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THE AGE OF CHIVALRY.

PART II.

THE MAB'I-NO'GE-ON.

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The Britons-Welsh Literature-The Welsh BardsThe Triads.

The Britons.

THE earliest inhabitants of Britain are supposed to have been a branch of that great family known in history as Celts. Cambria, which is a frequent name for Wales, is thought to be derived from Cymri, the name which the Welsh traditions apply to an immigrant people who entered the island from the adjacent continent. This name is thought to be identical with those of Cimmerians and Cimbri, under which the Greek and Roman historians describe a barbarous people, who spread themselves from the north of the Euxine over the whole of Northwestern Europe.

The origin of the names Wales and Welsh has been much canvassed. Some writers make them a derivation from Gael or Gaul, which names are said to signify "woodlanders ;" others observe that Walsh, in the Northern languages, signifies a stranger, and that the aboriginal Britains were so called by those who at a later year invaded the island and possessed the greater part of it, the Saxons and Angles.

The Romans held Britain from the invasion of Julius Cæsar until the year four hundred and twenty,-that is, about five hundred years. In that time there must have been a wide diffusion

of their arts and institutions among the natives. The remains of roads, cities and fortifications show that they did much to develop and improve the country, while those of their villas and castles prove that many of the settlers possessed wealth and taste for the ornamental arts. Yet the Roman sway was sustained chiefly by force, and never extended over the entire island. The northern portion, now Scotland, remained independent, and the western portion, constituting Wales and Cornwall, was only nominally subjected.

Neither did the later invading hordes succeed in subduing the remoter sections of the island. For ages after the arrival of the Saxons under Hengist and Horsa, about the year four hundred and forty nine, the whole western coast of Britain was possessed by the aboriginal inhabitants, engaged in constant warfare with the invaders.

It has, therefore, been a favorite boast of the people of Wales and Cornwall, that the original British stock flourishes in its unmixed purity only among them. We see this notion flashing out in poetry occasionally, as when Gray, in "The Bard," prophetically describing Queen Elizabeth, who was of the Tudor, a Welsh race, says:

"Her eye proclaims her of the Britain line;"

and, contrasting the princes of the Tudor with those of the Norman race, he exclaims:

"All hail, ye genuine kings, Britannia's issue, hail!"

The Welsh Language and Literature.

The Welsh language is one of the oldest in Europe. It possesses poems the origin of which is referred with probability to the sixth century. The language of some of these is so antiquated, that the best scholars differ about the interpretation of many passages; but, generally speaking, the body of poetry which the Welsh possess, from the year one thousand downwards, is intelligible to those who are acquainted with the modern language.

Till within the last ninety years these compositions remained buried in the libraries of colleges or of individuals, and so diffi

cult of access that no successful attempt was made to give them to the world. This reproach was removed, after ineffectual appeals to the patriotism of the gentry of Wales, by Owen Jones, a furrier of London, who at his own expense collected and published the chief productions of Welsh literature, under the title of the Myvyrian Archæology of Wales. In this task he was assisted by Dr. Owen and other Welsh scholars.

After the cessation of Jones's exertions, the old apathy returned. Dr. Owen exerted himself to obtain support for the publication of the Mabinogeon or Prose Tales of the Welsh, but died without accomplishing his purpose, which has since been carried into execution by Lady Charlotte Guest. The legends which fill the remainder of this volume are taken from this work, of which we have already spoken more fully in the introductory chapter to the First Part.

are so.

The Welsh Bards.

The authors to whom the oldest Welsh poems are attributed are Aneurin, who is supposed to have lived about the middle of the sixth century, and Taliesin, Llywarch Hen (Llywarch the Aged), and Myrddin or Merlin, who were a few years later. The authenticity of the poems which bear their names has been assailed, and it is still an open question how many and which of them are authentic, though it is hardly to be doubted that some The poem of Aneurin entitled the "Gododin" bears very strong marks of authenticity. Aneurin was one of the Northern Britons, who have left to that part of the district they inhabited the name of Cumberland, or Land of the Cymri. this poem he laments the defeat of his countrymen by the Saxons at the battle of Cattraeth, in consequence of having partaken too freely of the mead before joining in combat. The bard himself and two of his fellow-warriors were all who escaped from the field. A portion of this poem has been translated by Gray, of which the following is an extract :

"To Cattraeth's vale, in glittering row,

Twice two hundred warriors go;

Every warrior's manly neck

Chains of regal honor deck,

Wreathed in many a golden link ;

In

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