              Copyright
Helen Forder
2004
|
| Notes from
Edward Jones's The Welsh
Bards |
1.
About the year 383, a hundred thousand Britons,
besides a numerous army of soldiers, followed the
emperor Maximus to Armorica now Bretagne
in France, which he conquered, and
placed Conan Meriadoc a British lord and
general, on the throne.
2. The Welsh nobles, who were
captives in the Tower of London (formerly called
the White Tower, and part of it now known by that
name), obtained permission that the contents of
their libraries should be sent them from Wales,
to amuse them in their solitude and confinement.
this was a frequent practice, so that in process
of time the Tower became the principal repository
of Welsh literature. Unfortunately for our
history and poetry, all the MSS. thus collected
were burnt by the villainy of one Scolan, of whom
nothing more is known.
Guto'r Glyn, an eminent bard of the
fifteenth century, has in one of his poems the
following passage: |
Llyfrau Cymru au
llofrudd
I'r Twr Gwyn aethant ar gudd
Ysceler oedd Yscolan
Fwrw'r twrr lyfrau i'r tan.
[The books
of Cymru, and their villainous destroyer,
Were concealed in the White Tower,
Cursed was the deed of Scolan,
Who committed them in a pile to the flames.] |
| Also during the insurrections of
Owen Glyndwr the MSS then extant of the
ancient British learning and poetry were so
scattered and destroyed "that there escaped
not one (as William Salisbury relates) that was
not incurably maimed, and irrecuperably torn and
mangled." |
| 3. The
university of Bangor-Is-Coed, founded by
Lucius king of Britain, was remarkable for its
valuable library. It continued 350 years, and
produced many learned men. Congellus, a holy man,
who died A.D. 530, changed the university into a
monastery, containing 2100 monks. At the
instigation of Austin the Monk, Ethelfred, king
of Northumberland, massacred twelve hundred of
the British clergy of this monastery: nine
hundred, who escaped, were afterwards slain by
pirates. This happened in the year 603. |
| return to MUSIC page |
|
