Matheson Collection > Early Welsh gnomic poems

INTRODUCTION
in Peniarth MS. 102, pp. 5-6, written by Robert Vaughan
(1592-1666) and headed "allan o hen lyfr ar femrwn";
in British Museum Additional MS. 14873, p. 189, written
by Wm. Morris in 1739; and in Panton MS. 14, f.131,
written by Evan Evans (mid- eighteenth century). Aver-
sion is also found in Peniarth 27. ii, p. 89, written in the
last quarter of the fifteenth century perhaps by Guttyn
Owain,^ and is thus a much earlier MS. than any
of the others; but the text is somewhat different,
showing some oral and scribal variation from the other
versions and omitting stanzas 8, 9, 10, 12, 13 and 14
(its ninth stanza is the same as Bidiau 1.16) and adding
at the end the following verses which do not belong to
the Bidiau series :
O chlywy chwedyl bid hydaw dy vryd;
ysgafn gwaith gwarandaw ;
ys gwayth ail govyn arnaw.
Na vydd var-vynych, na chwenych gyfrdan;
na ogan yny bych;
kadw dy bwyll, twyll na chwenych.
The second is stanza 10 of the version of "Kyssul
Adaon" in Llanstephan MS. 27 (see Bull. 11, p. 121), but
is not in the BBC version. Though Peniarth 27 is so
much older the text is not so good as that in Peniarth
102, and some of the forms are later; hence I make
Peniarth 102 the basis of our text. Some of the gnomes
from both Bidiau poems are quoted in the list of
proverbs in Peniarth 17 ^ {c. 1250), which is thus a
very valuable source of early variants.
^ See J. G. Evans, Reports on MSS. in the Welsh La?iguage.
^ Ed. H. Lewis, Bull, iv, p.i.
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