LNFYL/1

RCAHMW/1911, 80, records that in 1910 the stone was still `beneath the yew tree'.

Anon/1915a. 440, however, records that the stone had been `recently' been removed from the churchyard .

Macalister/1922, 214: `The stone...has now been moved for safety to the interior of the church'.

Macalister/1945, 398: `Formerly standing beneath the gigantic yew-tree in the churchyard: the original site is marked by a rough block of stone. Now inside the church'.

Nash-Williams/1950, 178: `Inside church against W. wall of nave'.

Macalister/1945, 398: `A block'.

Nash-Williams/1950, 178: `Roughly quadrangular pillar-stone'.

Macalister/1945, 398: `injured by weather-marks, and especially by a deep-groove, caused probably by a continuous drip of rain from overhanging branches of the yew tree.[1]

[1] Lewis Morris's notes shews that the stone was in the same imperfect condition in his time'.

Nash-Williams/1950, 178: `partly fractured away at the top and damaged by fissuring in front'.

Rhys/1905, interprets the inscription as an example of `Horatian metre', and provides a long commentary.

Macalister/1922, 215--216: `Paterninus's Latin, like his daughter, had a certain `rusticity', and it is futile to try and emend it...The construction of the genitive with Hic iacit is well established. It is due to a confusion of two formulae, [Hic est lapis] Rusticae and Hic iacit Rustica. The custom of using the genitive on stones under the influence of the first formula had become so stereotyped, that in defiance of grammar it was continued after the second formula was introduced. That the latter common formula has not been adopted mechanically on the stone before us, but has been modified by the interpolation of the words in tumulo, shows that some thought was given to the composition of the epitaph'. Macalister then goes on to state that he does not agree with Rhys' attempt to show the metricality of these inscriptions.

Nash-Williams/1950, 178: `The extended formula Hic in tumulo iacit, like the simple Hic iacit, is of Christian-Roman origin. It appears in Italy in the 4th century A.D., and subsequently comes into vogue, in variant forms, in N. Africa, Gaul, and (more rarely) Spain, in the 5th and 6th centuries.[1] It occurs again in Wales on Nos. 41, 289, and 409. Mention of the age of the dead person is exceptional on a Welsh monument.[2]

[1] Cf. ILCV [Diehl/1927--31] nos. 3546 (Rome, dated A.D. 364), 1107 A (Africa), 3564 (Gaul), 3571 (Spain, dated 544). Cf. ICG, ii, [LeBlant/1865] pp. ix, xix (dating the appearance of the formula on Gaul from the late 5th century A.D.).

[2] Such mention occurs elsewhere in Britain on one of the Cornish early inscribed stones (CIIC, 479 [Macalister/1945]---using the same formula as the present stone) and on the well-known Whithorn (Scotland) stone (CIIC 520 [Macalister/1945])'.

[1] It is however certainly not an E, as read by Huebner.

[2] The Rev. D. R. Thomas proposes to read VI after the V (i.e. AN. IX. VI[XIT]), according to the ordinary sepulchral formula, but it appears to me that the stroke which he considers to be the first slanting stroke of the V is only a crack in the stone, extending from the middle stroke of the first N in the fifth line to below the sixth line. Prof. Rhys (Arch. Camb., 1876, p. 245) says, `Perhaps neither an. IXIII nor an. LXIII is correct, for it may possibly be ani. XIII for annis XIII'. The O following the three I's is very minute, and seems scarcely intended for a letter'.

Owen/1896, 135--136: `Mr Morris's reading...agrees with that of later epigraphists and shows that the letters now undecipherable were equally so one hundred and fifty years ago'.

Macalister/1922, 215: `A...flaw is responsible for Westwood's A/E at the end of the first line'.

Macalister/1945, 398--399: `The missing vowel in the name has been read O, E, and V; but these are all erroneous, for there is enough of the original surface remaining, flush with the bottom of the line, to have shewn recognizable portions of any of these letters. The letter was really A, and the two lower tips remain, one on each side of the groove. For some reason the inscription was left unfinished: the work was interrupted just after the engraver had blocked out in faint outline the C of PAC[E], and was never resumed. There is no justification for Huebner's reading `AN. LXIII': ANI is a mistake for anni. Some meddler has inserted an additional E at the beginning of the fourth line'.

Nash-Williams/1950, 178: `Roman capitals, in good style...The initial E in l. 4 is lightly picked, possibly by a different (? and later) hand'.

Jackson/1953, 191 note 1: `This [a reading of O for Rostece] seems a probable reading of the obscure letter'.

[1] Lewis Morris's notes shews that the stone was in the same imperfect condition in his time'.