Note 110 — Chapter III · LEGENDARY ORIGINS.

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.