File NLW Llyfr Aneirin (Cardiff MS 2.81) - Llyfr Aneirin

The inscriptions 'Guilim teu biau' (p. 14) and 'Guilim teu bieu y llyur hunn yma Amenn' (p. 20) testify to the possession of the manucript, [second half of the 15 cent.], by Gwilym Tew, a Glamorgan poet. His further attestation 'Nannmor biau hwnn yma' (p. 20) raises the possibility that the manuscript was owned and carried from North to South Wales, sometime during the second half of the 15 cent., by poet Dafydd Nanmor. Daniel Huws has identified three notes (on pp. 20 and 32) written by David Johns, vicar of Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd, [c. 1587], testifying to the return of the manuscript to North Wales during the 16 cent.; for its transcription by scribes in North-East Wales between 1587 and the end of the 16 cent., see Daniel Huws, 'Canu Aneirin: the other manuscripts', in Brynley F. Roberts (ed.), Early Welsh Poetry: studies in the Book of Aneirin (Aberystwyth, 1988), pp. 43-56 [pp. 45-47]. By the mid-17 cent. the manuscript was in Robert Vaughan’s library at Hengwrt, Merioneth, and was bound in leather covers before its inclusion in William Maurice's catalogue of 1658. The manuscript was transcribed and paginated in 1728 by Moses Williams (1685–1742) (his transcript is NLW, Llanstephan MS 32), and its significance was proclaimed by Ieuan Fardd in a letter, dated 1758, to Lewis Morris, see Hugh Owen (ed.), Additional Letters of the Morrises of Anglesey (1735-1786) (London, 1947-9), i, 349. According to Sharon Turner, A Vindication of the Genuineness of the Ancient British Poems of Aneurin, Taliesin, Llywarch Hen, and Merdhin (London, 1803), 29: 'It continued in the Hengurt library from the days of Lhwyd to our time, but within the last 20 years has disappeared from it.' Having been stolen from Hengwrt, the manuscript re-appeared in the hands of a 'Mr Davies of Llanvawr near Bala' in 1785, where it was transcribed by Richard Davies; see Daniel Huws, ibid., pp. 52-53. By c. 1807, it was back in South Wales, in the possession of Theophilus Jones (1759–1812) of Brecon, 'given me by Mr Thomas Bacon who bought it from a person at Aberdâr' (p. ii), and Jones gave the manuscript to Thomas Price ('Carnhuanawc', 1787–1848) who wrote his name, 1813, on p. iii. It was one of the items purchased from Carnhuanawc's library in 1861 by Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792–1872) of Middle Hill (p. i), from the collection of whom it was purchased by Cardiff Free Library in 1896.