H.^. \0 4<uÁ HoMUjfi^. î.>>^ "cK PUBLICATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER CELTIC SERIES No. I. An Introduction to Early Welsh Sherratt & Hughes Publishers to the Victoria University of Manchester Manchester: 34 Cross Street London: 33 Soho Square W. AN INTRODUCTION TO EARLY WELSH BY The Late JOHN STRACHAN, LL.D., Professor of Greek and Lecturer in Celtic in the University of Manchester MANCHESTER At the University Press 1909 Univehsity of Manchester Publications No. XL. PREFACE This book is the outcome of the courses of lectures on Welsh grammar and literature given by the late Pro- fessor Strachan at the University of Manchester during the sessions 1905-6 and 1906-7. Indeed, the Grammar is in the main an expansion of notes made for these lectures. For the numerous quotations from early Welsh literature contained in the Grammar, as well as for the Reader, Strachan made use not only of published texts, notably those edited by Sir John Rhys and Dr. J. Gwenogvryn Evans, but also of photographs specially taken for the purpose, and of advance proofs of the edition of the White Book and of the photographic facsimile of the Black Book of Chirk, about to be published by Dr. Evans, both of which were lent by him to Strachan. The Reader includes Middle Welsh Texts selected as likely to be of most value for illustration or of special interest. The very valuable work done by Dr. Evans in relation to these texts was of the greatest assistance to Professor Strachan, and as an expression of gratitude for the help thus given, as well as in recognition of the services rendered to Welsh scholarship by Dr. Evans, it was the intention of the author to dedicate his book to him. The idea of working up his notes into a book that might serve as an introduction to the study of older Welsh seems first to have occurred to Strachan in the spring of 1907. On the fifth of April he wrote to Mr. R. I. Best, the Secretary of the School of Irish " Learning in Dublin : I have been thinking of drawing up a little primer of Early Welsh. With that the language of Middle-Welsh prose should be child's play vi PREFACE to learn. However, that may or may not come off." And to his old friend Dr. P. Giles of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he wrote on the same day : " I think I must draw up and print outlines of Middle-Welsh grammar. I cannot well teach without some book, and the beginner is lost in the wilderness of the Grammatica Celtica." His original intention evidently was to publish a mere sketch of the grammar, somewhat like his Old-Irish Paradigms. But at the suggestion of his friend and colleague, Professor T. F. Tout, he decided to expand the Grammar on the larger and fuller lines of the present volume. At the same time the plan of adding a Reader of excerpts from mediaeval Welsh literature took concrete shape in the course of conversations and correspondence with Dr. Evans. On both these tasks he began to work during the Summer Term of 1907. With what amazing rapidity he must have toiled to have all but completed the work by the end of the following August ! Giving up a visit to Germany to which he had long been looking forward, he devoted the whole long vacation to the preparation and printing of his book. At the moment of his death, on the 25th of September, both the Grammar and Reader were in type, and he had read a first, and in some cases a second, proof. Writing to Professor Thurneysen a week before his death, he says that he had then only the notes and vocabulary to add. After Professor Strachan's death, at the request of the Publications Committee of the Manchester University, Professor Kuno Meyer of the University of Liverpool kindly undertook the task of reading final proofs of the Grammar and Reader, and of adding a Glossary, an Index and a list of contents. In this task, which involved very considerable labour, he obtained the assistance of Mr. Timothy Lewis, who had worked for two years under Professor Strachan, and who returned — ; PREFACE vii from Berlin whither he had gone to continue his studies with Professor Zimmer, and devoted the winter to help with the completion of the book. Mr. Lewis verified the quotations in the Grammar where this was possible drew up the Glossary, prepared the Index, and revised proofs. An old student of Professor Meyer's, the Rev. Owen Eilian Owen, placed his collection of Old and Middle-Welsh words at his disposal for the elucidation of rare and difficult vocables, while both Mr. Owen and Mr. J. Glyn Davies read proofs of the whole book, many valuable suggestions being due to them. But Professor Meyer and Mr. Lewis are solely responsible for the Glossary. There can be no doubt that if Strachan had lived to complete the book himself, he would have made alterations and additions