEST VI.

CIX. RED BOOK OF HERGEST VII.

CX. RED BOOK OF HERGEST VIII.

CXI. RED BOOK OF HERGEST IX.

CXII. RED BOOK OF HERGEST X.

CXIII. RED BOOK OF HERGEST XIII.

Y. POEMS BEGINNING "EIRY MYNYD."

CXIV. RED BOOK OF HERGEST IV.

CXV. RED BOOK OF HERGEST III.

Z. POEMS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

CXVI. RED BOOK OF HERGEST XVIII.

CXVII. THE VIATICUM OF LLEVOED WYNEBGLAWR. RED BOOK OF HERGEST XXIV.

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I. THE POEMS CONTAINED IN THE FOUR ANCIENT BOOKS OF WALES.

THE dissolution of the religious houses in Wales in the reign of Henry the Eighth, and the dispersion of their libraries, led to many Welsh MSS., which had been preserved in them, passing into the hands of private individuals; and collections of Welsh MSS. soon began to be formed by persons who took an interest in the history and literature of their country.The principal collectors in North Wales were Mr. Jones of Gelly Lyvdy, whose collection was formed between the years 1590 and 1630, and Mr. Robert Vaughan of Hengwrt, author of a work termed British Antiquities Revived, published in 1662, who died at Hengwrt four years after, in 1666; and in South Wales, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, who formed a collection at Raglan Castle in 1590; and Sir Edward Mansel, whose father had received a gift of the priory of Margam in Glamorgan, in 1591.The collections of Mr. Jones and Mr. Vaughan became united at Hengwrt, in arrangement having been made between them that the MSS. collected by each should become the property of the survivor. Mr. Jones having predeceased Mr. Vaughan, the united collection, consisting of upwards of 400 MSS., remained at Hengwrt till within the last few years, when it was bequeathed by Sir Robert Vaughan of Hengwrt to W. W. E. Wynne, Esq. of Peniarth, in whose possession it now is.In the following century various collections were made, and among others some valuable MSS. became the property of Jesus College, Oxford. The collection of the Earl of Pembroke at Raglan Castle was destroyed by fire in the time of Oliver Cromwell; and a similar fate overtook two of those later collections, which had become the property of Sir Watkin Williams Wynne, and were preserved at Wynnstay, but which were likewise destroyed by fire. Other collections passed into the British Museum, and the principal collections of Welsh MSS. are now the Hengwrt collection at Peniarth, those in the British Museum, the MSS. at Jesus College, and those belonging to Lord Mostyn, Mr. Panton of Plas Gwyn, and others.In the Hengwrt collection were preserved three ancient MSS., termed the Black Book of Caermarthen, the Book of Aneurin, and the Book of Taliessin, containing a considerable collection of Welsh poetry bearing marks of antiquity; and in the, library of Jesus College is a MS. which contains similar poems, termed the Red Book of Hergest. These poems are some of a historic character, and others not so, and are attributed, either by their rubric, by the title of the MS., or by tradition, to four bards termed Myrddin, Aneurin, Taliessin, and Llywarch Hen, who are supposed to have lived in the sixth century.Two of these MSS. are still in the Hengwrt collection, and of one of them we know the history: the Black Book of Caermarthen belonged to the Priory of Black Canons at Caermarthen, and was given by the Treasurer of the Church of St. Davids to Sir John Price, a native of Breconshire, who was one of the commissioners appointed by King Henry the Eighth; the other is the Book of Taliessin, and it is not known how it was acquired.The Book of Aneurin is now the property of Sir Thomas Phillipps of Middlehill.The Red Book of Hergest is said to have been so termed from its having been compiled for the Vaughans of Hergest Court, Herefordshire, and seems to have come to Oxford from the Margam Collection in South Wales.It is these four MSS.--the Black Book of Caermarthen, written in the reign of Henry the Second (1154-1189); the Book of Aneurin, a MS. of the latter part of the thirteenth century; the Book of Taliessin, a MS. of the beginning of the fourteenth century; and the Red Book of Hergest, a MS. compiled at different times in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries--that are here termed THE FOUR ANCIENT BOOKS OF WALES, and it is with the ancient poems contained in these four MSS. that we have now to do.Numerous transcripts of these poems are to be found in other Welsh MSS., but undoubtedly it is in these four MSS. that the most ancient. texts of the poems are to be found; and, in most cases, those in the other MSS. are not independent texts, but have obviously, with more or less variation, been transcribed from these. The contents of these MSS. remained little known till the publication of the Archæologia Britannica in 1707, by Edward Lhuyd, who had examined all the collections which were accessible, and the account which he included in his work of the Welsh MSS. attracted some attention towards them, but none of the poems were printed till the middle of the century, when the publication of the poems of Ossian by James Macpherson, and the sudden popularity they acquired, gave a temporary value to Celtic poetry, and led to a desire on the part of the Welsh to show that they were likewise in possession of a body of native poems not less interesting than the Highland, and with better claims to authenticity. In 1764, the Rev. Evan Evans published his Specimens of the Poetry of the Ancient Welsh Bards; and though