Margaret Enid Griffiths - Early Vaticination in Welsh

I was pleased to pick this up the other day, a study of medieval Welsh prophecies.  It was a favourite book when I was studying years ago and draws from a huge amount of manuscript material from Peniarth Manuscripts and Llanstephan Manuscripts in the National Library of Wales.  There is also a lot on Welsh folklore and, as you would expect, Geoffrey of Monmouth and the four ancient books of Wales, which are replete with prophetic material.  My interest was the later medieval period, particularly prophecies relating to the revolt of Owain Glyndwr, which Shakespeare had Hotspur joke about in Henry IV Part 1:

I cannot choose: sometime he angers me

With telling me of the mouldwarp and the ant,

Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies,

And of a dragon and a finless fish,

A clip-wing'd griffin and a moulten raven,

A couching lion and a ramping cat,

And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff

As puts me from my faith.

This gets the flavour of Welsh prophecy quite right and must have been amusing to Shakespeare's audience.

The author of Early Vaticination in Welsh is Margaret Enid Griffiths about whom I knew nothing except the note in foreword that the book was based on her MA thesis and that she had died tragically aged 26.

Searching through digitised newspapers uncovers a few more facts about her life.  She was a gifted student at Aberystwyth (not surprising, then, the use of all that manuscript material at the National Library of Wales), who gained a double first and a MA.  A short notice in the Western Mail & South Wales News of 4 July 1930 provides more information:

"Miss M. Enid Griffiths, who died suddenly at the early age of 26 years at the residence of her parents, Mr John Griffiths, M.E., and Mrs Griffiths, Tremle, Treorchy, was a distinguished student at Aberystwyth University College, where she a achieved a "Double First" and later took her M.A. degree with distinction. A host of old college friends deplore her death.  For the last four years she was the English mistress at Porth County School and was exceedingly popular both with the staff and pupils.  Her dramatic ability was outstanding, and the Welsh drama movement has lost by her death one of its most promising devotees.

A representative gathering assembled for the funeral on Thursday, the burial being in Treorchy Cemetery.  The funeral was among the largest every seen in the district, and sympathisers lined the streets to pay a tribute of esteem."

One wonders what might have been.  

The book was edited by her thesis supervisor T. Gwynn Jones and published by the University of Wales Press in 1937.  It remains a landmark volume and is still cited today.

The book itself is a nice association copy as it is Gwynn Jones' own copy.