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the whereabouts of the far more famous Red Book of Hergest12 at this time? One possibility, given the fact that Neil Ker identified the hand of Sir John Prise in the annotations to the Red Book, is that both books were with the Prise family in Hereford, Dee's immediate destination. William Salesbury stated in 1565-68 that the Red Book had been with Sir Henry Sidney at Ludlow, and that it had been borrowed by Siancyn Gwyn of Llanidloes.13 Jenkyn Gwyn sent Dee a note about Welsh manuscripts in the possession of one Harry Johnson in Bedfordshire in 1577, and they are linked as the authors of some dismal doggerel on the origins of the Croft family of Herefordshire, in a manuscript now at Cardiff in the hand of Sion Dafydd Rhys (John Davies of Brecon, of whom more later). Against this otherwise promising theory is the fact that I have found no sign of Dee in the Red Book, and there is plenty in it to interest him. What he got from the White Book was mainly genealogical detail. A contents list of the White Book survives," and mentions no genealogies, but these may have been attached to texts of the Laws of Hywel Dda at the beginning of the book. There is no doubt about the next stage of his journey. 'At Herford M. Pryce Mayre used me curteously'. This was Gregory Prise, eldest son of Sir John (the scholar and collector of monastic manuscripts) and brother of Richard who had in the previous year, 1573, published their father's Defensio Historiae Britanmcae. Also there was 'My good cosen Joane Prise'. Whether he met then her lover and ultimate husband Thomas Jones of Tregaron Twm Shon Catti is not recorded, but he also became a cousin and remained a friend for many years.16 It seems that Dee did not leave Hereford empty-handed, pPrys Morgan, 'Glamorgan and the Red Book', Morgannwg, 22 (1978) 42-60. 13 This Jenkin Gwyn should be distinguished from John Gwyn (of Gwydir), d.1574 (see the Dictionary of Welsh Biography); he is perhaps also the John Gwyn mentioned in Dee's Diary for February 14, 1597. "Cardiff MS. 18. I owe my knowledge of this to Mr. Gerallt Harris. 15 J. E. Caerwyn Williams, 'Y Llyfr Gwyn o Hergest a Llanstephan 3', Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, 10 (1940), 120-24. 16 There are references to Jones in Dee's Private Diary (as edited by J. O. Halliwell, 1842) on 29 November 1579, 29 November and 6 December 1590 and 10 and 13 August 1596. He also noted on the flyleaf of Bodleian Library MS. Ashmole 487 (one of the sources for the Private Diarv) the nativities of Jones, Lammas Day or St. Lawrence's Day 1532, and of Joan Prise, 14 November 1542. If he was related to the Prises, it was only distantly. His pedigrees derive his descent from the princely lines of Elystan Glodrudd and Rhys ap Tewdwr, and against the former he wrote 'Cuius ex stirpe multi praeclari viri originem ducunt, praesertim Dee's, Tordee's, Prises de Radnorshr, Prises de nou Villa .1 Sir John Prise, however, came from Brecon.