they mainly embraced poems written in the twelfth and subsequent centuries, translated in the style of Macpherson's Ossian, he annexed a Latin dissertation, De Bardis, in which he printed ten of the stanzas of the great poem of the Gododin, and a stanza from the Avallenau, as specimens of the older poems, with Latin translations. He was followed by Edward Jones, who, in his Musical and Poetical Relies of the Welsh Bards, published in 1784, printed a part of the Gododin, three of the poems of Taliessin--viz. the Battle of Argoed Llwyfain, the Battle of Gwenystrad, and the Mead song, one of the poems of Llywarch Hen, with metrical translations, and part of the Avallenau, with a more literal prose translation by Mr. Edward Williams. He was likewise assisted in his work by Dr. W. Owen, afterwards Dr. Owen Pughe, who, a few years afterwards, published five of the poems of Taliessin in the Gentleman's Magazine for the years 1789 and 1790, being the Ode to Gwallawg, the Death-Song of Owen, the Battle of Dyffryn Garant, the Battle of Gwenystrad, and the Gorchan Cynvelyn, with English translations. These translations, however, were too diffuse and too much tainted by a desire to give the passages a mystic meaning, to convey a fair idea of the real nature of the poems.In 1792, Dr. Owen Pughe published The Heroic Elegies, and other pieces of Llywarch Hen, with a much more literal English version. The work contains a pretty complete collection of the poems attributed to Llywarch Hen, but it is not said from what MS. the text was printed, while the notes contain collations with the Black Book of Caermarthen and the Red Book of Hergest. 1At length, in the year 1801, the text of the whole of these poems was given to the world, through the munificence of Owen Jones, a furrier, in Thames Street, London, who, in that and subsequent years, published the Myvyrian Archæology of Wales, containing the chief productions of Welsh literature. He was assisted by Mr. Edward Williams of Glamorgan and Dr. Owen Pughe; but though the text of almost all of these poems is given, it is not said from what particular MSS. they were printed, and no materials are afforded for discriminating between what are probably old and what are spurious. The text is unaccompanied by translations.If the publication of the poems of Ossian thus drew attention to these ancient Welsh poems, the controversy which followed on the poems drew forth an able vindication of the genuine character of the latter. Sharon Turner, in his History of the Anglo-Saxons, the first edition of which appeared in 1799, founded upon some of these poems as historical documents. He quoted the Death-Song of Geraint as containing the account of a real battle at Longporth, or Portsmouth, between Cerdic, the founder of the kingdom of Wesser, and the Britons. He referred to the poems of Taliessin on the battles of Argoed Llwyfain and Gwenystrad as real history, and he considered the great poem of the Gododin by Aneurin as describing a real war between the Britons and the Angles of Ida's kingdom. This drew upon him the criticism of the two chief opponents of the claims of Ossian--viz. John Pinkerton and Malcolm Laing--who declared that these Welsh poems, were equally unworthy of credit. In consequence of this attack, Turner published, in 1803, his Vindication of the genuineness of the ancient British poems of Aneurin, Taliessin, Llywarch Hen, and Myrddin. In this elaborate essay he endeavoured to demonstrate two propositions:--First, That these four bards were real men, and actually lived in the sixth century; and, secondly, that, with some exceptions, the poems attributed to them are their genuine works. He dealt, however, with the historical poems alone as sufficient for his purpose, and did not enter into any critical analysis of the poems as a, whole. This vindication, was, in the main, considered to be conclusive as to the poems being the genuine works of the bards whose name they bore; and it appeared to be now generally accepted as a fact, that a body of genuine poetry, of the sixth century, existed in the Welsh language which threw light upon the history of that century.A new view was, however, soon taken of their real meaning; and some years after, the Rev. Edward Davies brought out, in his work called the Mythology of the British Druids, published in 1809, his theory that there was handed down in these poems a system of mythology which had been the religion of the Druids in the pagan period, and was still professed in secret by the bards, their genuine successors. The Gododin, he endeavoured to show by an elaborate translation, related to the traditionary history of the massacre of the Britons by the Saxons at Stonehenge, called the Plot of the Long Knives; and he appended to his work a number of the poems of Taliessin, with translations to show the mystic meaning which pervaded them. This theory was still further elaborated by the Honourable Algernon Herbert, in two works published anonymously: Britannia after the Romans, in 1836; and The Neo-Druidic Heresy, in 1838. He took the same view with regard to the meaning of the Gododin; and he combined with much ingenious and wild speculation regarding the post-Roman history of Britain, the theory that a lurking adherence to the old paganism of the Druids had caused a schism in the British church, and that the bards, under the name of Christians and the guise of Christian nomenclature, professed in secret a paganism as an esoteric cult, which he denominated the Neo-Druidic heresy, and