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The privileging of the text of British Library MS Cotton Caligula A.ix over that of BL MS Cotton Otho C.xiii led to the rejection of the latter version and determined ideas about the text and its manuscripts for many decades. Scholarly enquiry into Lawman's Brut should embrace Cotton Otho as a text read before the invention of modern medieval studies that should be read again.

A major way used by the poet of Laȝamon's Brut, of which two versions are extant, to expand and embellish his principle source, Wace's Roman de Brut, was the addition of direct speech. The shorter version of Laȝamon's Brut often abbreviates the text by making the exchange between characters in direct speech more concise. This paper examines slipping from indirect into direct discourse in both versions, identifying some patterns and differences between the two versions and considering the narrative function of this combined use of direct and indirect discourse. In particular, a curious case of slipping in Otho suggests further clues to the transmission of its text and the redactor's method. Three tables display the distribution of speeches in the two versions, allowing a close comparison of the two texts.

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