File NLW MS 10893E. - Barddoniaeth, etc.,

A seventeenth and early eighteenth century manuscript of Welsh and English poetry, medical recipes, prophecies attributed to Myrddin and Taliesin, triads, and later additions of a miscellaneous nature. The volume is in several hands, and some of the additions seem to be in the autograph of Richard Wiliams, soap boiler, of Abergavenny. According to a note on the cover (see 561, below) it belonged to the Catholic Chapel, Abergavenny, and much of the contents is of Catholic interest. The free-metre poems include a satire upon legal proceedings (in a mixture of Welsh and English), a dialogue in two hundred and twenty-three stanzas of 'triban' metre between a Catholic and a Protestant, a poem consoling members of the Holy Church in persecution, a poem in 'triban' metre by Henry Williams, a Christmas carol, and an elegy on the death of David Lewis, Catholic martyr, 1679. The poems in strict metres contain 'cywyddau' by Sion y Kent, Ievan Deylwyn, Lewis Glynn Kothi, Ievan Tew Brydydd, Robin Du o Fon, Rys Nanmor and others, and a number of 'englynion' in Welsh and English, including satires upon Puritans. The English poems include 'An Hymne on our Saviour Christ's Ascension' and 'An Epitaph vpon the Death of John Pym'. The miscellaneous material at the beginning of the volume includes material of Brecknockshire interest; a presentment of Popish recusants in Monkstreet ward in the town of Abergavenny, 1709; medical recipes; and a precept relating to the House of Correction in Brecknockshire, 1670.