which he maintained was obscurely hinted at in the poems of Taliessin. It would probably be difficult to find a stranger specimen of perverted ingenuity and misplaced learning than is contained in the works of Davies and Herbert; but the urgency with which they maintained their views, and the disguise under which the poems appeared in their so-called translations, certainly produced an impression that the poems of Taliessin did contain a mystic philosophy, while, at the same time, the Gododin of Aneurin and the poems of Llywarch Hen were generally recognised as genuine historical documents commemorating real historical events.The Rev. John Williams, afterwards Archdeacon of Cardigan, an eminent Welsh scholar, and a man of much talent, announced, in 1841, a translation of the poems of Aneurin, Taliessin, and other primitive bards, with a critical revision and re-establishment of the text; but, although these poems had occupied a large share of his attention, I believe he never seriously prepared the materials for his edition, and he died in 1858, without having done anything towards carrying it out. I have frequently heard him give as a reason the great difficulty involved, and time and labour required, "in restoring the genuine text." What he meant by this we can see in the last work he published, termed Gomer, where (part ii. p. 33 et seq.), we have several specimens of how he meant to deal with the text. His plan obviously was to restore the orthography of the words from the existing text in the Myvyrian Archæology to what he conceived must have been their form when the respective poems were composed. His mind, too, appears to have been influenced in no slight degree by the school of Davies, and he was too ready to attach a mystic meaning to the text. In 1850, some time before the Archdeacon's death, a learned Breton, the Vicomte do la Villemarqué, published his Poemes des Bardes Bretons du VIe. Siecle, traduits pour la premiere fois, avec le texte en regard revu sur les plus anciens manuscrits; and he, too, proceeded upon the same idea of restoring the original text. In his preface, after noticing the oldest copies of the poems, which he says formed the basis of his edition, he adds, "Apres le travail de collation, il restait a reproduire les textes avec l'orthographe convenable, mais la quelle suivre;" and he fixes upon the Breton orthography as the most ancient, and in this, which he terms "l'orthographe historique," presents us with the text of the poems which he translates. These poems are mainly the historical pieces, and he considers with Turner that they contain fragments of real history.A more unfortunate idea than that of thus arbitrarily restoring the text never formed the basis of an important work; and while it has destroyed the value of Villemarqué's edition, it lessens the regret we should otherwise feel that the Archdeacon never carried his announced intention into effect. To present the poems in a different shape from what they appear in the oldest transcripts, and to clothe them with a supposed older orthography, is to confound entirely the province of the editor with that of the historic critic, and to exercise, in the character of the former, functions which properly belong to the latter, while it deprives him of the proper materials on which to exercise his critical judgment. Such restoration necessarily proceeds on the assumption by the editor that the poems are the genuine works of those to whom they are attributed, and existed in the same form and substance at the era at which their reputed authors lived; while the application of historical criticism to the poems as they now exist may lead to very different conclusions. It supersedes entirely the important work of the critic, by assuming the very questions which he has to solve. The true function of the editor is to select the oldest and best MSS., and to produce the text of the poems in the precise shape and orthography in which he there finds them: neither to tamper with, nor to restore them, but to furnish the critic with the materials on which he can exercise his skill in determining their true age and value. 1These remarks have likewise some bearing upon two very remarkable works which have inaugurated a new school of criticism of these poems, and subjected their claims to tests which they had not hitherto undergone. These two works are--first, The Literature of the Kymry, by Thomas Stephens, published in 1849; and, secondly, Taliessin, or the Bards and Druids of Britain, by D. W. Nash, published in 1858.The main object of Mr. Stephens' work is to treat of the language and literature of the twelfth and two succeeding centuries; but it embraces likewise the poems attributed to the bards of the sixth century, in so far as he maintains that they are falsely so attributed, and are really the works of later bards. Mr. Stephens' work is written with much ability, and is, in fact, the first real attempt to subject these poems to anything like a critical analysis. He opens one of his chapters, to which he has put the title, "Poems, fictitiously attributed to Myrddin, Taliessin, Aneurin, Llywarch, Meugant, and Golyddan," with the following sentence:--"Reader! be attentive to what I am about to write, and keep a watchful eye upon the sentences as they rise before you, for the daring spirit of modern criticism is about to lay violent hands upon the old household furniture of venerable tradition;" and he certainly fulfils this promise, for he maintains that, with some exceptions, these