[1] "Llyfr" means book (compare French livre, Latin liber). Perhaps I can partially indicate the impression which the word makes upon an English ear when pronounced in Welsh, thus: consider it composed of two syllables, Lly and fr; for the first syllable reproduce the sound of yie in the English word yield with a strongly lisped or aspirated l before it, and mingled with it, as lhyie, for the second, give the sound of vre in the French word livre; making lhyie-vre, accent on the first syllable.
[2] Red. Pronounced Koch, with the ch very guttural as in the Scotch loch or the German ach, and the o long.
[3] Hergest has the g hard, as in English begin.
[4] Pronounced with accent on o, which is long and somewhat drawled; the a, as in man; the i's short; and the g hard, as in give; about Mab-bin-o´-gi-on. "Mabinogion" is the plural form: the singular is "Mabinogi."
[5] This "Owain" is Owen, and his father "Urien" is the "King Uriens of Gore" (Gore is probably Gower, in Glamorganshire, Wales), familiar to all the young readers of "The Boy's King Arthur."
[6] This is "Sir Kay the seneschal," who nicknames Beaumains, and figures everywhere in Malory's King Arthur as a cheerful but somewhat hasty-witted knight.
[7] The last rite of the church to a dying person.
[8] This Gwalchmai—a name which in Old British means Hawk of Battle—is our old friend "Sir Gawaine" of The Boy's King Arthur. The French romancers appear to have transformed his name from the old legendary "Gwalchmai" to "Gawaine." He was noted in Welsh poetry as one of the three golden-tongued knights of Arthur's court whose persuasions none could resist; and this may account for the strange subjection of Arthur to his influence in leading the king, against the king's will and desire, to war upon Sir Launcelot during those last days described in Sir Thomas Malory's book.
[9] This strange army of ravens figures in a tale given presently—"The Dream of Rhonabay."