The Historia Britonum was translated into Irish by Giollacaomhan, an Irish Sennachy, who died in 1072, and various Irish and Pictish additions were incorporated in the translation. The work, therefore, as it existed prior to the twelfth century, may be said to consist of six parts: First, The original nucleus of the work termed Historia Britonum; second, The Genealogia, added soon after 738; third, The Memorabilia; fourth, The Legends of St. Germanus and of St. Patrick, added by Marc in 823, the latter being merely attached to his edition, and incorporated in that of Nennius; fifth, The Chronicle and the Welsh genealogies, added in 977; and, sixth, The Irish and Pictish additions, by Giollacaomhan.* The MSS. of Nennius amount to twenty-eight in number; and of the later MSS. several seem to have been connected with Durham. To the monks of Durham many interpolations may be traced very similar to those in Gildas in some MSS. they are written on the margin, and in others incorporated into the text. Thus, when the Mare Fresicum is mentioned, the Durham commentator adds, "quod inter nos Scotosque est." The result of my study of this work is to place its authority higher than is usually done; and, used with care and with due regard to the alterations made from * The original work will be quoted under the title of the Historia Britonum, the second portion under that of the Genealogia, or both generally as Nennius, and the fifth as the Chronicle and Genealogies of The Irish Annals will be quoted from the Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, recently published, being the first of the series of Scottish Record publications. 977. time to time, I believe it to contain a valuable summary of early tradition, as well as fragments of real history, which are not to be found elsewhere. The third native authority prior to the twelfth century is The Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales. They were published by the Record Commission of England in 1841, and the oldest of them, the Laws of Howel dda, are of the tenth century. Such are the native materials upon which, along with the old Roman and Saxon authorities, any attempt to grasp the leading features of the early history of Wales must be based. CHAPTER IV. STATE OF THE COUNTRY IN THE SIXTH CENTURY, THE state of Wales and the distribution of the Cymric population, between the termination of the Roman dominion and the sixth century, so far as we can gather it from these ancient authorities, does not accord with what we should expect from the ordinary conception of the history of that period, but contrasts in many respects strangely with it. We are accustomed to regard the Cymric population as occupying Britain south of the wall between the Tyne and the Solway; as exposed to the incursions of the Picts and Scots from the country north of the wall, and inviting the Saxons to protect them from their ravages, who in turn take possession of the south of Britain, and drive the native population gradually back till they are confined to the mountainous region of Wales and to Cornwall. We should expect, therefore, to find Wales the stronghold of the Cymry and exclusively occupied by them; the Saxons in the centre of Britain, and the country north of the wall between the Tyne and Solway surrendered to the barbaric tribes of the Picts and Scots. The picture presented to us, when we can first survey the platform of these contending races, is something very different. We find the sea-board of Wales on the west in the occupation of the Gwyddyl or Gael, and the Cymry confined to the eastern part of Wales only, and placed between them and the Saxons. A line drawn from Conway on the north to Swansea on the south would separate the two races of the Gwyddyl and the Cymry, on the west and on the east. In North Wales, the Cymry possessing Powys, with the Gwyddyl in Gwynned and Mona or Anglesea; in South Wales, the Cymry possessing Gwent and Morganwg, with the Gwyddyl in Dyfed; and Brecknock occupied by the mysterious Brychan and his family. On the other hand, from the Dee and the Humber to the Firths of Forth and Clyde, we find the country almost entirely possessed by a Cymric population, where ultimately a powerful Cymric kingdom was formed; but this great spread of the Cymric population to the north not entirely unbroken. On the north of the Solway Firth, between the Nith and Lochryan, was Galloway with its Galwydel; in the centre the great wood, afterwards forming the forests of Ettrick and Selkirk and the district of Tweeddale, extending from the Ettrick to the range of the Pentland Hills, and north of that range, stretching to the river Carron, was the mysterious Manau Gododin with its Brithwyr. On the east coast, from the Tyne to the Esk, settlements of Saxons gradually encroaching on the Cymry. A very shrewd and sound writer, the Rev. W. Basil Jones, now Archdeacon of York, struck with this strange distribution of the population in Wales, has, in his essay, Vestiges of the Gael in Gwynedd, revived a theory first suggested by Edward Lhuyd that the Gael preceded the Cymry in the occupation of the whole of Britain, and that these Gael in the western districts of Wales were the remains of the original population, seen, as it were, in the act of departing from the country before the presence of the Cymry; but, though maintained with much ingenuity, it runs counter both to the traditions which indicate their presence and to the real probabilities of the case. Till the year 360 the Roman province extended to the northern wall which crossed the isthmus between the Forth and the Clyde, and the Cymric population was no doubt co-extensive; but in that year barbarian tribes broke into the province, which the Roman authors tell us consisted of the Picts, Scots, and Saxons, and, though driven back, renewed their incursions from time to time. The Saxons, of course, made their descents on the east coast, and Gildas tells us that the Picts came ab aquilone, the Scots a circione, implying that they came from different directions; while all authorities concur in making Ireland the head-quarters of the latter. The Saxons made their descents on the east coast, the Picts from the north, and the Scots from the west. Gildas tells us that the Picts finally occupied the country up to the southern wall pro indigenis, and settled down in the northern regions; and Nennius, in his account of the arrival of the Scots in Ireland, adds |