murderer, divided into nine degrees; his brother paying the greatest, and the ninth in relationship the least. The fine thus levied was in the same proportions distributed among the relations of the victim. A person beyond the ninth descent formed a new family; every family was represented by its elder, and these elders from every family were delegates to the national council."

GIVE ME YOUR SWORDS.-Page 21.

THIS modesty, in disclaiming praise, and attaching merit to others, was one of the most esteemed qualities of knighthood. Ste. Palaye quotes from Olivier de la Marche (Mém. i. 315), a contest of generosity somewhat similar to that between Owain and Gwalchmai. "Jacques de Lalain et Piétois, en 1450, ayant fait armes à pied, se renverserent lun sur l'autre ; ils furent relevés par les escortes et amenés aux juges qui les firent toucher ensemble en Signe de paix. Comme Lalain, par modestie, voulut envoyer son bracelet, suivant la convention faite pour le prix, Pietois déclara qu'ayant ete aussi bien que lui porté par terre, il se croiroit également obligé de lui donner le sien. Ce nouveau combat de politesse finit par ne plus parler de bracelet, et par former une etroite liaison d'amitié entre ces genereux ennemis."—(I. 150.)

BANQUET-Page 21.

A FEAST which took three years to prepare, and three months to consume, appears in our degenerate days as something quite enormous; but it is a trifle to what we read in another of the Mabinogion, where a party spend eighty years in listening to the songs of the birds of Rhianon, that charm away the remembrance of their sorrows.

A DAMSEL ENTERED, UPON A BAY HORSE.-Page 21.

THE custom of riding into a hall, while the Lord and his guests sat at meat, the memory of which is still preserved in the coronation ceremonials of this country, might be illustrated by innumerable passages of ancient Romance and History. But I shall content myself with a quotation from Chaucer's beautiful and half-told Tale of Cambuscan.

"And so befell that after the thridde cours
While that this king sit thus in his nobley,
Herking his ministralles hir thinges pley

Beforne him at his bord deliciously,

In at the halle dore al sodenly

Ther came a knight upon a stede of bras,
And in his hond a brod mirrour of glas;
Upon his thombe he had of gold a ring,
And by his side a naked swerd hanging:
And up he rideth to the highe bord.

In all the halle ne was ther spoke a word,
For mervaille of this knight; him to behold

Ful besily they waiten yong and old."-10,390-10,401.

AND ANOINT HIM WITH THIS BALSAM.-Page 22.

THE healing art was always confined to females in chivalric times, a principal part of whose education it formed, and to the wives and daughters of knights was confided the care of such as were sick or wounded. Of this, the instances are so numerous, that it is needless to adduce any here.

We find, from the English metrical version of this Tale, that the ointment here mentioned, was the gift of Morgant le sage, very probably the same as Morgan le fay, who was sister of King Arthur, and wife to Urien Rheged, and whose skill in magic was justly celebrated, as the adventure of the Manteau mal taillé will unfortunately prove.

WRESTED FROM HER BY A YOUNG EARL.-Page 23.

THE name of this invader is in Ywain and Gawin, "The ryche eryl, syr Alers,"-line 1871; and the "Cuens Alers," in the Chevalier au Lion.

A BEAUTIFUL BLACK STEED.-Page 24.

THE name of Owain's horse is recorded, with the epithet of "irrestrainable" (Anrheithfarch), but we cannot venture to affirm that the Carn Aflawg (or grasping-hoofed) of the Triads, was either the charger which he received from the Lady of the Castle, or that which met with so disastrous a fate at the falling of the portcullis.

WENT ON HIS WAY, AS BEFORE.-Page 25.

THE story of this adventure, as well as that of the fountain, appears to have been popular in the Principality, during the Middle Ages, as it is alluded to in an Ode addressed to Owain Glendower, by

Gruffydd Llwyd ab Davydd ab Einion, one of his Bards, about the year 1400.

Of this, the following translation is given in Jones's Welsh Bards, I. 41:

"On sea, on land, thou still didst brave
The dangerous cliff, and rapid wave;
Like Owain, who subdued the knight,
And the fell dragon put to flight,

Yon moss-grown fount beside;
The grim, black warrior of the flood,
The dragon, gorged with human blood,
The water's scaly pride."

