Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/54

 xlvi ' PEEFACE. one combined with events in Saxon history, and called " Brut y Saeson," and the other containing purely Welsh events, to which the title of " Brut y " Tywysogion " has been given. The Welsh version in the Cottonian MS. (Cleopatra, B. v.) is followed by the former, that in the " Eed Book of Hergest" by the latter. The present Editor does not agree with the opinions of previous editors, that the "Brut y Saeson" was a bad copy of the " Brut y Tywysogion," which was afterwai'ds combined with the " Winchester " Annals" of Richard of Devizes. On the contrary, he thinks the " Brut y Saeson " the older of the two, and the original form- in which Caradoc composed his chi'onicle, and that the Saxon ev^ents have been omitted in the so-called " Brat y Tywysogion ;" but the events which relate to Scotland are the same in both, and therefore he has given under letter D the text from the Cottonian MS.,^ collated with that from the " Red Book of Hergest." Tract on the 14. Tract ON THE PiCTS. — Several of the Irish MSS. contain a tract termed the " Leabhar Gabhala, " or the Book of Conquests or Invasions." This tract contains an account of the wanderings of the Mile- sians, and their settlement in Ireland, and, in con- nexion with it, the Irish form of the Pictish ti'adition. One of the oldest mss. in which this tract appears, is ' In the preface to the " Mo-, a. xiv.) It may be as well to " niimenta," Mr. Diiffus Hardy I note here that this is a mistake. states in a note that a copy of | That MS. does not contain the the "Brut y Saeson" is also in I "Brut y Saeson," but a cojiy of another Cottonian sis. (Cleopatra, the laws of Hywcl dda. Picts.