Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/35

 PEEFACE. xxvii also attached to the text in other Mss. ; but it appears that they had abeady existed prior to 858, as, in the edition of 858 by Nennius, they were rejected by him, while the genealogies and events recorded in them come no lower down than the year 738. There is therefore every reason to conclude that they belong to the edition of 796, if not to an earlier edition. Those parts of the genealogies which relate to that part of the Northumbrian kingdom, afterwards included within the limits of the king- dom of Scotland, are here inserted from the Harleian MS. in the extracts marked a and B. The chronicle marked c, from which extracts relating to events connected with Scotland are here printed, is the chronicle which, combined with two later chronicles, has been edited first by Mr. Petrie in his " Monu- " menta," and afterwards by Mr. Williams, under the title of " Annales Cambrise." It bears, in point of fact, no such title, and in its original form in the Harleian MS. is a true addition to the text of the " Historia Britonum." This is plain from a compari- son of the earlier part of the chronicle with the genealogies of the Saxons ; for the events there re- corded are likewise recorded in this chronicle, the names of the battles are the same, the same spell- ing of the proper names is preserved, and a pecu- liarity in the designation of one of the Northumbrian kings, Oswald, who in the " genealogia " alone of all the kings is termed " Eex Nordoram," appears in the chronicle where the same designation is applied to