clan*. 2. Betraying his lord, or a judge. 3. Killing a man through malice prepense. Each of these three forfeits his life, without redemption, and the descendants of each of them become foreigners, in the same state as other foreigners, before they enjoy any thing in right of the mother. 230. Three things indispensably necessary to law: that a law be valid by the enactment or confirmation of the country and lord; that there be a court, consisting of judge and assessors; and a record of its transactions. 231. The record of its transactions is of three kinds : poetry+; the book of the court; and a reciter of poetry: that is, a bard authorized by an instructor, and by his memory, as to subjects of knowledget. 232. Knowledge has three objects: to learn, to exclude error, and to settle what is disputed§. 233. The three requisites of a bardic instructor: genius, which is the gift of God; that he be taught by a (bardic) instructor; and that his office be duly conferred upon him by a decree of session. 234. Three ornaments to a township: a book, an instructor who recites poetry, and a smith who is a good artificer. 235. Three requisites to a winter habitation||: firing, clear water, and a shepherd of the township. 236. The three requisites to a summer habitation: a booth¶, a shepherd's dog, and a knife. 237. Three things necessary for one who makes a booth for a summer habitation: a roof-beam; forks to support the beam; and a pen for cattle or sheep**: such a person is free to cut wood from any trees that are growing. 238. Three species of trees that are not to be cut down without * This ought to be, more correctly, "his own lord and clan," which appears, from another part of the Welsh laws, to be the true meaning. It thus seems to imply a traitorous dissuasion of another country against an alliance with one's own, on any particular emergency."-ED. TR. + Cerdd davawd.-ED. TR. According to the Editors of the Archaiology, there is an error in this Triad: "the reciter of poetry" (gwybedydd o lin cerdd) being but another expression for poetry" before used. They therefore say, that the "record of a chief of clan and his elders" (cov pencenedyl a'i henuriaid) ought to supply the place of the tautologous part now inserted.-ED. TR. ་་ § Instead of knowledge," the translation of cov should have been "record," which, in reference to the preceding Triad, is obviously its signification. And, perhaps, "to convince" would be more appropriate than "to learn:" the original word is gwybyddu.-ED. TR. The word is hendrev, literally an old house, but supposed to be often used synonymously with gauavdy, and thus opposed to havotty, a summer residence. See "Leges Wallica," p. 399. Hendrev forms part of the names of many old mansions in Wales.-ED. TR. In the original, bwd.-ED. TR. ** The Welsh word is bangor, which is explained in Owen's Dictionary to mean "the upper row of rods, thicker than the rest, in a wattle fence, that strengthens or locks the inner parts together;" "and in high fences," it is added, "it was common to have two or three such plattings." And, according to the Laws of Hywel, it was necessary, from the first of November until the end of the winter, that the wattle the permission of the country or lord: oak, birch, and buckthorn. (Quære, service-tree* ?) 239. Three things requisite to a gentleman by descent: a tunic, a harp, and a cauldron, to be provided by a contribution. 240. Three requisites for a yeoman: a hearth-stone, a sword, and a trough; and he is to have a share of contribution+. 241. Three things that cannot be shared with another person: a sword, a knife, and a tunic. The owner may lawfully keep them to himself. 242. The three disturbances of landed property: a suit in court, the breaking of a plough, and the burning of a house. 243. The three powerful in the world, (that have little to fear in it): the lord, an idiot, and he that has nothing. 244. Three that are not liable to be driven by force or necessity into exile: a woman, a bard, and one who has no landed property; because that neither is compellable to the public service of the country, to put hand to the sword, or attend to the horn of war, or hue and cry. The bard has the privilege derived from God and his peace; his office is to attend to poetry, and no one ought to be liable to serve two officest. A woman is subject to her husband, who is her lord, and whose she is, and no one ought to deprive another of that which is his, whether it be a person or goods. The reason why one who has no landed property should not put his hand to the sword is, that it is not just he should lose life or limb for the sake of another, but be allowed his choice and preference. If, however, he takes the sword in hand, he is then termed feeble, (brydd,) and has the privilege of a brydd§. 245. A Welshman of genuine descent may in three ways lose his right of inheritance, and his national rights. 1. By withdrawing himself entirely to a foreign land. 2. By wholly adhering to a foreign force fighting against his own countrymen. 3. By giving himself up wholly to a predatory force of borderers, and that willingly, when he might have made his escape. 246. Three ways whereby a Welshman may recover his national rights and his land free after they had been forfeited. 1. By a complete return from a foreign land to his own. 2. By having lost all for the sake of his country or his countryman. 3. By wholly abandoning a depredatory (or hostile) foreign force, when he might otherwise have had property in land and privileges secured to him if he had fought with it. 247. There are three irrevocable quittances. 1. A female by fence of a barn should be secured with three of these bangorau. "Leges Wallica," p. 287. The word is said to be still in use in some parts of South Wales.-ED. TR. *In the original, rhavnwydden.-ED. TR. +Yn ddogned paladyr iddo is the original expression in this and the preceding Triad. -ED. TR. As to the bard's privilege and duties see two preceding Triads, pp. 104 and 114.-ED. TR. § The nature of this privilege is seen in Triad 198, suprà.-ED. TR. The original expression is Tri gargychwyn heb attychwel y sydd. Dr. Davies, dyn cargychwyn implies a man wandering about with his According to dray, or car; marriage, for she quits the privileges or rights of her own family, and acquires those of her husband, as approved of and established by the law, and is no more to re-assume the privileges or rights of her own family, and the law will not revoke what is done once with knowledge of the consequence (or knowingly). 