Cornish words, which places the composition in Cornish to the tenth century. Furthermore, the work is called “The Prophecy of Merlin,” while Geoffrey has a section entitled “The Prophecies of Merlin.” The only known copy of John of Cornwall’s manuscript is a fifteenth century one, dated 8 October 1474, and currently in the Vatican Library. [Merlini prophetica cum expositione Joannis Cornubensis. cod. membr. 8 Octob. 1474. Seac. XIV, Vatican Library. See also Spicilegium Vaticanum, Frauenfeld, 1838, p. 92; and Whitley Stokes, “Cornica,” Revue Celtique, vol. iii.]

Huarwar

[W] “The Hungry.” One of the three plagues of Cornwall.

Hy-Brasil

[I] See Breasal.

Hywel Dda, Laws of

The Welsh equivalent of the Brehon law system and the system of law under which the independent Welsh state was governed into medieval times. Hywell ap Cadell, called Dda, “the good,” ruled from about a.d. 910 to 950. He gave his name to the Welsh law system only because, during his reign, he decreed that the laws of Wales be gathered together in one unified code. The essential points of the record has Hywel summoning an assembly, consisting of the chief ecclesiastics together with six men from each local subdivision of the country, that discusses the laws for forty days. The result of the deliberations caused various changes and amendments to be made and then the revised laws were set down in writing and embodied in an authoritative book. This was done under the chairmanship of Blegwywrd, archdeacon of Llandaff, and thirteen scholars.

The laws survive in some seventy manuscripts, of which half date prior to the sixteenth century, the period when the law was actually practised. Two of the best studies on the laws are Aneurin Owen’s Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales, London, 1841 (two volumes), and The Laws of Hywel Dda (The Book of Blegwywrd), Melville Richards, Liverpool, 1954.