CERAINT VARDD GLAS,

OTHERWISE, Y Bardd Glas Keraint, seemingly the Glaskerion of Chaucer, has been supposed by some to be the same with Asser. The English of Y Bardd Glas Keraint, is Keraint the Blue Bard. Bardd glas, or blue bard, was a very common epithet of the chief, or presiding bard, who was always of the primitive order,—in Welsh, prifardd; he always wore an official robe of skyblue, or azure. The Welsh heraldic writers use the word asur for azure; hence, it is said, that he might have been bardd asur instead of bardd glas, as signifying precisely the same thing. In our old MS. memorials of bards, it is said that Bardd Glas Keraint was by Alfred invited to his court, where he was appointed Bardd Teliaw. This term never elsewhere occurs, and one knows not easily what to make of it. The literal English is Teliavian Bard, or bard of the Order of Teleavus, Teliavus, Telavius, or Theliaus, &c., for the name is very variously written in Welsh, Teilaw, and, in some MSS., Teliaw; hence it is inferred that Teleavian bard, or Bardd Teliaw, signifies a bishop. From this it is supposed that the Bard Keraint, and the Bishop Asser are one and the same. Bardd Teliaw, therefore, signifies a bard of the Order of St. Teliavus, or episcopal bard. To this may be added that, amongst the primitive Welsh Christians, the minister of religion retained the appellations, or titles, of bard and druid. St. Theliaus is called, by the continuators of Madeburg, Anglicus Vates de genere Bardorum, and Thelesinus Helius Vates, &c., ut supra. These are the considerations that afford reasons of some plausibility for supposing this bard to have been the same with Asserius the bishop. In objection to this it must be said that our Welsh historical and genealogical MS. accounts of Asser, assert him to have been the son of Tudwal, son of Roderic

the Great, terming Asser ddoeth ap Tudwal ap Rodri Mawr; Anglice, Asser the Wise, son of Tudwal, son of Roderic the Great; and they as expressly assert that Keraint the Blue Bard was the son of Owain, Prince of

Glamorgan, and brother of Morgan Hên, or Morgan Mwynfawr, (Morgan the Aged, or Morgan the Courteous,) prince of the same country. This being positive history, must, I think, take place of conjecture, however plausible it might appear from mere etymological similarities, and some tolerable analogies, which after all may be found to have not much greater weight than Swift's ludicrous and satirical proofs of the antiquity of the English language. As for the passage from the continuators of Madeburg, very little is to be depended upon it; it obviously mistakes Taliesin for Teilaw; or, if not so, it is well known that Teilaw was a bard, or poet, and we have some pieces in old MSS. still attributed to him. He was not necessarily a poet because he was a bishop, or a bishop because he was a bard. I see nothing unreasonable in the supposition that Alfred might engage a respectable bard from Wales to regulate and superintend his minstrels, as well as a classic scholar to preside at his new seminary of learning, or university; it is perfectly consistent with the character of that age, and of the Saxon nation, who, like all the other Gothic or Teutonic nations, had their scalds, or minstrels.

The conjecture is not ill founded that the Glaskerion of Chaucer, and the Bardd Glas Keraint of Welsh bardic history, were one and the same person. Chaucer, speaking of him, says,

... Stoden. . . . The castell all aboutin

Of all maner of MYNSTRALES

And JESTOURS that tellen tales

Both of wepyng and of game

And of all that longeth unto fame,

There herde I play on a harpe
That sowned both well and sharpe,

Hym ORPHEUS full craftily

And on his side fast by

Sat the Harper ORION;

And Eacides CHIRION,

And other Harpers many one,
And the BRITON GLASKERION."

CHAUCER, Third Boke of Fame.

2 c

SECOND SERIES, VOL. I.

