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Taliesin

 
World Mythology Dictionary: Taliesin
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(European mythology)

The Welsh wizard bard. He may have lived in the sixth century, the age of the chieftain who became the ‘King Arthur’ of later romance. Taliesin's legend and poems survive in the Mabinogion. The witch Caridwen once prepared in her cauldron a magic brew which, after a year's boiling, was to yield three blessed drops. Whoever swallowed these drops would know all the secrets of the past, the present, and the future. By accident this happened to be Gwion Bach, the boy who helped to tend the fire beneath the cauldron. When boiling drops fell on his finger, he put it in his mouth, and then, realizing his danger, fled. Caridwen pursued him relentlessly. After numerous transformations, the ravenous witch as a hen ate the fugitive boy disguised as a grain of wheat.

Thrown into the sea at last, he was caught in a fish-trap, and called Taliesin by those who saw him, because of his radiant brow. His knowledge dumbfounded king's bards and amazed the common people. ‘I am old, I am new,’ he said. ‘I have been dead, I have been alive…. I am Taliesin.’

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Taliesin
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Home, as well as architectural school, of Frank Lloyd Wright. Located near Spring Green, Wis., it was begun in 1911 and was rebuilt after fires in 1914 and 1925. Taliesin West, near Scottsdale, Ariz., was begun in 1938 as a winter home for Wright and his students. Both structures were continually renovated and added to until Wright's death in 1959, after which they continued to be occupied by members of the Wright Foundation. Wright, of Welsh descent, named them after the renowned Welsh poet (fl. 6th century AD).

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British History: Taliesin
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Taliesin (6th cent.). Bard. Taliesin and Aneurin were two of the five great bards referred to by Nennius in his Historia Brittonum (c. 796). Taliesin's surviving work records the deeds of Urien, king of the Britons, in Rheged and his struggle against the Anglo-Saxons, just as Aneurin does for Gododdin: ‘And when I’m grown old, with death hard upon me, I‘ll not be happy save to praise Urien.’

Celtic Mythology: Taliesin
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[Welsh tal, brow, forehead; iesin, radiant, beautiful]

Divine or divinely inspired poet of Wales, often thought to be historical (late 6th cent.) and to have flourished in the Old North, i.e. formerly Welsh-speaking regions of the Scottish Lowlands. Classed with Aneirin as one of the two surviving cynfeirdd [oldest poets], Taliesin was ascribed by Sir Ifor Williams (1944) twelve poems of the sixty in the Book of Taliesin, compiled 14th cent. Two highly incompatible versions of Taliesin's life survive. In the older, supported by the ascribed twelve poems from the Book of Taliesin, he is the author of praise poems filled with realistic detail of chieftains like Urien and Owain who warred against the encroaching Angles, 550–600. The second version, developed much later and known chiefly in the Hanes Taliesin [Tale of Taliesin] or Ystoria Taliesin [History of Taliesin], places the poet further south, in Powys, and portrays him as an immortal in the service of a series of princelings.

Highly folkloric but with traces of pre-Christian religious belief, the Hanes Taliesin was compiled by Llywelyn Siôn (1540—c. 1615) and given wide readership by Lady Charlotte Guest in her translation of The Mabinogion (1838–49). In the days of Maelgwn Gwynedd (6th cent.), the shape-shifting goddess Ceridwen lives at the bottom of Bala Lake with her husband Tegid Foel, after whom the lake [Welsh Llyn Tegid] is named. She brews a magic cauldron named Amen whose contents she intends for her own ugly son Morfran [sea crow, also known as Afagddu, utter darkness], so that he may be gifted with poetic talent. Her wishes are thwarted when her servant, Gwion Bach, catches three drops from the cauldron on his thumb and forefingers, which he thrusts into his mouth, giving himself the poetic gift. Enraged, Ceridwen sets after Gwion Bach, after which each of them undergoes a series of metamorphoses: he becomes a hare, and she a greyhound; he a salmon, and she an otter; he a bird, and she a hawk; he a grain of wheat, and she a hen who swallows him. Magically, this grain of wheat impregnates Ceridwen; what had been Gwion Bach is reborn from her womb as a creature of such great beauty that she cannot kill him and so casts him adrift on the sea. The infant drifts to the weir, near Aberystwyth, of Gwyddno Garanhir, whose son Elffin finds him on Calan Mai [May Day], exclaiming as he opens the blanket, ‘Dyma dâl iesin!’ [what a beautiful forehead]. The child, although only three days old, answers with the words, ‘Taliesin bid’ [let it be Taliesin]. When he grows older the boy Taliesin accompanies Elffin to the court of Maelgwn Gwynedd at Degannwy (near the mouth of the Conway river, north Wales), where he successfully overcomes the poets of the king's household by his magic and the demonstration of his superior poetic powers. This victory enhances the fortunes of the feckless Elffin, who fosters Taliesin until he is 13. Emboldened by his changed fortune, Elffin boasts to Maelgwn's court that his wife is the fairest in the kingdom, his horses the swiftest, and his poet (Taliesin) the wisest. For this arrogance Maelgwn imprisons him and sends his son the irresistible seducer, Rhun [grand, awful], to test Elffin's wife's virtue. But Taliesin saves his foster-father on all counts. He substitutes a female servant for Elffin's wife, and although the helpless girl succumbs to Rhun, Elffin is able to prove his wife is innocent. In a magnificent song of his origins from the time of Lucifer's fall, Taliesin sings so wonderfully as to release Elffin from his chains. Finally, Elffin's horses defeat Maelgwn's and a jockey drops his cap, following Taliesin's instructions, revealing a compensatory cauldron of gold.

