NENNIUS, the supposed author of a Historia Britonum, which, commencing with a description of Britain, gives the mythical origin of the Britons and Scots and an account of the Roman occupation and of the reign of Vortigern, describes the successive settlements of the Saxons, and concludes with a narrative of the twelve battles in which King Arthur, in the 6th century, is said to have defeated the Saxons. The work is evidently the production of a Cymric or ancient Welsh writer; but the claim of Nennius to be regarded as the author is derived solely from two prologues, where he is described as the disciple of one Elvodugus or Elbotus, whom we may perhaps identify with Elbodus, bishop of North Wales, who died in 809, and whose notable innovation of the introduction of the Roman cycle in keeping Easter “Nennius” appears to have followed. Of the above prologues (which differ considerably) one is preserved in the MS. in the cathedral library at Durham, and in this it is stated that the History was written in the year 858, which year is also spoken of as being the twenty-fourth of the reign of Mervin, king of the Britons. But in the work itself (chap, xvi.) it is stated that between the arrival of the Saxons (assigned in chap, xxxi. to the year 447) and the fourth year of the reign of Mervin, four hundred and twenty-nine years elapsed. Thus the twenty-fourth year of Mervin becomes coincident with the year 896, or thirty-eight years later than the date assigned by the prologue. This discrepancy, taken in conjunction with the following facts, viz., that both the above prologues are much superior in style and diction to the barbarous Latin of the Historia itself, that the MSS. prior to the 13th century are either altogether silent respecting the authorship or ascribe it to ...