In referring to the Cymric legends it is necessary to be careful as to the source from which they are derived. The literature of Wales has been unfortunately tainted to a large extent by spurious documents professing to be old, but in the main the creation of the eighteenth century, when a school of Welsh antiquaries existed, desirous of reproducing what they considered a sort of mystic Druidism supposed to have been handed down from pagan times by a successor of Baedi, and who were little scrupulous as to the means by which they promoted their object. Among the documents emerging from this school were the so-called Historical Triads, which the author rejects as spurious. A valuable and interesting work, the _Mabinogion_, by Lady Charlotte Guest, containing the ancient Welsh prose tales preserved in the Red Book of Hergest, unfortunately includes one of these spurious pieces, the Hanes Taliessin, among the genuine tales. The author announced in his _Four Ancient Books of Wales_ that this tale, though included in those said to be taken from the Red Book of Hergest, is not to be found in that MS., and is certainly a manufacture of the last century; while more spurious poems, attributed to Taliessin but not to be found in the Book of Taliessin, have been introduced into it, though not forming a part of it. He regrets to see that this spurious document is still included in the new edition of the _Mabinogion_ among the tales said to be taken from the Red Book of Hergest, as if the imposture had never been detected. It shows how difficult it is to purge the early historical literature of any country of such spurious matter when once it has been accepted as genuine. Footnote 111: _Four Ancient Books of Wales_, vol. i. p. 276. Footnote 112: Gildas, _Hist._ c. 25. Footnote 113: Nennius, _Hist._ c. 42. Footnote 114: Nennius, c. 56. Footnote 115: This document is printed with a translation in the _The Four Ancient Books of Wales_, vol. ii. p. 455. Footnote 116: See _Four Ancient Books of Wales_, vol. i. c. x., Cumbria, or the Men of the North, for a fuller account of these traditionary origins. Footnote 117: The modern Welsh antiquaries in general regard the Picts as belonging to the Cymric race and speaking a Welsh dialect, but in this they run counter to their own early traditions, for both in their old poems and in prose documents there is a consensus as to their being a foreign race to the Cymry, and belonging to the people termed by them Gwyddyl. In the poems they are usually termed Brithwyr and Peithwyr, but also Gwyddyl Ffichti; thus the early Pictish inhabitants of Bernicia are thus alluded to—