poems contain allusions, and breathe forth a spirit and sentiment, which demonstrate that they were composed subsequent to the twelfth century; and he endeavours to indicate their real authors. Of the poems attributed to Aneurin he appears to admit the Gododin to be genuine. He considers the whole of the poems attributed to Myrddin, including even the Avallenau--which Turner maintained to be genuine--to be spurious, and the work of later bards, and endeavours to point out their real authors, hesitatingly in the text, but more decidedly in the title to one of his chapters, where he has "The Avallenau and Hoianau, composed by Prydydd y Moch. The Gorddodau, composed by Gruffydd ab Yr Ynad Coch;" and of seventy-seven poems attributed to Taliessin, he admits only twelve to be "historical and as old as the sixth century."His admission that some of these poems are as old as the sixth century of course neutralises any argument drawn from their orthography and grammatical or poetical structure, unless he can show that the poems he maintains to be spurious differ materially in that respect from those he admits to be genuine; and his attempt to indicate their real authors breaks down in so far as the Avallenau and Hoianau, and other poems contained in the Black Book of Caermarthen, are concerned; for the poems in that MS. must have been already transcribed in the twelfth century, and Prydydd y Moch belongs to the succeeding century. So far as he shows that several of these poems contain direct allusions to events which occurred after the period when they are said to be composed, his criticism is successful, and may be received as well founded; but in his attempt to show that allusions, hitherto supposed to apply to events contemporaneous with the alleged date of the poem, were really intended to describe later events--which is, in fact, the main feature of his criticism--he is not equally successful. His reasoning appears to me to be quite inconclusive, the resemblances faint and uncertain, and the argument carries no conviction to the mind. For instance, in the poem attributed to Taliessin, termed Kerdd y Veib Llyr, where the lines occur--"A battle against the lord of fame in the dales of Hafren,Against Brochwel Powys; he loved my song"--it is a fair and legitimate inference that it could not have been composed prior to the time of Brochmail, who is mentioned by Bede as having been at the battle of Caerlegion, the true date of which is 613; but when the following lines occur in a subsequent part of the same poem--"Three races, wrathful, of right qualities,Gwyddyl, and Brython, and Romani,Create war and tumult,"it is not satisfactory to be told that "they refer to the ecclesiastic dispute between Giraldus and King John respecting the see of St. David's." It is therefore not without reason that the reader is exhorted to keep a watchful eye upon the sentences condemning the poems upon such grounds.Mr. Nash, in his work, deals with the poems attributed to Taliessin only, and in the main he follows up the criticisms of Stephens. He goes, however, a step beyond him, as, without directly asserting it, he implies that none of the poems are older than the twelfth century, if he does not really assort that no earlier date can be assigned to them than the date of the oldest MS. in which they are found. Of the historical poems he sums up his criticism thus:--"Without, therefore, venturing to decide that these 'Songs to Urien' were not re-written in the twelfth century, from materials originally of the date of the sixth, and that there are no poetical remains in the Welsh language older than the twelfth century, we may nevertheless assert that the common assumption of such remains of the date of the sixth century has been made upon very unsatisfactory grounds, and without a sufficiently careful examination of the evidence on which such assumption should be founded. Writers who claim for productions actually existing only in MSS. of the twelfth all origin in the sixth century, are called upon to demonstrate the links of evidence, either internal or external, which bridge over this great intervening period of at least five hundred years. This external evidence is altogether wanting, and the internal evidence, even of the so-called 'Historical Poems' themselves, is, in some instances at least, opposed to their claims to an origin in the sixth century." What he calls the mythological poems he entirely rejects, and appears to place them even in a much later age than Stephens has done.While Mr. Nash's work must be admitted to be written with much ability, certainly the merit of candour cannot equally be attributed to it. It is less an attempt to subject the poems to a fair and just criticism than simply a very clever piece of special pleading, in which, like all special pleading, he proceeds to demonstrate a foregone conclusion by the usual partial and one-sided view of the facts--assuming whatever appears to make for his argument, and ignoring what seems to oppose it; while he makes conjectural alterations of the text when it suits his purpose, and the real sense of the poems which form the subject of his criticism is disguised under a version which he terms a translation, but which affords anything but a faithful or candid representation of their contents.I consider that the true value of these poems is a problem which has still to be solved. Are we to attach any real historical value to them, or are we to set them aside at once as worthless for all historical purposes, and as