He is otherwise called GLASGERION.-See a ballad of him in Dr. Percy's Reliques, iii. p. 43, last edition, in which it is said that he was a "king's son," therein coinciding with the Welsh account of BARDD GLAS CERAINT. K, or G, changes into G in most cases of the noun, and in compounds generally so, when it is radical in the last word forming the compound. Thus, Y Bardd Glasgeraint would in literal English be the Bard Keraint the Blue, or the Bard Blue Keraint. The English name Glasgerion differs not half so much from Glasgeraint as most Welsh names of persons and places, as generally written by Englishmen, do from their true orthography. The Welsh Bardd Glas Keraint, however, is recorded as the first of whom we have any memorial that compiled a Welsh grammar. He, it is also said, reduced the Welsh versification into a regular and improved system. Instances of very early and very high cultivation never, perhaps, more conspicuously appeared than in the Welsh versification. The most ancient kinds of Welsh verse, and such as are believed to have been those used in early ages by our first bards and Druids, are of very simple construction, and some of them sufficiently rude, evincing a very remote antiquity, such as bardic tradition generally assigns to them. In the fifth and sixth centuries. we find, in the works of Taliesin and his contemporaries, several kinds of verse, undoubtedly derived from the Romans; many new kinds appear successively for ages. About the end of the thirteenth century, and beginning of the fourteenth, the versification of the Welsh bards, numerous in their kinds and varieties, attained to a height of perfection that has not to this day been approached by any modern language in Europe. This will appear incredible, I know, to those who have, without knowing a word of the language, already formed their opinions on they know not what data. How would they laugh at an Otaheitean, or a Hottentot, who, not knowing a word of the English language, should ex cathedra presume to decide on a question of this nature; but let those who may doubt,-to doubt is allowable, indeed rational; let

those, I say, endeavour to acquire a competent knowledge of the Welsh language, and the works of its bards, and judge for themselves. In the meantime they will possibly have the goodness to inform me how and in what the poetry and versification of Owhyhee differs from that of the Esquimaux, for of these they are certainly equally capable of judging as they are of the British or Welsh language and versification. I know that they will not believe what is here asserted, and I know perfectly well why; because they know nothing at all of the matter. A man would shamefully degrade himself by complimenting such critics with any other kind of answer to their impertinent and presumptuous observations.

E. W.

ANCIENT SILURIA.

THE authority of cadair, or the bardic chair, of Morganwg, extended over the present Morganwg, including the commot of Garthmathrin, or Brecon, Gwent, or Monmouthshire, and Ergyng, Euas, and Ystrad Yw, partly in Herefordshire, and partly in Breconshire.

All this country, says Llewelyn Sion, a celebrated bard, who flourished about 1580, was of old called ESSYLLWG, and earlier still GWENT, including the Forest of Dean.

That it was anciently called EsSYLLWG (Siluria), is evident from what we find in the Roman writers, as well as in our own MSS. Caractacus is said to have been Prince of the Silurians. But that it was at that period also called GwENT, is likewise as clear from the Latin appellation, Venta Silurum, which occurs in the Roman writers. Both words in their etymological sense signify the same thing, or nearly so.

In the formation of substantives from adjectives in Welsh, one rule is to affix the letter t to words which have n for their last consonant, as in the words gwen, (fem.)

fair, cain, beautiful, bann, high, eurain, golden, urddain, noble, or having high rank or degree. If we were to add to these the t prepositive, we should have Gwent, the fair, caint, the beautiful, or beauty, bant, upland, euraint, gold (the colour), urddaint, nobility.

Essyllt is derived from syllt, the look, aspect, or countenance, enhanced by the prefix E. The termination wg signifies place, country or thing (res); and thus Essyllwg means the beautiful, the comely, the sightly, what is of pleasing aspect. Accordingly GWENT and ESSYLLWG appear to be synonymous, or nearly so.

There were three GWENTs in Britain in the time of the Romans: our present GWENT, Venta Silurum; VENTA ICENORUM, Lichfield; and VENTA BELGARUM, Winchester ; which still retains in part its ancient name.

That GWENT formerly included all Glamorgan is evident, not only from what Llewelyn Sion says, but also from many passages in ancient authors, which mention Landaff, Lancarfan, Miskin, Llandathan, Aber Barri, Llanffagan, &c., as in Gwent, though they are now all, and some of them very far, in Glamorgan.

The western, and by far the greater part of Glamorgan, was called Gorwennydd, and is still a deanery of Landaff; in English it is corruptly written Groneath. The meaning of Gorwennydd is the uttermost Gwent, or of the Gwents. The Cymric critic knows well that Gwennydd is the plural of Gwent, the t being changed in this case into an additional n, as it is regularly in all such words, -as in cant, punt, braint, tant, &c., which are in their plurals cannoedd, punnau, breinniau, tannau, &c. When the particle gor, upper or utter, is prefixed to any word that has g for its radical, as Gwent, plural Gwennydd, this is always and regularly omitted, or left out.

g

There is a place in this deanery of Gorwennydd called Penllwyn Gwent, i. e., the chief wood or forest of Gwent; it is an old manorial house. Gwenni, otherwise Y Wenni, an ancient and large village, with an old castle and monastery in ruins, is also in this deanery of Gorwennydd.

The inhabitants or tribes occupying the counties of