Gwyddno, taking Elphin, the son of that prince, under his protection. "It was from this account that Thomas, the son of Einion Offeiriad,1 descended from Gruffyd Gwyr, formed his romance of Taliesin the son of Caridwen, Elphin the son of Gwyddno, Rhun the son of Maelgwn Gwynedd, and the operations of the cauldron of Caridwen." According to another legend, Taliesin having escaped from the ship of the Irish pirates as before described, was extricated from the weir by Elphin, the supposed son of Gwyddno. Elphin was however, in fact, "the son of Elivri, daughter of Gwyddno, but by whom was then quite unknown; it was, however, afterwards discovered that Urien, King of Gower and Aberllychwr, was his father, who introduced him to the court of Arthur at Caerlleon-upon-Usk; where his feats, learning, and endowments, were found to be so superior, that he was created a Golden-tongued Knight of the Round Table. After the death of Arthur, Taliesin became Chief Bard to Urien Rheged, at Aberllychwr in Rheged." Another legend in the Iolo MSS. states that Talhaiarn, the father of Tangwn, presided in the chair of Urien Rheged, at Caer Gwyroswydd, after the expulsion of the Irish from Gower, Carnwyllion, Cantref Bychan, and the Cantref of Iscennen. The said chair was established at Caer Gwyroswydd, or Ystum Llwynarth, where Urien Rheged was accustomed to hold his national and royal court. After the death of Talhaiarn, Taliesin, Chief of the Bards, presided in three chairs: namely, the chair of Caerlleon-uponUsk; the chair of Rheged at Bangor Teivy, under the patronage of Cedig ab Ceredig ab Cunedda Wledig; but he afterwards was invited to the territory of Gwyddnyw, the son of Gwydion in Arllechwedd, Arvon, where he had lands conferred on him, and where he resided until the time of Maelgwn Gwynedd, when he was dispossessed of that property; for which he pronounced his curses on Maelgwn, and all his pos 1 The priest. sessions; whereupon the Vad Velen1 came to Rhos; and whoever witnessed it became doomed to certain death. Maelgwn saw the Vad Velen, through the keyhole in Rhos Church, and died in consequence. Taliesin, in his old age, returned to Caer Gwyroswydd, to Rhiwallon, the son of Urien; after which he visited Cedig, the son of Ceredig, the son of Cunedda Wledig, where he died, and was buried with high honours, such as should always be shown to a man who ranked among the principal wise men of the Cimbric nation; and Taliesin, Chief of the Bards, was the highest of the most exalted class, either in literature, wisdom, the science of vocal song, or any other attainment, whether sacred or profane. Thus terminates the information respecting the chief Bards of the Chair of Caerlleon-upon-Usk, called now, the Chair of Glamorgan." Unfortunately, it is impossible to ascertain whether these legends contain the foundation of the romance, or were written after the composition of the Mabinogi of Taliesin, by persons of a neologizing tendency. The only authority given in the Iolo MSS. is, that the first of the two legends was copied from Anthony Powel of Llwydarth's MS.; the second from a MS. at Havod Uchtryd; the last is from the MSS. of Llwelyn Sion of Llangewydd, who lived at the close of the sixteenth century. There is another piece of evidence of the existence of Taliesin as a Bard in the sixth century, which has been strongly insisted on by Mr. Sharon Turner and others. This is the passage in the Gododin of Aneurin :2— Mi na vi Aneurin Ys gwyr talyessin 1 A pestilence, called the Yellow Plague, represented as a serpent. 2 Stanza 45 in edition of the Rev. J. Williams ab Ithel. In the translation of Mr. Williams : I Aneurin will sing What is known to Taliesin, Who communicates to me his thoughts Before the dawn of the bright day. Whether this translation be considered correct or no,2 the occurrence of the name of Taliesin in this, the only poem of early date not attributed to Taliesin himself in which it occurs, is a testimony of considerable weight. Still, the passage question is not altogether above suspicion. in 2 Without offering any opinion adverse to the general correctness of this translation by a writer who evinces a very intimate acquaintance with his subject and the circle of ancient Welsh literature, we may observe that the difficulty of executing such a translation is evidenced in the stanza above quoted, in which the line A