Welsh Journals

BYE-GONES FOR i876. NOTES, QUERIES, and REPLIES on subjects interesting to Wales and The Borders will be thankfully received. Communications must be accompanied by name and address of sender, for insertion or otherwise. Authorities, where possible, must be quoted, with date and page of books from which extracts are taken. Great care will be taken of MSS., pamphlets, &c., sent for the purpose of making extracts. Communications for this column, and for this column only, tobeaddressed "Btegones, Croeswylan, Oswestry." The Column appears every Wednesday in the Oswestry Advertizer, and in the Cambrian News every Friday. BYE-GONES, with additions, are reprinted, quarterly, in magazine form. January 5, 1876, NOTES. YEW TREE AT GUILSFIELD.—Dr Ramage four years ago wrote in the Montgomeryshire Collections respecting the Vew Tree in Guilsfield Churchyard, with the grave stone beneath its branches. The epitaph has al¬ ready been given twice in Bye-gones (see Nov. 1, 1871, and July 15,1874), bat I must give it again to make my note coherent. " Here lyeth ye body of Richard Jones of Maysgwyn, gent., who was interred December ye 10th 1707, aged 90. " Under this yew tree Buried would hee bee For his father and hee Planted this yew tree." Reading this epitaph suggested to Dr Ramage that perhaps the age of the tree could be ascertained, so he made the fol¬ lowing calculations:— " Taking the dates on the tombstone we find Richard Jones, who was buried in 1707, at the age of 90, was born in 1617. If we assume that the tree was planted when he was a boy in 1627, this would give the age of the tree as two hundred and forty- four years in 1871." Singularly enough it entered into the head of a Mont¬ gomeryshire lady, forty years earlier, to make a similar cal¬ culation. Mrs Campbell, in her " Stories from the History of Wales," after giving the epitaph, says:— "Now if we suppose this Richard Jones to have been fourteen years old when he assisted his father in planting this yew tree, it would thus have been done in the year 1631, before bows and arrows were dis-used. And if the yew tree was ten years old when it was put in the ground, and they grow so slowly that it would then have been but a very small tree, it must at this pre¬ sent time (1833) be two hundred and twelve years old, yet it is not at all decayed." Thus according to Dr Ramage the tree would now (1876) be 249 years eld, and according to Mrs Campbell 255; the latter basing her calculations on the lad being 14 years old when he helped to plant the tree, and the former on his XXX being only 10 years old; and Mrs Campbell assuming that the tree was 10 years old when planted; Dr Ramage allowing nothing for age at all. G.G. A PRE-REFORMATION PRAYER.—The fol¬ lowing prayer is extracted from the ' Llyfr Huw Lleyn,' a MS. in the British Museum mostly in the hand¬ writing of Gutyn Owain, the Herald Bard of Basing- werk Abbey, author of a Chronicle of the History of Wales, and of several interesting poems still extant, many of which are found in the same volume (Add. MSS. 14,967) written with his own hand, as appears from the following postscript therein to the Life of S. Martin. " John Tre/or a droes y vuchedd hon o'r Uadin yn gymraec a'gutton owain A'i hysgrivenodd pann oedd oed Krist mil cccclxxxviij o vlynyddoedd yn amser hari seithved nid amgen y drydedd vlwyddyn o gorronedigaeth yr un harri." That is to say, " John Trevor turned this ' Life' from Latin into Welsh, and Gutyn Owain wrote it when the age of Christ was 1488 years in the time of Harry the Seventh, namely the third year from the Coronation of the said Harry." "O Henffych gwell Arglwydd Iesu Grist, gair y Tad, Mab y Forwyn, Oen Duw, Iechyd y byd, Abtrth cyseg- redig, Gair cnawd, ffynon o waredogrwydd, henffych gwell Arglwydd Iesu Grist, goleuad y Tad, moliant yr Engylion, gogoniant y Saint, golwg y Trugaredd, Dwyvoliaeth gyfan, gwir Ddyn Blodau a ffrwyth or Fam Wyryf! Henffy oh gwell Arglwydd Jesu Grist, goleuad y Tad, Ty wysog yr Heddwcb, Porth Nef, Esgor yWyry, Bara Byw, Llestyr o lendid I Hen¬ ffych gwell, Arglwydd Iesu Grist, Goleuad y Nef, dechrau byd i ni, [ein?] Llywenydd ni, Bywyd Engylion, Llywenydd kalon, brenin a phriawd o weryddawd (a)! Henffych gwell Arglwydd Iesu Grist, Ffordd aroleufawr, y Gwirionedd uchvyaf yn G[w]obrwy ni, y cywir Gariad, Efynon y cariad, Tyngnefedd a Melystra, yn Gorffwysfa ni dragwyddawl, a Bowyd heb orffenn, Arglwydd gwrando arnaf a deued fy lief attad ! ti Arglwydd Jessu Grist, yr hwn y kymeraist y kyssegredikaf Waed o fru y Wyry Arglwyddes Vair, a'r un rryw waed o'th Santeiddiaf ystlys yn llawr y groe[s] a ollyngaist dros yn Iechyt ni, ac yn y gwynvydedie Gnawd hwnnw A gyfodaist o veirw i vyw Ac a ysgynaist ar y nevoedd I A thrachevyn y devy i varnu ar vyw a meirw yn yr un rryw Gnawd hwnnw, ryddha vi drwy dy gyssegredickaf Gorff di yr hwnn ydd ydys yn i deimlaw ar yr allor yr awr honn o bob rryw aflendid Ennaid a chorff ac o bob rryw bechod drwc yr hon y sydd, ar hon a ddel rrac Haw ar hon a aeth ymaith. Amen, poed gwir. Pater Noster, Ave, Maria." TBANSLATION. " Hail, O Lord Jesus Christ, Word of the Father, Son of the Virgin, Lamb of God, Salvation of the world, Holy (a) Query for wjryfawd?