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system. Take for example the expression gwr nod, to which reference has already been made. This occurs frequently in rules relating to compurgation, such as 'pymwyr hep alltvdyon hep wyr not a'y gwatta'18 and 'E wadu huch neu dauat nev ueych kechuyn, e Iv ar e pymhet: deu onadunt en wyr not ,19 Aneurin Owen interprets the expression as 'literally "a marked man", a slave',20 and elsewhere says 'In some instances the nod men would appear to signify persons known to belong to the clan'.21 The latter explanation is at least a possible one, but it is quite inconceivable that a slave could ever be a compurgator with a freeman, and the expression gwr nod, in its quite frequent occurrence in medieval verse, always has a favourable meaning; so the lawyer's gwr nod must be a man marked out in some other way than by the slave's brand. A clue is to be found in some parallels from Germanic (including English) law cited by Pollock and Maitland, in which the chief swearer had to choose his oath- helpers from among a number of men designated by the court or his opponent; he might even have to win the support of the specific persons named for him.22 It seems clear that in Welsh law gwyr nod are gwyr wedi'u nodi, men named beforehand: we have no evidence to decide who named them, and perhaps the party calling them named them before having an opportunity to see whether they would support him. But the English evidence, and that from Scandinavia,23 suggest that they were named by some other person or body, or at least chosen from a panel so named. In emphasizing the value of comparison with other masses of law, I am expressing no opinion about why similar rules appear in different systems. There are indeed different reasons for different rules: some are directly borrowed from one system into another; some have a common source in a more primitive system; some arise by what we have learnt to call polygenesis, in reaction to similar situations in different places. The fascinating question of origins we in Wales must leave till later-and probably till later this century, rather than later this decade; for before we can explain our similarities we need to find them and to use them to help in interpreting our own texts. The study of other systems is then an urgent task, and we may now ask what systems should have our first attention, as being likely I" Ior. §111/16. lor., §111/20. 20 Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales, V.C.. II. i. 35 n. "Ibid., II, 1118. 22 A History of English Law, 2nd edition, I, 140, II, 600, 635. 28 See L. M. Larson, 'Witnesses and oath helpers in old Norwegian law', Haskins Anniversary Essays in Mediaeval History (New York, 1929), pp. 133-56.