in several places both in the Grammar and Reader, and would have still further normalised the spelling in his critical versions of sections IV. and V. in the Reader. It will be observed that his treatment of the texts varies greatly. Except in the sections just mentioned, he does not seem to have aimed so much at the construction of a critical text as at the presentation of a clear, precise, and intelligible version, which would at the same time serve to introduce the student to the characteristic features of Middle Welsh orthography. In the Corrigenda some necessary emendations^ have been indicated by Professor Meyer 1. From a collation of the poems printed from the Red Book with the original, it appears that the following corrections should be made : P. 233, 1. 4, Jor dOg read döng ib., 1. 19, for aghaeat read agkaeat P. 235, 1. 29. /or gOawr ?-mrfgOaör P. 236, 1. 2, for can read kan P. 237, 1. 22, /or uvulldaOt read uvulltaot P. 238, 1. 9, /or dyrnaöt read dyrnnaOt ib., 1. 11, /or diffirth read diftyrth ib., 1. 18, for vedissyawt read vedyssyaOt ib., 1. 20, for adueil read atueil viii PREFACE who has also added some further variants (marked a, b, &c.) in the foot-notes. Strachan had left behind no material for the Glossary except a first rough list of words. In drawing it up use was made of a letter to Thurneysen, in which he expressed his intention to arrange the words according to their actual sounds. His only doubts were about the phonetic value of final c, t, . On this point he wrote : "Of course final b is common, also certain of my texts write d for d. But none of them have g for final ^." In accordance with modern pronunciation, Professor Meyer considered it desirable to substitute the letter g, though the period at which final c became voiced has not yet been established. No notes to the texts were found among Strachan's papers. He had brought back from Peniarth, from MSS. No. 22, 44, 45, and 46, a large number of variants to the Story of Lear and that of Arthur, which he would no doubt have used for his notes. Those to Lear have been printed in an Appendix ; but the Peniarth versions of Arthur seem to differ so much from those of the Red Book and the Additional MS. 19,709 that they would have to be printed in full. Since the great work of Zeuss, this is the first attempt to write a grammar of Early Welsh on historical principles. It was the hope of the author expressed in letters to friends that his work would stir up Welsh scholars to investigate more thoroughly than they have done hitherto the history of their language. But no one was more conscious of the gaps still left by his work than Strachan himself. " It is only a beginning," he wrote to Thurneysen. " I hope people will make some allowance for the difficulties of the work and the scanty amount of trustworthy material. One is continually finding out something new." References to the need of further investigation will be found in many places throughout the Grammar. His own discoveries PREFACE ix of the functions of ry, of the relative forms of the verb, and his account of the uses of the verbal prefixes a and yS point out the way to future investigators in this neglected field of research. To these discoveries he was led by his unrivalled knowledge of Irish grammar, so intimately connected in its origins with that of Welsh that he believed no true progress possible without their parallel study. " It is absurd to think," he once wrote to Mr. Best, " that either branch of Celtic can be satisfactorily studied apart from the other;" and to Mr. Giles: "Without the knowledge of Irish early Welsh grammar is rather like a book sealed with seven seals." The circumstances under which this book has been produced having been thus indicated, it remains to express acknowledgement of the work of the scholars who have contributed towards the result : first to those whose assistance to Professor Strachan in his lifetime in he would specially have desired to recognise ; particular to Dr. Evans who furnished the editions both published and unpublished of the Welsh texts which were used in compiling the Reader ; to the late Mr. Wynne of Peniarth who freely gave access to the MSS. in his possession; and to Sir John Rhys (joint editor of the Red Book and of other texts) and to the Fellows of Jesus College, Oxford, who afforded every facility in their power; secondly to those who since the author's death have enabled his work to be presented to the public, especially to Professor Tout who initiated the idea of preparing the book for publication and undertook the arrangements for it; to Professor Kuno Meyer, whose long and intimate association with Strachan in his Celtic studies specially fitted him to undertake the duty of revising the whole work and seeing it through the press; to Mr.