merely curious specimens of the nonsensical rhapsodies and perverted taste of a later age?Whether these poems are the genuine works of the bards whose names they bear, or whether they are the production of a later age, I do not believe that they contain any such system of Druidism, or Neo-Druidism, as Davies, Herbert, and others, attempt to find in them; nor do I think that their authors wrote, and the compilers of these ancient MSS. took the pains to transcribe, century after century, what was a mere farrago of nonsense, and of no historical or literary value. I think that these poems have a meaning, and that, both in connection with the history and the literature of Wales, that meaning is worth finding out; and I think, further, that if they were subjected to a just and candid criticism, we ought to be able to ascertain their true place and value in the literature of Wales. The criticism to which they have hitherto been subjected is equally unsatisfactory, whether they are maintained to be genuine or to be spurious, mainly because the basis of the criticism is an uncertain and untrustworthy text, and any criticism on the existing texts, in the shape in which they are presented in the Myvyrian Archæology, is, comparatively speaking, valueless; and because the translations by which their meaning is attempted to be expressed, are either loose and inaccurate, or coloured by the views of the translators. Those who deal with the poems as the genuine works of the bards whose names they bear, and view them as containing a recondite system of Druidism, or semi-pagan philosophy, present us with a translation which is, to say the least of it, mysterious enough in all conscience. Those, again, who consider them to be the work of a later age, and to contain nothing but a mere farrago of nonsense, have no difficulty in producing a translation which amply bears out that character.The work of the editor must, however, precede that of the critic. An essential preliminary is to give the text of these poems in the oldest form in which it is to be found, and in the precise orthography of the oldest MSS., and to present a translation which shall give as accurate and faithful a representation of the meaning of the poems as is now possible as the basis of the work of the critic. The object of the present work. is to accomplish this. The contents of the four MSS., here called the Four Ancient Books of Wales, are printed as accurately as possible,--those of the first three completely, and as much of the last as contains any of these poems. It is in these four MSS. that the oldest known texts are to be found; and in order to secure a faithful and impartial translation, I resolved, in order to avoid any risk of its being coloured by my own views, to refrain from attempting the translation myself, and to obtain it, if possible, from the most eminent living Welsh scholars. With this view, I applied to the Reverend D. Silvan Evans of Llanymawddwy, the author of the English and Welsh Dictionary and other works, and the Reverend Robert Williams of Rhydycroesau, author of the Biography of Eminent Welshmen and the Cornish Dictionary, both distinguished Welsh scholars, who most kindly acceded to my request. Mr. Evans, has translated for me the poems in the Black Book of Caermarthen, the Book of Aneurin, and the Red Book of Hergest, and accompanied them with valuable notes. Mr. Williams has translated for me the poems in the Book of Taliessin; and I beg to record my sense of the deep obligation under which they have laid me by the valuable assistance thus afforded. But while these eminent scholars an so far answerable for the translations, it is due to them to add that they are not responsible for any opinions expressed in this work except those contained in their own notes; and that, by permitting their names to be connected with this work, they must not be held as sanctioning the views entertained by myself, and to which I have given expression in the following chapters, or in the notes I have added. 1Footnotes5:1 It is remarkable that there is no reference to readings in the Llyfr du in the poems which are actually to be found there, while in six poems which are not in the Black Book, the foot of the page is full of references to the Llyfr du for various readings. These various readings, so far as I have been able to judge, correspond with the Red Book of Hergest, while those attributed to the Llyfr coch are not to be found there.11:1 In 1852, an edition of the Gododin was published, with a translation, by J. Williams, at Ithel. He adopts the historical view of this poem, and has given the text, such as he had it, with much fidelity; while the translation, though somewhat too free, is the first to give anything like a fair idea of the original.18:1 The Welsh text has been printed for some years. It was put in type as soon as the collation of the manuscript copy of the poems with the original MSS. was completed, and again collated in proof, and then thrown off, in order to facilitate the work of translation. The only request made to the translators was to make their version as literal and accurate as possible, even though the meaning might be obscured thereby; and the care and time requisite to prepare such a translation deliberately has delayed the appearance of the work since then. While engaged in the preliminary investigations, I from time to time communicated fragments of what was intended to appear in the Introduction and Notes in occasional papers to the Archæologia Cambrensis.

