Chapter I: Preface

AT the National Eisteddfod of 1893, a prize was offered by Mr. Lascelles Carr, of the _Western Mail_, for the best translation of Ellis Wynne’s _Vision of Hell_. The Adjudicators (Dean Howell and the Rev. G. Hartwell Jones, M.A.), awarded the prize for the translation which is comprised in the present volume. The remaining Visions were subsequently rendered into English, and the complete work is now published in the hope that it may prove useful to those readers, who, being unacquainted with the Welsh language, yet desire to obtain some knowledge of its literature.

My best thanks are due to the Rev. J. W. Wynne Jones, M.A., Vicar of Carnarvon, for much help and valuable criticism; to the Rev. R Jones, MA., Rector of Llanfair-juxta-Harlech, through whose courtesy I am enabled to produce (from a photograph by Owen, Barmouth) a page of the register of that parish, containing entries in Ellis Wynne’s handwriting; and to Mr. Isaac Foulkes, Liverpool, for the frontispiece, which appeared in his last edition of the _Bardd Cwsc_.

R. GWYNEDDON DAVIES.

_Caernarvon_,
_1st July_, _1897_.

CONTENTS.

PAGE Frontispiece Genealogical Tables xii Introduction:— I. The Author’s Life xv II. The Text xx III. The Summary xxiv Facsimile of Ellis Wynne’s Handwriting Vision of the World 3 Vision of Death 43 Vision of Hell 67 Notes 123

GENEALOGICAL TABLES. {0}

ELLIS WYNNE’S PEDIGREE.

*** (_I am indebted to E. H. Owen_, _Esqr._, _F.S.A._, _Tycoch_, _Carnarvon_, _for most of the information compiled in the following tables_.)

[Picture: Ellis Wynne’s Pedigree]

THE RELATION BETWEEN ELLIS WYNNE & BISHOP HUMPHREYS.

[Picture: The Relation between Ellis Wynne & Bishop Humphreys]