spouse of Tobit's son. From him the king ascertained where this wonderful worm was to be obtained. Following the demon's directions, Benaiah, one of the officers of the court, was sent to find the nest of the woodcock. This nest he covered with a glass vessel, enclosing the young birds beneath it. When the bird returned to her nest and was unable to lift the vessel, she straightway fetched the shamir with intent to drop it upon the glass and break it. Benaiah thereupon raised a loud shout, and frightened the bird so that it dropped the shamir, which the officer promptly pounced upon and carried off. This story passed from the Talmud into the Gesta Romanorum, where it was told of an ostrich, whose young the Emperor Diocletian had taken and enclosed in a vessel of glass. The bird broke the glass by means of a worm called thumare, and delivered her young.2

Another edition of the Gesta relates a tale, which it attributes to Pliny, of an eagle whose young a kind of serpent called Perna essayed to destroy. The serpent, finding that the nest was on a lofty rock beyond its reach, stationed itself to windward and emitted a large quantity of poison in order to infect the atmosphere and destroy the chickens. But the eagle fetched a peculiar stone called agate and placed it in the windward side of the nest, thus foiling her enemy.3 The agate, I may observe, is a stone which has often been credited with the power to countervail poison; and it may, therefore, though not named, be the stone indicated in the prescription before us. Mr. Baring Gould, who has collected a number of these stories, tells us that in Normandy, if you put out the eyes of a swallow's young, the parent bird will go in quest of a certain pebble which has the marvellous power of restoring sight to the blind. Having applied it, she will immediately endeavour to do away with the stone, that none

1 Proceedings of the Soc. of Bibl. Archæology, ix, p. 223. 2 Gesta Romanorum (Bohn's ed.), p. xxxvi.

3 Ibid., p. 72.

may discover it; but if you have taken the precaution of spreading a scarlet cloth below the nest she will mistake the cloth for fire, and drop the stone upon it. I have failed to trace the authority for this statement; but the writer tells us he also met with the superstition in Iceland. There, he assures us, the natives hard-boil a raven's egg and replace it in the nest. The raven restores the egg to its former condition by touching it with a black pebble, which also has such power that anyone who can possess himself of it will be able to walk invisible, to raise the dead, to cure disease, break bolts and bars, and last, but not least, provide himself with as much stockfish and corn-brandy as he may wish for.1

Akin to this belief is one that accords to certain animals the knowledge of herbs which heal wounds and bring the dead to life. Many interesting folk-tales are built upon the belief in this knowledge. It was known to Avicenna, a philosopher who is cited, though not on the point in question, by the compiler of John Jones' manuscript (s. 799). And generally, I may say, that the whole class of superstitions, of which the prescription against the dropsy is one, is rooted in a very ancient and widespread conviction of the supernatural powers of all the lower animals.

There are many other matters which remain to be discussed, such as days and seasons, the lucky and the unlucky, the treatment of virtues and vices, envy, chastity, and the like, various methods of prognosis, treatment by sympathy, etc., etc.; but I fear I have already detained you too long. I have not attempted anything like an exhaustive discussion of folk-lore in old Welsh medicine. Even if I wished to do so the materials for this purpose are as yet wanting. Only two Welsh manuscripts have been published, and these in by no means an accurate form, either as to text or translation. Mr. Gwenogfryn Evans informs me that there are at 1 Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, p. 398.

Peniarth five or six manuscripts of a medical nature, at least one of which belongs to the fourteenth century; and he conjectures the existence of others at Mostyn Hall and elsewhere. Until these are published, and Welsh manuscripts in general are calendared, we cannot hope to obtain anything like a complete view of the subject. Much, however, may be done to prepare the way by the collection from the mouths of the people of medical tradition. Many of you who can speak the Welsh tongue visit the land of your fathers from time to time, and, even without making a special business of gathering these old sayings and practices, you may often have an opportunity of picking up scraps of information. Many of you, too, are probably able to contribute from the stores of your own memories. All these shreds, however trivial they seem to be, should be preserved for future sifting by those who have been trained to the work. Notes and Queries, the Folk-lore Society, and doubtless this Society also, would be glad to aid in the work of preservation; and when in the fulness of time the Government shall come to the aid of individual exertion, and give to the world the treasures now buried in libraries not easy of access, it will be possible to render such an account of Welsh medicine as will be a most important contribution to the history of the evolution of human thought. Then, and not till then, shall we be able justly to compare the civilisation of the historic Welsh with that of their neighbours, to estimate how much they owe to classic inspiration or contemporary intercourse, and how much is veritably their own, derived from a long line of prehistoric ancestors, from the men of the barrows, the caves, or perchance of the riverdrift. Meanwhile, all that I have tried to do is to take a few, and a few only, of the salient features of this special subject as found in the two manuscripts published under the title of Meddygon Myddfai; and to illustrate some of them by

reference to archaic works of a similar character, in the hope of awakening some interest in a branch of the science of folk-lore hitherto, especially in Wales, somewhat neglected.

I cannot sit down without referring to the investigations of Dr. Rhys Griffiths of Cardiff, who, approaching the Meddygon Myddfai from the point of view of a medical man, has, in two papers (one contributed to The Red Dragon and the other lately read before the Cambrian Society), examined the scientific knowledge and skill displayed in the manuscripts, with most valuable results. I have to thank him for generous help of various kinds in the preparation of this lecture. But for his kindness this meagre attempt to draw your attention to some of the aspects of old Welsh medical folk-lore would have been still more imperfect.

259

OBSERVATIONS ON THE WELSH NOUNS, ADJECTIVES, AND ADVERBS.

BY MAX NETTLAU, PH.D.

[1] The study of Brythonic declension made very slow progress until it was discovered that certain plural terminations are in reality the suffixes of collective nouns, and that j under certain conditions of accent is liable to become d, as in Greek (Rev. Celt., ii, pp. 115 et seq.). Up to that time its results had been nearly limited to some very obvious identifications of plural endings, and the recognition of a few oblique cases in adverbial formulæ. Even since then the phenomena of Brythonic declension have seldom been regarded from any other point of view than the possibility of their throwing some light on the more carefully studied grammar of Irish. It is true that the materials afforded by existing dictionaries and grammars are quite insufficient for a history of any of the plural terminations, and that each individual word must in consequence be followed through the older stages of Welsh, Cornish, and Breton before any opinion can be formed upon it. Analogy was at work at a very early period, and in many later; and in a large number of cases has given the same word several plural forms, creating a difficulty which has been further enhanced by the position which different lexicographers have taken up with regard to these matters. The stems of a number of nouns have been ascertained with tolerable certainty, but nothing final can be undertaken without the publication of trustworthy editions of a much larger quantity of Middle-Welsh texts than is available at present, and the