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The Nine Huntings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2015

Extract

In his appendix (pages 84–5) to his Changes in the Fauna of Wales within Historic Times, Mr Colin Matheson, refers to ‘ the old Welsh text known as Y Naw Helwriaeth or The Nine Huntings [which] has been generally regarded as setting forth the hunting customs among the early Welsh ’. This text has been published in the Myvyrian Archaiology (2nd edition, pp. 872-3) and in Dr John Davies’s Dictionarium duplex (1632). Both these printed texts however differ in various details from the three known manuscript versions, and while the versions of two of the manuscripts are fairly similar, that of the third differs markedly from the other two. An edition with annotations in Welsh of the three manuscript texts was published (for the first time) by the present writer in 1933. It was thought that since the texts presented problems of interest to students of British history, a collated translation of the two texts together with a translation of the third, and differing, text would prove to be of value to those unacquainted with Welsh.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1934

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References

1 The writer is indebted for several suggestions to his colleagues, Mr Colin Matheson, Keeper of the Department of Zoology, Mr H. A. Hyde, Keeper of the Department of Botany, and Mr Alfred Thomas, taxidermist, in the National Museum of Wales. In the preparation of the texts, the valuable assistance of Mr G. J. Williams, University College, Cardiff, is gratefully acknowledged.

2 Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, VI, 301–12.Google Scholar

3 B.B.C.S, V, 2533.Google Scholar

4 The writer is indebted to Mr Ffransis G. Payne of the Carmarthen Museum for this second reference.

5 The History of Penbrokshire, completed May 1603.

6 Tours, II, 280.Google Scholar

7 Dictionary of Birds, 1896, 74.Google Scholar

8 Yapp, Jones and Johns, : ‘The Salt Marshes of the Dovey Estuary’, fournal of Ecology, 1917, 27103.Google ScholarYapp enquires whether ‘the living pine trees found onthe moor today are the lineal descendants of the ancient pines of the buried forest (in the Dovey estuary)’. The writer thanks Mr E. Price Evans for this reference.

9 Scotia Illustrata, 1684.

10 Saunders, and Clarke, , Manual of British Birds, 806.Google Scholar

11 Note the confusion here. The ‘common hunts’ and the ‘hunts with cries’ have been transposed.

12 This is a sly hit!

13 The reader should also consult John Lewis’sThe History of Great-Britain (London, 1729, but written a century earlier) where chapter XII deals with ‘the Hunting of the Britains’ in which The Nine Huntings is discussed.