Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/179

 v. FEB. 24, 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

143

Buried at the appointment of my executors. To Thomas Moyse my brother [sic] my best coat, doublet, hose, c. My sister, wife of said Thomas Moyse, my wife's best red petticoat, hat, and cape. To Thomas Caxton my uncle my next best pair of hosen. Elisabeth Colman, my wife's daughter, a pair of sheets, two pewter plates, a pewter dish, candlestick, one ewe and lamb. All other goods to my son Thomas when twenty ; but if dead before then without issue then to Thomas Moyse my brother [sic]. Executor William Croche, of Lydd, with Andrew Awkyn and Thomas Moyse overseers. Executor to receive the farm of my house and land until son Thomas is twenty, if he die before then, to Thomas Moyse my brother and to his heirs. Witnesses, John Forcet, clerk, Curate of New Romney ; George Holton, tailor ; John Johnson ; Robert Heth, shoemaker. (Probate 5 April, 1553.) Consistory, vol. xxv. fol. 14.

Thomas Caxton, who was town clerk of Lydd, in 1476 wrote out the * Customal of Lydd ' for which he was paid 13s. 4d. (Arch. Cantiana, vol. xiii. p, 254).

ARTHUR HUSSEY.

Tankerton-on-Sea, Kent.

MR. BRADLEY'S 'HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS IN SOUTH WALES.'

THIS very entertaining and attractive volume, although published more than two years ago, has only lately come into my hands. It would be a belated work of super erogation to praise it and its numerous pretty illustrations by Mr. F. L Griggs The parts of the country least well known to me personally namely, the border-land of Radnorshire, evidently familiar ground to Mr. Bradley, and Pembrokeshire, where he puts himself to a great extent under the guidance of George Owen, of Henllys, anc his descendant Dr. Henry Owen are excel lently done. The object of this note is to point out certain deficiencies which impair the value of the work as a trustworthy description of the land and its people at the commencement of the twentieth century.

There is an obvious straining after a light ness of touch to suit the supposed taste o the general reader, but at the same time Mr. Bradley hints that if a light touch is his foible, his forte is the craftmanship of the man who thoroughly knows the materia he works on. Among the very few pre decessors on the same ground that he single out for mention, Miss Braddon is noticec (p 33), and censured for calling Llandrindod "Llandrysack, and Abbey Cwmhir Loch withian, arrangements of letters that woul be quite impossible in Wales alone perhap of all his Majesty's home dominions." must confess that Miss Braddon is a lifelon^ favourite of mine, and a tu quoque to thi

ensure on a writer to whom I owe many lours of breathless pleasure may, I hope, be >ardoned me. For inaccuracy in the matter if Welsh words and place names is a very lisfiguring blot on Mr. Bradley's own work, pardon his "cowl" for cawl ("broth "), for ng. ow comes nearer in sound to Welsh aw han Eng. aw does. But that excuse does lot cover " cause bobl " (p. 51), for bobft poll} means "people/' not "toasted," and 'cheese" is caivs, not "cause." Again, the

Traitor of Builth" is not "Braddwr Buallt," but Bradior B. (p. 61). Indeed, the- writer seems to have been unable to grasp.

e simple fact of Welsh phonology that

. d is like Eng. d, but that W. dd is always sounded like Eng. th in " this." And so, while bradwr is misspelt "braddwr," Lland- dewi is, by way of recompense, invariably misspelt Llandewi. Another famous place- name, Pontrhydfendigeid (Bridge of the Blessed Ford), is disguised, wherever men- tioned, under the "impossible arrangement, of letters," Pontrhydfendigaiad (pp. 224, 225)* Another misspelling that grates on my own. ears is Castell Cerrig Cennin (lit. Leek Stones Castle) for Castell Carreg Cennen. (Castle of Cennen Rock). I am not sure that carrey, meaning rock, is as universally diffused throughout Wales as it is in the- sense of "stone." I have a suspicion that it is confined mainly to the "Goidhelic" districts. At all events, it is very common- in that sense in the immediate neighbour- hood of Carreg Cennen, e.g., Carreg Aman, Carreg Gwenlais, Carreg Sawdde (cf. the- Irish Carrick Fergus, Carrick-on-Suir, &c.). That will suffice, I think, in championship of Miss Braddon, and the numerous mistakes of this nature can easily be rectified in future editions.

But there is a more organic fault in the work, which I am afraid is beyond reach of" surgery or medicine, viz., the very slipshod treatment of Welsh superstitions and folk- lore The famous tale of Owen Lawgocb and his warriors, for instance, who lie asleep in Ogof y Ddinas, near Llandybie, has been recently investigated by Prof, llhys in his 'Welsh Folk-lore, 3 and that skilled student of medireval Welsh manuscripts and genea- logies, Mr. Edward Owen, and Mr. Llewelyn Williams have had occasion to deal with it in connexion with their elaborate efforts to identify Froissart's Y r uein de Galles. All this seems to have been more or less dimly known to Mr. Bradley, but he preferred to set down an absolutely impossible version of the tale, as lie " heard it told in Cardigan- shire." Ogor Dinas (should be Ogo'r Ddinas)-.