Welsh Journals

THE CEFN LLYS POEMS OF LEWIS GLYN COTHI By EVAN D. JONES, Deputy Keeper of Manuscripts and Records at the National Library of Wales. PENIARTH Manuscript 40 begins with four poems addressed to Ieuan ap Phylip, a constable of the castle of Cefn Llys, and Angharad his wife. The poems are not signed, but according to a rubric at the head of the second poem, they were composed and written by Lewys Glyn Cothi, a well-known fifteenth century Welsh bard. They are fol- lowed by a calendar, which is certainly written by the same hand. The main body of the manuscript consists of a text of the laws of Hywel Dda, ending with a transcript of a pleading in which the date of Christmas in the eighth year of Edward the Fourth (1468) is cited. The entire manu- script is said to be in the poet's autograph, but the appearance of a whole page of the text of the laws rather suggests a different hand from that which wrote the poems and calendar. It is, however, quite clear that the writing of the preliminary matter was an afterthought, and the parch- ment used for it is much thinner than that which was used for the main text. The poems are written on a gathering of two folded parchment membranes. The first two pages are blank. Poem I starts on page 3. Poem II follows on page 5, and is headed by a rubric and a shield of the arms of Ieuan ap Phylip. The arms are, quarterly, argent, a chevron sable between three boars heads couped of the second, and argent, a chevron sable between three ravens of the second, in the beak of each one ermine point. This was undoubtedly meant to be an introduction to the series of poems which had been composed years before they were copied into this manuscript. This transcript was made after Christmas, 1468, but the poems appear, from internal evidence, to have been composed not later than 1460. The underlying manuscript may have been Peniarth MS. 109, which is also in the bards autograph, and which contains the four poems. Poems II, III, and IV are grouped together in the same sequence in the latter manuscript, and Poem I is there placed apart among the awdlau. In transcribing these poems into a manuscript which belonged to Ieuan ap Phylip the bard may have overlooked the awdl until he had copied the three cywyddau. When he discovered the omission he turned the gathering inside out and wrote the awdl on the inner leaf, in order to give it the place of honour before the cywyddau. The text of the poems printed below is taken from Peniarth MS.40. Abbreviations have been extended within round, brackets, and capital letters have been substituted for the versals and the small letters of the original at the beginning of lines and in proper names. Letters and words