Abundant references from Welsh tradition partially reconcile the seemingly historical 6th-century Taliesin of the Old North with the magical poet-seer of the Hanes Taliesin. In the second branch of the Mabinogi, for example, Taliesin is one of seven men to escape from Ireland after the death of Bendigeidfran. From the 11th to the 13th centuries a large body of prophetic poems predicting the defeat of the Saxons and the Normans were ascribed to Taliesin. His name was frequently associated with that of Myrddin [Merlin] rather than Aneirin. The two were thought to be in constant exchange of occult and arcane knowledge, as in the 11th-century poem Ymddiddan Myrddin a Thaliesin. In Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini (c.1149), Merlin, as transformed from Myrddin, discourses with one Telgesinus, a Latinization which had little further life. Tradition has him buried both near Aberystwyth and at Bangor. Taliesin remained little known outside Welsh tradition until the 19th century. Taliesin became a character in Thomas Love Peacock's satirical novel The Misfortunes of Elphin (1829), partially based on Hanes Taliesin, and was expanded into a more dramatic character in the novels of Anglo-Welsh fantasist Charles Williams (1886–1945). Welsh-American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1869–1959) made Taliesin a personal culture hero, naming two estates, in Wisconsin and Arizona, for him. See KOADALAN; TUAN MAC CAIRILL.

Bibliography

  • Texts: Canu Taliesin, ed. Ifor Williams (Cardiff, 1960)
  • The Poems of Taliesin: English Version by J. E. Caerwyn Williams, ed. Ifor Williams (Dublin, 1975, 1987).
  • An unreliable version of Hanes Taliesin is found in vol. iii of Lady Charlotte Guest's The Mabinogion (London, 1849), 356 ff. Cf. Patrick K. Ford, “‘A Fragment of the Hanes Taliesin by Llywelyn Siôn’”, Études Celtiques, 14 (1975), 449–58.
  • A late version of the story by Elis Gruffydd is translated by Patrick K. Ford, “‘The Tale of Taliesin’”, in The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales (Berkeley and Los Angeles, Calif., 1977), 164–81
  • Ystoria Taliesin, trans. Patrick K. Ford (Cardiff, 1992).
  • Studies: John Morris-Jones, ‘Taliesin’, Y Cymmrodor [London], 28 (1918), 1–290
  • Ifor Williams, Lectures on Early Welsh Poetry (Dublin, 1944)
  • Rachel Bromwich, “‘The Character of the Early Welsh Tradition’”, in Nora K. Chadwick (ed.), Studies in Early British History (Cambridge, 1959), 83–136
  • Marged Haycock, ‘Llyfr Taliesin’, dissertation, University of Wales (Cardiff, 1983)
  • “‘Llyfr Taliesin’”, National Library of Wales Journal, 25 (1988), 357–86
  • A. O. H. Jarman and G. R. Hughes, A Guide to Welsh Literature (Swansea, 1976)
  • Juliette Wood, “‘The Folklore Background of the Gwion Bach Section of Hanes Taliesin’”, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, 29(4) (May 1982), 621–34
 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Taliesin
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Taliesin or Taliessin (both: tălēĕs'ĭn), 6th cent.?, Welsh bard, whose Book of Taliesin is one of the great Welsh poetic works. The book exists only in a 13th-century form, but tradition places Taliesin in the 6th cent., as a contemporary of the battles his poems celebrate. One theory about Taliesin is that he was an ancient Celtic mythical character, about whose name have collected a series of traditional poems.
Wikipedia: Taliesin
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For other uses, see Taliesin (disambiguation).
The Eden Valley between Appleby and Penrith, an area referred to affectionately as the heartland of Urien Rheged in the praise poems of Taliesin.

Taliesin (c. 534 – c. 599)[1] was a British poet of the post-Roman period whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin. Taliesin was a renowned bard who is believed to have sung at the courts of at least three Celtic British kings.

