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Robert of Gloucester was a magnificent patron of letters; to his age Giraldus Cambrensis looked back with longing regret as to the good old times in which learning was recognised and received its due reward.
He became passionately attached to the bishop, but exhibited no liking for anyone else, he considered himself bound to protect his master, driving other people away from him, "As I myself," writes Giraldus Cambrensis, "have often with wonder seen," with his wings and beak. =The Organ= was rebuilt in 1894 by Hill and Son at a cost, including the case, of £4,400, and at the expense of the late Mr.
When Giraldus Cambrensis wrote, in the twelfth century, he remarked that the Scots of his time have an affinity of race with the Irish, and the English historians of the War of Independence speak of the Scots as they do of the Welsh or the Irish, and they know only one type of Scotsman.
This Gerald Barry was the historian commonly known as Giraldus Cambrensis, to whom we are chiefly indebted for the account of the conquest of Ireland.
Conspicuous amongst this band of knights and adventurers was one who was himself no knight, but a priest and the self-appointed chronicler of the rest, Gerald de Barri better known as Gerald of Wales, or Giraldus Cambrensis, who was the grandson of Nesta, through her daughter Angareta. Giraldus is one of those writers whom, to tell the truth, we like a great deal better than they deserve.
He built, as it were, a pyramid of books to perpetuate his name: but, alas! the pyramid has long since fallen, and only a few fragments are scattered in various libraries, where they are scarcely disturbed even by the antiquarian. What do we hear of Giraldus Cambrensis, the historian, antiquary, philosopher, theologian, and poet?
The passage in which Giraldus Cambrensis refers to Bledhericus, famosus ille fabulator who tempora nostra paulo praevenit, was written about 1194; thus it might well refer to a man who had died some 40 or 50 years previously. As we have noted above, Giraldus was born upon ground forming a part of Bledri's ancestral heritage, and thus might well be familiar with his fame.
The earliest writers who allude to the Welsh fairy traditions are Giraldus Cambrensis and Walter Map, two members of that constellation of literary men which rendered brilliant the early years of the Plantagenet dynasty.
According to the narrative of Giraldus Cambrensis, the isle which served as the theatre of this strange superstition was divided into two parts. One belonged to the monks, the other was occupied by evil spirits, who celebrated religious rites in their own manner, with an infernal uproar. Some people, for the expiation of their sins, voluntarily exposed themselves to the fury of those demons.
But the ancient Irish were sadly careless on such points; and as Giraldus Cambrensis says, "followed the example of men of old in their vices more willingly than in their virtues." More than forty years had elapsed since that famous battle of Clontarf, and since Ragnvald, Reginald, or Ranald, son of Sigtryg the Norseman, had been slain therein by Brian Boru.
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