STONE VAULT.-Page 25.

THIS part of the Tale is by no means clearly expressed, but it is evidently intended to be understood that Luned was incarcerated in a stone cell, near which Owain chanced to halt for the night. We subsequently find that he shut up the Lion in the same place, during his contest with Luned's persecutors.

A MONSTER.-Page 27.

THIS monster is in the English called "Harpyns of Mowntain," and he is, moreover, said to have been "a devil of mekil pryde." According to this and the French version, the good knight (who, it appears, had married a sister of Sir Gawain) was, originally, the father of "sex knyghts," two of whom Harpyns had already slain, while he threatened to put the remaining four to death, unless their sister was given "hym to wyve." The costume of the Harpyns and the four young men is very characteristic.

"With wreched ragges war thai kled
And fast bunden thus er thai led :
The geant was both large and lang,
And bar a lever of yren ful strang,
Tharwith he bet them bitterly,
Grete rewth it was to her tham cry,
Thai had no thing tham for to hyde.
A dwergh yode on the tother syde;
He bar a scowrge with cordes ten,
Thar-with he bet tha gentil men."

And further on, it is said of the giant,

"Al the armure he was yn

Was noght bot of a bul-skyn."

STATE OF STUPOR.-Page 29.

THE literal meaning of this passage is not advantageous to the fourand-twenty ladies, as it gives them a character for anything but sobriety. It is possible, however, that allusion is made to some act of necromancy (not by any means unusual in the old writers of romance), by which they were thrown into a state of insensibility.

HOSPICE.-Page 29.

SPYTTY. This term is derived from the Latin word Hospitium, and is used to designate those establishments which were erected and maintained by the monks for the reception of travellers. They bore some remote resemblance to our present inns, and were generally placed in secluded spots at a distance from any town. Several places in Wales retain the recollection of these hospitable institutions in the name they still bear, as Spytty Ivan, Spytty Cynvyn, &c.

RAVENS.-Page 30.

As some explanation of this strange expression, it may be noticed, that in another of the Mabinogion, called the "Dream of Rhonabwy," Owain is represented as having an army of Ravens in his service, which are engaged in combat with some of Arthur's attendants. But in that, as well as in the present Tale, the adventure is introduced with an abruptness that can only be accounted for by supposing that the story was well known, and that it formed a part of that great store of Romance which existed among the Welsh, and which furnished to the other nations of Europe the earliest materials of imaginative composition. This Raven Army of the Prince of Rheged has evidently a connection with the armorial bearings of that house already alluded to.

Mabinogion.

VERSIONS IN OTHER LANGUAGES

OF

THE TALE OF "THE LADY OF THE FOUNTAIN."

THE story of Owain and the Lady of the Fountain was very popular in the days of Chivalry, and we meet with it in many European languages besides the Welsh.

The English version, under the title of "Ywaine and Gawin" (derived from the French work of Chrestien de Troyes), was published by Ritson in the first volume of his Metrical Romances, from a MS. in the British Museum, supposed by him to be of the reign of Richard II.

Towards the end of the 12th century, the trouvère Chrestien de Troyes made Owain's adventures the subject of his metrical Romance of the "Cheualier au Lyon," which I have printed in the first edition of this work, and of which there are several MS. copies in the Bibliothèque Nationale.

Chrestien's French poem was turned into German verse by Hartmann von der Aue, a Meister-sänger of the end of the 12th or the beginning of the 13th century. Of this production many copies exist, that in the Library of the Vatican being considered by Tieck to be the oldest German MS. preserved there. It has appeared more than once in print, and is to be found in Professor Myller's Collection of Teutonic Romances, 2 vols. 4to., Berlin, 1784. It was also published by Michaeler in four small 8vo. volumes. Vienna, 1786.

Ulrich Fürterer, a Bavarian rhymer, who flourished in the later part of the 15th century, has likewise left a poem on the subject of Iwein, as one of an immense series of metrical compositions embracing the entire story of the Grail and the Round Table heroes.

In the Royal Library at Stockholm are preserved MS. versions of the Tale of "Ivain," both in the Danish and Swedish languages, and the British Museum, as well as the University Library of Copenhagen, possesses MSS. of the Icelandic "Ivent Saga."