{158a} B.M.—This abbreviation, which in every manuscript I have seen of Giraldus has been construed into _Beatam Mariam_, and in many of them is written _Beatam Virginem_, may with much greater propriety be applied to _Belinus Magnus_, or Beli the Great, a distinguished British King, to whom most of the British pedigrees ascended; and because his name occurred so frequently in them it was often written short, B.M., which some men, by mistake, interpret _Beata Maria_.—(Sir R. C. H.) {158b} Aberfraw, a small town at the conflux of the river Fraw and the sea, on the S.W. part of the isle of Anglesey, and twelve miles S.E. of Holyhead. {159a} A great lordship in Herefordshire, including the district between Hereford and Monmouth, bordering on the river Wye. {159b} Book ii. chapter i. {162a} Book ii. c. 4. {162b} If by the mountains of Eryri we are to understand the Snowdonian range of hills, our author has not been quite accurate in fixing the source of the river Dovy, which rises between Dynas-y-mowddu and Bala Lake, to the southward of Mount Arran: from whence it pursues its course to Mallwyd, and Machynlleth, below which place it becomes an estuary, and the boundary between North and South Wales. {162c} Our author is again incorrect in stating that the river Maw forms, by its course, the two tracts of sands called Traeth Mawr and Traeth Bychan. This river, from which Barmouth derives the name of Abermaw, and to which Giraldus, in the fifth chapter of the second book of his Itinerary, has given the epithet of _bifurcus_, runs far to the southward of either of the Traeths. The Traeth Mawr, or large sands, are formed by the impetuous torrents which descend from Snowdon by Beddgelert, and pass under the Devil’s Bridge at Pont Aberglasllyn, so called from the river Glasllyn; and the Traeth Bychan, or little sands, are formed by numerous streams which unite themselves in the vale of Festiniog, and become an æstuary near the village of Maentwrog. {165a} Better known as Geoffrey of Monmouth. {165b} The Anglo-Saxons called the Britons _Wealhas_, from a word in their own language, which signified literally foreigners; and hence we derive the modern name Welsh. {168} The Peak, in Derbyshire. {169a} Sir R. C. Hoare has altogether misunderstood the original here. It was the custom in the middle ages to place the guests at table in pairs, and each two persons ate out of one plate. Each couple was a _mess_. At a later period, among the great the mess consisted of four persons; but it appears that in Wales, at this time, it was formed of three guests. {169b} “Bread, called _Lagana_, was, I suppose, the sort of household bread, or thin cake baked on an iron plate, called a griddle (_gradell_), still common in Caermarthenshire, and called _Bara Llech_ and _Bara Llechan_, or griddle bread, from being so baked.”—Owen. “_Laganum_, a fritter or pancake, _Baranyiod_.”—_Lluyd_, _Archaiology_, p. 75.