CHAPTER II. THE LITERATURE OF WALES SUBSEQUENT TO THE TWELFTH CENTURY.

PRIOR to the twelfth century there are not many poems which claim to belong to the literature of that period, besides those attributed to Taliessin, Aneurin, Llywarch Hen, and Myrddin. The Black Book of Caermarthen contains a few attributed to Cuhelyn, Elaeth, and Meigant; and the Red Book of Hergest, one to Tyssilio, son of Brochwael Yscythrog; but the number of such poems is so small, that, if the poems attributed to the bards of the sixth century really belong to that period, there is an interval of several centuries, during which such a literature either never existed or has perished, till the twelfth century, from which period a mass of poetic literature existed in Wales, and has been preserved to us. Of the genuine character of that poetry there seems to be no doubt.In order, then, to estimate rightly the place which the poems attributed to the bards of the sixth century ought truly to occupy in the literature of Wales, it will be necessary to form a just conception of the character of her later literature subsequent to the twelfth century, as well as to grasp the leading facts of her history during the previous centuries in their true aspect.In the eleventh century two events happened which seem to have had a material influence on the literature of Wales. The one was the return of Rhys ap Tewdwr, the true heir to the throne of South Wales, in 1077, and the other was the landing of Gruffyd ap Cynan, the true heir to the throne of North Wales, in 1080.On the death of Edwal, the last of the direct line of the Welsh kings, in 994, leaving an only son in minority; and of Meredith, Prince of South Wales, in 994, leaving an only daughter, the government of both provinces of Wales fell into the hands of usurpers. Cynan, who represented the North Wales line, fled to Ireland in 1041, where he married a daughter of the Danish king of Dublin, and after two fruitless attempts to recover his inheritance by the assistance of the Irish, died in Ireland, leaving a son Gruffyd. Rhys ap Tewdwr, the representative of the South Wales line, took refuge in Armorica, whence he returned in 1077; and, laying claim to the throne of South Wales, was unanimously elected by the people. Gruffyd ap Cynan invaded Anglesea with a body of troops obtained in Ireland, and having been joined by Rhys ap Tewdwr, their combined forces defeated the army of Trahaearn, then King of Wales, their opponent, at the battle of Carno in 1080, where that prince was slain, and Rhys ap Tewdwr and Gruffyd ap Cynan were confirmed on the thrones of their ancestors.The return of these two princes to Wales--the one from Ireland, where he had been born and must have been familiar with the Irish school of poetry, and the other from Armorica, where he probably became acquainted with Armoric traditions, created a new era in Welsh literature, and a great outburst of literary energy took place, which in North Wales manifested itself in a very remarkable revival of poetry, while in South Wales it took more the shape of prose literature between 1080 and 1400, Stephens enumerates no fewer than seventy-nine bards, many of whose works are preserved, and the Red Book of Hergest, concludes with a body of poetry transcribed apparently by Lewis Glyn Cothi, and attributed to bards, forty-five in number, who lived in a period ranging from 1100 to 1450. One of the earliest of these bards was Cynddelw, commonly called Prydydd Mawr, or the great bard. He was bard to Madog ap Meredyth, Prince of Powis, who died in 1159, and two elegies on his death, by Cynddelw, are contained in the Black Book of Caermarthen. There is every reason to believe that the latter part at least of this MS. was transcribed by him.The influence produced upon Welsh literature by the return of Rhys ap Tewdwr to South Wales was of a different description; and it is probably from this period that the introduction into Wales of Armoric traditions may be dated. The appearance of the History of the Britons, by Geoffrey of Monmouth, was the first open manifestation of it. This work, which is written in Latin, at once attained great popularity, and made the fabulous history which it contained, with the romantic tales of Uthyr Pendragon, and Arthur with his Round Table, familiar to the whole world. There is prefixed to this history an epistle-dedicatory to Robert, Earl of Gloucester, son of Henry I. It must therefore have been compiled prior to his death in 1147. In this epistle he states that Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, a man of great eloquence and learned in foreign histories, gave him a very ancient book in the British tongue (quondam Britannici sermonis librum vetustissimum), giving an account of the Kings of Britain from Brutus to Cadwaladyr, and that he had, it the Archdeacon's request, translated it into Latin; and he concludes his history by committing to his contemporary, Caradoc of Llancarvan, the history of the subsequent Kings in Wales, as he does that of the Kings of the Saxons to William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, whom he advises to be silent concerning the Kings of the Britons, since they have not the book written in the British tongue (librum Britannici sermonis), which Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, brought out of Britanny (Britannia), and which being a true history, he has thus taken care to translate. William of Malmesbury's history is likewise dedicated to Robert, Earl of Gloucester, and is brought down to the 28th year of Henry I., or 1125, in which year it appears to have been written. Henry of Huntingdon's history of the English is dedicated to Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, and the first part terminates with the death of Henry I. in 1135, in which year it appears to have been written. Geoffrey must therefore have finished his translation, if his account be true, or compiled his work, if it is original, before these dates; but as in his epistle-dedicatory he invites his patron to correct his work, so as to make it more polished, it is possible that there may have been editions prior to the one finally given forth as the completed work, which this epistle and postscript accompanied.That there was such a person as Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, seems now admitted; but whether the talc of the Welsh book, brought from Britanny and translated into Latin, is a reality or one of those fictions occasionally prefixed to original works, is a question of very great difficulty; and it will be necessary to inquire whether any light is thrown upon it by the, Welsh versions termed Brut y Brenhinoedd, or the History of the Kings. Two of