Note 20 — TO THE READER.

Backgammon and dice.—These games, together with chess, were greatly in vogue in mediæval Wales, and are frequently alluded to in the Mabinogion and other early works. The four minor games or feats (gogampau) among the Welsh were playing the harp, chess, backgammon, and dice. The word “ffristial a disiau” are here rendered by the one word “dice”—ffristial meaning either the dice-box, or the game itself, and disiau, the dice.