Period, 700-950._--The higher criticism of the early poetry
of Wales contained in the four ancient manuscripts already mentioned has
undergone a good many changes since their contents first excited the
curiosity of English scholars. In turn Welshmen, with more zeal than
discretion, have displayed an amazing charlatanism in the extraordinary
theories which they put forth, and Englishmen have shown an utmost
meanness in belittling what is undoubtedly a most valuable monument of
the past. But now the labours of Zeuss and others who have made a study
of Celtic philology furnish us with much safer canons of criticism than
existed in 1849, when even a learned Welshman, the late Thomas Stephens,
who did more than any one else to establish the claims of his country to
a real literature, doubted the authenticity of a large number of the
poems said to have been written by Taliessin, Aneirin, Myrddin and
Llywarch Hen, who are supposed to have lived in the 5th century. A great
service was done to Welsh literature by the publication of the texts of
those poems from the four ancient manuscripts by W.F. Skene. In addition
to the text, translations of the poems were furnished by Dr Silvan Evans
and the Rev. Robert Williams, but the translation, though on the whole a
very creditable work, is full of mistakes which few men, writing at that
time, could have avoided. The publication of the text of the Black Book,
with notes by Dr Gwenogvryn Evans, will be of great service towards
clearing up the mist which envelops this older literature.

Most of the poems in these four manuscripts are attributed to four
poets, Aneirin, Llywarch Hen, Taliessin and Myrddin, who are said to
have lived and written in Cumbria or Y Gogledd, where the actors in the
events referred to also lived. The greater part of this region enjoyed
substantial independence down to the end of the 9th century, with the
exception of the interval from 655, when they were subjected to the
kingdom of Northumbria by Oswy after the defeat of Cadwallawn and Penda,
to the battle of Dunnichen in 686, when Ecfrid, king of Northumbria, was
defeated. From the 7th to the 9th century Cumbria, including under that
name all the British territory from the Ribble to the Clyde, was the
principal theatre of British and Saxon conflict. The rise of the dynasty
of Maelgwn Gwynedd, who, according to Welsh tradition, was a descendant
of Cunedda Wledig, one of the Picts of the north, brought Wales into