Sharon Turner and Sir Walter Scott also expressed a similar wish for the publication of the Welsh manuscripts.  The former took part in an attempt to effect it, through the instrumentality of a Mr. Owen, a Welshman, but, we judge, by what Southey says of him, imperfectly acquainted with English.  Southey’s language is “William Owen lent me three parts of the Mabinogeon, delightfully translated into so Welsh an idiom and syntax that such a translation is as instructive as an original.”  In another letter he adds, “Let Sharon make his language grammatical, but not alter their idiom in the slightest point.”

It is probable Mr. Owen did not proceed far in an undertaking which, so executed, could expect but little popular patronage.  It was not till an individual should appear possessed of the requisite knowledge of the two languages, of enthusiasm sufficient for the task, and of pecuniary resources sufficient to be independent of the booksellers and of the reading public, that such a work could be confidently expected.  Such an individual has, since Southey’s day and Scott’s, appeared in the person of Lady Charlotte Guest, an English lady united to a gentleman of property in Wales, who, having acquired the language of the principality, and become enthusiastically fond of its literary treasures, has given them to the English reader, in a dress which the printer’s and the engraver’s arts have done their best to adorn.  In four royal octavo volumes containing the Welsh originals, the translation, and ample illustrations from French, German, and other contemporary and affiliated literature, the Mabinogeon is spread before us.  To the antiquarian and the student of language and ethnology an invaluable treasure, it yet can hardly in such a form win its way to popular acquaintance.  We claim no other merit than that of bringing it to the knowledge of our readers, of abridging its details, of selecting its most attractive portions, and of faithfully preserving throughout the style in which Lady Guest has clothed her legends.  For this service we hope that our readers will confess we have laid them under no light obligation.

CHAPTER I

THE BRITONS

The earliest inhabitants of Britain are supposed to have been a branch of that great family known in history by the designation of Celts.  Cambria, which is a frequent name for Wales, is thought to be derived from Cymri, the name which the Welsh traditions apply to an immigrant people who entered the island from the adjacent continent.  This name is thought to be identical with those of Cimmerians and Cimbri, under which the Greek and Roman historians describe a barbarous people, who spread themselves from the north of the Euxine over the whole of Northwestern Europe.

The origin of the names Wales and Welsh has been much canvassed.  Some writers make them a derivation from Gael or Gaul, which names are said to signify “woodlanders;” others observe that Walsh, in the northern languages, signifies a stranger, and that the aboriginal Britons were so called by those who at a later era invaded the island and possessed the greater part of it, the Saxons and Angles.