the greatest difficulty that any particular one may be distinguished. Indeed, in the case of the majority of the MSS., it is impossible to do so. Moreover, by arranging the texts so that they fall into books, chapters, and sections, and by consequently attempting to bring them into harmony, the confusion becomes hopeless. The table of contents also and the indices are most jejune, misleading every beginner who takes up the book. There are besides other serious defects, so that, valuable as the work undoubtedly is, and great as is our indebtedness to this early and scholarly editor, it has become imperative that it should be done afresh. Until at least the oldest Latin law books and the best MSS. of the Books of Gwynedd and Blegywryd have been so reproduced with analytical summaries and indices that the reader may readily discover what they contain (a task here essayed with regard to the Book of Cyvnerth) the study of native Welsh law must suffer, and every treatise professing to deal with it as a whole must prove inopportune. It is not proposed, therefore, to deal with it here beyond what is attempted in the Glossary, mainly from the material afforded by the present text.
The Book of Cyvnerth, however, by itself is sufficient to provide the student with a door of entrance into the Welsh Dark Age. Remembering that it represents a late thirteenth-century form of Howel's codification of Welsh law and custom in the tenth century, he will enter safely into the midst of the social and political conditions of pre-Norman Wales. It befits him, however, to be wary, for he treads enchanted ground, and it will not be long before he meets Cadwaladr and Arthur and all the heroes