dan droet ronin is translated by Mr. Williams, This particle shall go under foot; that is, says the author in a note, "this treatment I despise; it is beneath my notice; I will regard it as a particle of dust under my feet." The poet is describing his lamentable condition in the earthen house or prison in which he is confined, and says, Under my feet is gravel, In the same way the adage, cited by Mr. Williams, which he translates Nid a gwaew yn ronyn, Pain will not become a particle, must be A spear will not go into (or pierce) a grain of corn; importing that the means should be proportioned to the object. The word gronyn is the singular of grawn, grains; and there are abundant instances where a singular is put with a plural meaning, and vice versa, on account of the rhyme; or very probably the word may have originally been graian, gravel, coarse sand. Villemarqué translates "a ring" from cron, round, circular, which agrees very fairly with the context. According to the view taken by Mr. Williams, the "bedin Ododin," or "troops of Gododin," were, at the battle of Cattraeth, allied with the men of Deira and Bernicia, and opposed to the British chieftains eulogized or lamented by the poet. Aneurin therefore, in the lines above quoted, gives to his poem made in honour of his countrymen, a title taken from the appellation of one, and that certainly the least important of the three hostile tribes engaged in the conflict. How, what Aneurin sung or would sing of the battle of Cattraeth, should be known to Taliesin, or why, the former should state that Taliesin communicated to him his thoughts, or thought with him, no other passage in this poem, or elsewhere, explains. If the stanza be genuine, and the generally received translation the true one, it must bring down the date of the poem to a time when Taliesin had become sufficiently famous to be introduced with effect into a popular poem. The difficulty lies in the true correspondence of the first line of the passage with the rest. If it belongs to and concludes the former part, And I am manacled In the earthen house, An iron chain Over my two knees; Yet of the mead and the horn, And of the men of Cattraeth, I Aneurin will sing, this is the reasonable termination of the passage. The remainder will be an independent passage: It is known to Taliesin The skilful-minded Shall there not be a song of the Gododin Before the dawn of the fair day? which may well be a fragment of one of the numerous songs which we know to have been framed on the subject of the battle of Cattraeth, probably at very various dates.1 1 The 93rd stanza was certainly composed after the death of Aneurin. The expression, A somewhat similar passage occurs at the end of one of the so-called historical poems of Taliesin, the "Anrhec Urien,” in which Aneurin is mentioned among the thirteen princes of the North: And one of them was named Aneurin, the panegyrical poet, The poem in which these lines occur, is, however, a composition of the twelfth century, or later, and no weight therefore can be attached to the union of the names Aneurin and Taliesin in this quotation. If we adopt the conclusion, that a Taliesin, a bard of repute, really flourished in the middle of the sixth century, and that the halo of poetic glory which surrounded his memory, pointed him out to the romancers as a fit subject for the exercise of their art, we have still some difficulty in ascertaining the locality of the Bard, or the part of the country under the dominion of the British chieftains, in which he resided and laid the foundation of his fame. It will be observed that all the genealogies and prose legends relating to Taliesin, describe him as a native of South Wales, and of the celebrated seat of the Arthurian Round Table, Caerlleon-upon-Usk. Taliesin Williams, in a note on one of the above legends, observes on this, and remarks that "Taliesin's intercourse with Gower (Rheged) and its Reguli, is sufficiently decided by the several poems, addressed by him to those personages. He also wrote in the Gwentian dialect, of which district he was doubtless a native." In proof of this latter opinion, the editor of the Iolo MSS. actually quotes two lines from the Cad Goddeu, Er pan aeth daear ar Aneirin,— Since the time when the earth went upon Aneirin has reference to his death, as may be seen in the corresponding passages in the same poem. |