2. One who, possessing hereditary land, and having gone to, and returned from, a foreign country, and recovered his land, goes determinately a second time to a foreign country. Such a person ought not in justice to return; and, if he does, his inheritance is not to be restored to him. The lord of the soil is to keep it in his charge till he learns to whom of the family it ought to go, and then give it to him. 3. An adopted son, whether received or rejected by the clan. By an adopted son is to be understood the son of another man, or a man's own son not born in wedlock, whom the adopter takes, according to law, into his clan, that he may be heir to the adopter. 248. There are three courts of country and law, distinct in jurisdiction and in form as to those who constitute a court*: one in Powys; one at Carleon on Usk, which is that of Glamorgan and Deheubarth, (the southern division); and one in Gwynedd. · But there is, moreover, one original consociate court, which is paramount over the three countries, viz. the general session of country and district, which determines by suffrage, in which alone laws can be enacted in Wales; that is to say, neither one nor other of those countries has a lawfully adjudged right to enact a law, unless in common consent with the others. According to the custom of Powys, the court consists of a mayor, chancellor, one judge, who is judge of the district, a clergyman, to write the pleas, and an apparitor; nor has it had any other officers by custom from beyond memory, or the tradition of the country, in Powys. The court of country and law in Gwynedd is thus constituted: viz. of the lord of the commot, unless the prince himself be present, the mayor, chancellor, judge of the district, the clergyman of Clynawg, or of Bangor, or of Penmôn, to write the pleas, and an apparitor. The court of South Wales (Deheubarth), commonly called the court of Caerleon on Uske, consists of the prince, or king, or, in his stead, when he is absent, of the lord of the hundred, or commot; the mayor, chancellor, the man of learning of the court, to write the pleas and records, an apparitor, and a number of assessors, who give verdict. In the southern division, Glanmorgan and Gwent, every legal head of family, possessing land, may be an assessor. and hence it has been applied to a stroller, or vagabond. The passage, however, in which the word occurs above, may be rendered, literally, "The three wanderings which have no return," which is synonymous with the expression adopted by the Translator.-ED. TR. The Welsh words are parth gorddawd ac ansawdd gwyr llys a'i swyddwyr.ED. TR. + The translation here ought to be" of assessors or judges," brawdwyr neu ynaid.-ED. TR. The number of assessors may be from seven to fourteen, one-andtwenty, or forty-nine; and their decision is called the verdict of the court. In Powys and Gwynedd there is but one judge of the district: in the southern division, which comprehends Cardigan, Dyyed (Pembrokeshire), Glamorgan, and Gwent (Monmouthshire), there is, by privilege, a number of assessors, in right of land and family, and no assessor or judge of district; and the assessors are appointed by silent vote of the elders and chief of clan. Moreover, it is said that these three may form a court in South Wales; viz. the king, or, in his stead, the lord of the commot, a chancellor, who is a learned man, and a number of assessors, one or other of the assessors acting as apparitor in the court, or it may be done by the chancellor himself*. SO END THE TRIADS OF DYVNWAL MOELMud†. * According to the Law Triads, the three supreme courts in Wales were those of Aberfraw, Dinevwr, and Mathraval. See Arch. of Wales, vol. iii. p. 335, and "Leges Wallica," p. 417.-ED. TR. + A doubt was expressed, in the first of these notes, as to the propriety of ascribing these Triads to Dyvnwal Moelmud. But this was merely meant in allusion to their present form, which, there is abundance of internal evidence to prove, must have been the work of a much later period. The fundamental principles, however, on which these interesting documents are founded, may reasonably be presumed to have been borrowed from the more ancient code of the celebrated legislator above mentioned, and of whose existence, some ages before the Christian era, the earliest Welsh annals speak in positive terms. Nor can it be deemed extraordinary, that his precepts should have descended to our times, when we reflect upon the peculiar advantages afforded, in this respect, by the Bardic or Druidical Institution, one of whose elementary maxims it was to preserve, by means of oral tradition, the memory of every thing that was worthy of being recorded.—ED. TR. THE TOPOGRAPHY OF MEIRION*. THE name of this county was, originally, only applied to the Cantrev, divided into the two comots of Tal-y-Bont and Ystum Anner, being a district comprehended between the rivers Dyvi and Maw. But, when Wales came under the jurisdiction of the crown of England, Ardudwy, Mawddwy, Penllyn, and Edeyrnion, were added to the former place, to constitute the present county, which the natives indifferently call by the names of Meirion and the plural Meirionydd; and from the latter is derived the English appellation of Merionethshire. Upon the authority of our ancient documents, the origin of the name of Meirion is traced to a chieftain so called, a descendant of Cunedda Wledig, who had the two districts above-mentioned assigned to him, when he and his brothers obtained lands in Wales, where the family had sought for refuge, after Cunedda, its head, had lost his territory in the north of England, owing to the ascendancy of the Saxon power there, at the close of the fifth century. Some old MSS. make Meirion to be the son of Tibion ab Cunedda; but, in "Bonedd y Saint," (The Genealogy of the Saints,) he is called the son of Owain Danwyn ab Einion Yrth ab Cuneddat. * The Society is indebted to a distinguished Welsh scholar (W. OWEN PUGHE, Esq. D.C.L.) for this topographical sketch of the county of Merioneth, which has the merit of having been drawn from that personal observation and those other authentic sources, which make its general accuracy unquestionable. In this respect, therefore, it cannot fail to be received as a valuable accession to the local history of the Principality. Should any historical or other remarks, of a particular nature, suggest themselves in connexion with any of the places mentioned in this " TOPOGRAPHY," we shall subjoin them by way of note.-ED. TR. + Arch. of Wales, vol. ii. p. 47. [See, also, the CAMBRO BRITON, vol. iii. p. 337. According to this authority Meirion was buried in Cantrev Meirion.-ED. TR.] |