Regarding the genesis of the work and its purpose and methods, it is worth quoting the preface from G. Hartwell Jones (G. H. J.) in full:
“The publication of the translation from the middle of the eighth chapter of Purdan Padric onwards, for
which alone I am responsible, has been delayed owing to the serious difficulties encountered in its execution.
The text being in many places incomplete or inaccurate, especially in the earlier part, it was found necessary to collate Canon Willams' transcript with the manuscripts, which I was enabled to do hurriedly by the courtesy of W. R. M. Wynne, Esq., of Peniarth, or with other versions at tlie Bodleian and elsewhere, some of which I saw after the sheets had been printed off. By consulting the originals, from which these were translated in the first instauce, most of them in Latin, I have succeeded in conjecturing the first readings or tracing the growth of the mischief. These documents, written in various languages, I have discovered in English libraries or abroad, while engaged in other kinds of research. Still, many passages remain doubtful. Pages 453-6 inclusive, which were left unfinished by the late Canon Williams, have been collated with and corrected against the original MSS. by Mr. Egerton Phillimore.
A few notes have been added, but they deal with a few points only, since I have in my work chiefly followed Canon Williams in consulting rather the interests of the general reader than those versed in Old-Welsh, who will easily see why I have adopted a particular version, or how I have supplied lacunae.
The short accounts that precede them, indicating sources of information simply, with no pretence to being bibliographics, may prove useful to anyone who cares to investigate the history and variation of the tracts or legends.
It remains for me to thank Canon Silvan Evans, Egerton Phillimore, Esq., and Prof. Powel, in particular, for the assistance they have kindly rendered.
G. H. J.”