these versions are printed in the Myvyrian Archæology. The second is obviously a translation from the Latin edition, as we now have it, to which it closely adheres, and is there termed Brut Geoffrey ap Arthur. The first is said to be taken from the Red Book of Hergest; the narrative is shorter and simpler; the epistle-dedicatory is not prefixed to it, and it contains at the end of it this postscript, "I, Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, did turn this book out of Welsh (Cymraeg) into Latin; and in my old age I turned it a second time out of Latin into Welsh." The editor considers this version to be the original Welsh book brought by Walter the Archdeacon from Britanny; and conjecturing that it belongs to in earlier period, and may have been written by Tyssilio, son of Brochwael, who is said to have written a history and to have lived in the seventh century, he has without any authority termed it Brut Tyssilio. It is the text from which the Rev. Peter Roberts translated his English version termed The Chronicle of the Kings of Britain, translated from the Welsh copy attributed to Tyssilio, and published in 1811.Now, though the text of the so-called Brut Tyssilio is distinctly stated both by the editor of the Myvyrian Archæology and by Roberts to be taken from the Red Book of Hergest, no such text is to be found there. The text of the Brut y Brenhinoedd in the Red Book is the same as the second version termed Brut G. ap Arthur. There are two later MSS. in the library of Jesus College, containing a text similar to that of the Brut Tyssilio, and from which it was probably taken. They are exactly alike, but the one bears to have belonged to David Powell of Aberystwith in 1610, and is a MS. of that period, and the other to have been written by Hugh Jones, keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, in 1695, and seems to be a copy of it. Another copy is said to be preserved in the library at Downing in North Wales, having this note attached to it:--"Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, translated this part of the Chronicle from Latin into Welsh, and Edward Kyffin copied it for John Trevor of Trevalin, A.D. 1577;" and a copy is likewise contained in the Book of Basingwerk, the property of Thomas T. Griffith, Esq., Wrexham, which appears to be in thehandwriting of Guttyn Owain and to have been written in 1461. This is the oldest known transcript of this version of the Brut.In the British Museum (MS. Cott., Cleop. B. v.) there is a copy of the Brut which differs from this, but approaches more nearly to it than to the Brut G. ap Arthur. It has been written about the end of the thirteenth century, and it has the epistle-dedicatory, in which the book given by Walter is termed Llyvyr Cymraec, but in the postscript it is stated that the Cymraec book which Walter gave him had been translated by him from Latin into Cymraec, and again by Geoffrey from Cymraec into Latin. The text in the Red Book is, as I mentioned, closely allied to Geoffrey's Latin version, but there is no epistle-dedicatory, and the postscript here again varies from the others. It states that the book Walter had was a Breton book (llyfr Brvtvn) which he translated from Breton into Cymraeg (o Brytanec yg Kymraec), and which Geoffrey translated into Latin. The only other MSS. which have been accessible to me are those at Hengwrt. There are several copies, some complete and some imperfect, but only one that has the postscript. It is the same text, or nearly so, as that in the Red Book, but varies in the postscript. It states Walter's book to have been a Cymraec book, which he translated from Cymraec to Latin, and which Geoffrey likewise translated from Cymraec to Latin, and again from Latin to Cymraec.There are thus three different Welsh texts--one represented by the first text in the Myvyrian Archæology, by the two late copies in Jesus College, the Downing MS., and the Book of Basingwerk; a second by the Cottonian MS. in the British Museum; and a third by the second text in the Myvyrian Archæology, by the text in the Red Book of Hergest and the Hengwrt MS.; but all differ in the account given of the original MS. By one it is said to have been Latin, by another Cymraec, and by a third Breton. So far we may extricate some facts:--All the MSS. of the first text agree that it was a translation by Walter the Archdeacon from Latin to Welsh; on the authority of the Hengwrt MS., we may pronounce the third to be a translation into Welsh, by Geoffrey of Monmouth, of his Latin edition; the second text probably represents an intermediate stage of the work; all seem to imply that Walter's book was at all events in Latin before it reached Geoffrey; but whether the original was in, Breton, in Cymraec, or in Latin, or whether there ever was an original, there is certainly no text, either in Welsh or in Latin, which now represents it; and all of these texts must be placed in the first part of the twelfth century.The MSS. containing the Welsh versions usually have a translation into Welsh of the history of Troy, by Dares Phrygius, prefixed to it. Those which represent the first and second texts have a chronicle termed Brut y Saeson, annexed to it, which is expressly said by the Cotton MS. to be the work of Caradauc of Llancarvan, and gives a chronicle of events in the history of Wales, interspersed with notices of the Saxon history; but the text in the Red Book is followed by a chronicle containing the Welsh events only, and to which, in a later hand, the title Brut y Tywysogion has been attached.The Red Book of Hergest likewise contains the text of several prose tales and romances connected with the early history of Wales. They are eleven in number, and have been published, with an English translation, by Lady Charlotte Guest, in 1849, under the title of The Mabinogion, from the, Llyfr Coch o Hergest, and other ancient Welsh manuscripts, with an English translation and notes. It is justly remarked in the preface of this collection that "some have the character of chivalric romances, and others bear the impress of a far higher antiquity, both as regards the manners they depict and the style of language in which they are composed." So greatly do these Mabinogion differ in character, that they may be considered as forming two distinct classes; one of which generally celebrates heroes of the Arthurian cycle, while the other refers to persons and events of an earlier period, and it is not difficult to assign each tale to one or other of these two classes:--The Tale of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed.The Tale of Branwen, daughter of Llyr.The Tale of Manawyddan, the son of Llyr.The Tale of Math, son of Mathonwy.The Contention of Llud