Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/32

XXIV PEEFACE. tions of this work were produced from time to time with such additions as had been then added to it. It would not, in the opinion of the Editor, be an altogether impossible task to disentangle it from these interpolations and additions, and to reduce it to what was probably its original form ; but the attempt would be out of place here. It is enough to say that the date and authors of two of the editions can be pretty well established : one by Mark the anchorite in 822, and another by Nennius in 858 ; and althougli the work is attributed by many of the Mss. to Gildas, yet it has generally been identified with the latter edition attributed to Nennius. So popular was this work, that there exist no fewer than thirty-three mss. of Nennius, and the Editor believes that in the traditions con- tained in this work, and in the interpolations and additions to it, is to be found the earliest state- ment of the legendary annals of the diflferent races who peopled Britain. He has therefore included ex- tracts from these additions, so far as they bear on the history of Scotland, in the present collection. The MSS. of Nennius may be divided into five classes : first, the Harleian MS., 3859, of the tenth century,^ and those which correspond with it. Second, the Vatican MS. of the same period,* and the Paris MS. (Bib. Imp. Latin, 11108), which corresponds with • The text of Mr. Stevenson's edition of Nennius, 1838, is taken from this MS. 2 Published by Mr. Gunn in 1819.