did, his Welsh tenant learnt to do. In Wales you get fierce frays and frequent shedding of blood; on the borders you get callous cruelty to a prisoner, or the disfiguring of dead bodies—even that of Simon de Montfort, the greatest statesman of the Middle Ages in England—on the battlefield when all passion was spent.
Take the rulers of Wales again. Griffith ap Conan and Llywelyn the Great had the energy and the foresight, though their sphere was so much smaller, of Henry II. And what English king, except Alfred,attracts one on account of lovableness of character as Owen Gwynedd and Owen Cyveiliog and the Lord Rees do?
When Edward entered into Snowdon, Welsh was spoken to the Dee and the Severn, and far beyond. There were many dialects, as there are still, though any two Welshmen could understand each other wherever they came from, with a little patience, as they can still. But there was also a literary language, and this was understood, if not spoken,by the chiefs all through the country. It was more like the Welsh spoken in mid-Wales—especially in the valley of the Dovey—than any other. There are many signs of civilisation; one of them is