and Llevelys.The Story of Kilhwch and Olwen.The Dream of Rhonabwy.The Tale of the Lady of the Fountain.The Story of Peredur, son of Evrawc.The Story of Geraint, son of Erbin.The Dream of Macsen Guledig.Though the whole of these tales have been published under the title of Mabinogion, that name is applied in the Red Book solely to the first four, which form, in fact, one romance. The name of Arthur only occurs in the last two of this class, and it is in his earliest aspect. They are probably older than the Bruts as the substance of the tale called the Contention of Llud and Llevelys occurs in the earliest form of the Brut, and is omitted in the later.The tales included in the second class certainly belong to the full-blown Arthurian Romance.As early as the date of the Black Book of Caermarthen, some of the Welsh traditions appear under the form of short triads, and that MS. contains a fragment of what were probably the earliest--the Triads of the Horses. A MS. in the Hengwrt collection, which has apparently been written as far back as the year 1300, contains two sets of triads, one termed Trioedd arbenic--Chief or excellent Triads which are religious; and. another, called Trioedd Arthur ac gwyr--Triads of Arthur and his warriors. And in the Red Book of Hergest are two sets of triads, one called Trioedd ynys Brydain, or Triads of the Island of Britain, which contain these Triads of Arthur, with many others; and the other an enlarged edition of the Triads of the Horses. They are both published in the Myvyrian Archæology (vol. ii. p. 1); and to these may be added the Bonhed y Seint, or Genealogies of the Saints, which are usually found along with them.Such is a sketch of the literature of Wales subsequent to the twelfth century, of which we know something of the history; but a branch of its literature still remains to be noticed which has exercised a powerful influence upon the history of the country, the true source and history of which, however, is wrapped in obscurity and encompassed with doubt.One, of the editors of the Myvyrian Archæology, and a chief contributor of its contents, was Edward Williams, of Flimstone in Glamorgan. He maintained that there had existed at an early period, when bardism flourished as an institution of the country, four chairs or schools of bards, and that one of these chairs still remained--the chair of Glamorgan--of which he was himself the bardic president, and he adopted the bardic title of Iolo Morganwg. He declared that the succession of bards and bardic presidents could be traced back to 1300; that the traditions of bardism had been handed down by them in the chair of Glamorgan; that Llywelyn Sion, who was bardic president in 1580, and died in 1616, had reduced this system to writing under the title of the "Book of bardism, or the Druidism of the Bards of the Isle of Britain," which he professed to have compiled from old books in the collection of MSS. at Raglan Castle. Iolo Morganwg published, in 1794, his Poems, Lyric and Pastoral, in which he gave to the world some account of this system, and a work which he had prepared for the press, termed Cyfrinach Beirdd ynys Prydain, in the Welsh language and from the MS. of Llywelyn Sion, was published after his death by his son in 1829. A further instalment, termed Barddas, was printed, with a translation, for the Welsh, MS. Society in 1862.Among the contributions made by him to the documents printed in the Myvyrian Archæology, were the so-called Historical Triads (vol. ii. p. 5 7) which have been so much founded upon in writing Welsh history, and the Triads called the Wisdom of Catoc, (vol. iii. p. 1), and the Triads of the Bards of Britain and Institutes of the Bards of Dyfnwal Moelmud (vol. iii. pp. 199 and 283). A volume of documents prepared by him as an additional volume of the Myvyrian Archæology, was printed after his death, with a translation, for the Welsh MS. Society, in 1848, termed The Iolo Manuscripts.But the most important document which issued from him, and which has exercised the greatest influence on the popular views of Welsh literature, was the prose tale or Mabinogi, termed Hanes Taliessin, and containing the so-called personal history of that bard. A fragment of the Welsh text was given in the first volume of the Myvyrian Archæology; but the whole tale, with a translation, was published by Dr. Owen Pughe, in 18 33, in the Cambrian Quarterly Magazine (vol. v. p. 198). In his introductory remarks he states that the compiler, Hopkin Thomas Philip, wrote this piece about the year 1370. He lived in Morganwg or Glamorgan. The same tale was published by Lady Charlotte Guest in 1849, in the third volume of her Mabinogion; and she states that her copy was made up from two fragments--the one contained in a MS. of the library of the Welsh school in London, written in a modern hand, and dated in 1758; the other from a MS. belonging to Iolo Morganwg. The fragment in the Welsh school library was probably that printed in. the Myvyrian Archæology; and the MS. belonging to Iolo Morganwg, that used by Dr. Owen Pughe, as the latter states in his introductory remarks, "Of the narrative part but one version exists." Iolo Morganwg himself states that the romance entitled Hanes Taliessin--i.e. the history of Taliessin--was "written so late at least as the fourteenth, or rather the fifteenth, century," and that he used the expression fifteenth century in the loose sense of the century from 1500 to 1600 is plain, as he likewise states that Hopkin Thomas Philip flourished about 1560. This is the same Hopkin Thomas Philip who, Dr. Owen Pughe says, wrote it about 1370; but there is no real difference between them as to his true age, for in his Cambrian Biography, published in 1803, thirty years before, Dr. Owen Pughe, then Mr. William Owen, has the following: "Hopcin Thomas Phylip, a poet who flourished between A.D. 1590 and 1630." At that time, therefore, the compilation of the Hanes Taliessin was not placed further back than the end of the sixteenth or beginning of the seventeenth century. The prose narrative contains a number of poems stated to have been composed by Taliessin in connection with the events of his life, but these will be noticed when we come to deal with the poetry attributed to that bard.It is a peculiarity attaching to almost all of the documents which have emanated from the chair of Glamorgan, in other words, from Iolo Morganwg, that they are not to be found in any of the Welsh MSS. contained in other collections, and that they must be accepted on his authority alone. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to say that they must be viewed with some suspicion, and that very careful discrimination is required in the use of them.