Welsh Journals

(g mepBR DerBion of (Ot *irt$ of QMur* By J. H. DAVIES, M.A. The following version of the Birth of Arthur and the Ordeal of the Sword is taken from a fifteenth century MS. written on vellum, now at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth (Llanstephan MS. 201). The manu- script was purchased by Sir John Williams many years ago, but there is nothing to indicate its past history. It measures 51 in. by 4 in., and contains twenty pages. It is bound in a vellum cover. Though the manuscript starts in the middle of a line, it is probably quite complete, as there are no missing pages traceable. Pages 1-2 and 19-20 form one leaf inside which the rest of the manuscript has been sewn. As the transcript ends on p. 19, and p. 20 is blank, it is natural to conclude that there never was a page preceding p. 1. It is not unlikely that the scribe was copying from an older manuscript, which was either incomplete or undecipherable, and it is possible that John Jones also copied his transcript (mentioned below) from the same original. John Jones of Gellilyfdy made a copy of the text, which is now in Peniarth MS. 215, pp. 317-348, in 1611. If he copied this manuscript, he was responsible in all probability'for the gall stains with which it is covered. A fragment of the text is also to be found in Llanstephan MS. 4, fol. 505. This fragment corresponds with the last fourteen lines of our text. On examination of Llanstephan MS. 4, it becomes apparent that it was written in the fourteenth century, and according to Dr. Gwenogvryn Evans the writing resembles that of much of the Red