A maximum of eleven of the preserved poems have been dated to as early as the 6th century, and were ascribed to the historical Taliesin[2]. The bulk of this work praises King Urien of Rheged and his son Owain mab Urien, although several of the poems indicate that he also served as the court bard to King Brochfael Ysgithrog of Powys and his successor Cynan Garwyn, either before or during his time at Urien's court. Some of the events to which the poems refer, such as the Battle of Arfderydd (c. 583), are referred to in other sources.

His name, spelled as Taliessin in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King and in some subsequent works, means "shining brow" in Middle Welsh.[1] In legend and medieval Welsh poetry, he is often referred to as Taliesin Ben Beirdd ("Taliesin, Chief of Bards" or chief of poets). He is mentioned as one of the five British poets of renown, along with Talhaearn Tad Awen ("Talhaearn Father of the Muse"), Aneirin, Blwchfardd, and Cian Gwenith Gwawd ("Cian Wheat of Song"), in the Historia Brittonum, and is also mentioned in the collection of poems known as Y Gododdin. Taliesin was highly regarded in the mid-twelfth century as the supposed author of a great number of romantic legends.[1]

According to legend, Taliesin was adopted as a child by Elffin, the son of Gwyddno Garanhir, and prophesied the death of Maelgwn Gwynedd from the Yellow Plague. In later stories he became a mythic hero, companion of Bran the Blessed and King Arthur. His legendary biography is found in several late renderings (see below), the earliest surviving narrative being found in a manuscript chronicle of world history written by Elis Gruffydd in the mid-16th century).

Contents

Biography

Little is known about his life, beyond what can be gleaned from the poems which are considered genuinely historical. These refer to victories by Urien at the battles of Argoed Llwyfain and Gwen Ystrad. Urien's son Owain fought alongside his father at the first of these and slew the enemy leader Fflamddwyn; some scholars have argued that Fflamddwyn is none other than Ida of Bernicia and that the battle occurred around the year 547. Less is known regarding the battle at Gwen Ystrad, but some have hypothesised that it occurred at Menao, Northumbria about the year 560.[1] All of these locations are found in the Hen Ogledd (The Old North).

Taliesin may or may not have served Owain mab Urien following Urien's death, as the chronology is not entirely clear. While Taliesin certainly outlived Owain, as demonstrated by a lament he composed for Owain's death, there is no proof that he survived Urien. Taliesin also sang in praise of Cynan Garwyn, king of Powys, Wales.[3] It is striking in any case that Taliesin is not the first poet named by Nennius.

According to a tradition often alluded to in medieval Welsh poetry and in Historia Taliesin ("The Tale of Taliesin", surviving from the 16th century), Taliesin was the foster-son of Elffin ap Gwyddno, who gave him the name Taliesin, meaning "radiant brow", and who later became a king in Ceredigion, Wales. The legend states that he was then raised at his court in Aberdyfi and that at the age of 13, he visited King Maelgwn Gwynedd, Elffin's uncle, and correctly prophesied the manner and imminence of Maelgwn's death. A number of medieval poems attributed to Taliesin allude to the legend but they postdate the historical poets floruit by at least five hundred years, or more.

The idea that he was a bard at the court of King Arthur dates back at least to the tale of Culhwch and Olwen, perhaps a product of the 11th century. It is elaborated upon in modern English poetry, such as Tennyson's Idylls of the King and Charles Williams's Taliessin Through Logres. In any case the historical Taliesin's career can be shown to have fallen in the last half of the 6th century, while historians who argue for Arthur's existence date his victory at Mons Badonicus in the years to either side of AD 500; the Annales Cambriae offers the date of 532 for his death or disappearance in the Battle of Camlann, only a few years earlier than the date of 542 found in the Historia Regum Britanniae.

Bedd Taliesin, a hilltop Bronze Age tumulus in Ceredigion, opposite Aberdyfi (see above), is a traditional site for his grave but the village of Tre-Taliesin, located at the foot of the hill, was actually named after the bard in the 19th century. A manuscript in the hand of 18th century literary forgerer Iolo Morganwg claimed he was the son of Saint Henwg of Llanhennock but this is contrary to every other fact and tradition. In it he is said to have been educated in the school of Catwg, at Llanfeithin, in Glamorgan, Wales, which the historian Gildas also attended. Captured as a youth by Irish pirates while fishing at sea, he is said to have escaped by using a wooden bucklet for a boat; he landed at the fishing weir of Elffin, one of the sons of Urien (all medieval Welsh sources, however, make Elffin the son of Gwyddno Garanhir). Urien made him Elffin's instructor, and gave Taliesin an estate of land. But once introduced to the court of the warrior-chief, Taliesin became his foremost bard, followed him in his wars, and wrote of his victories.[1]

Book of Taliesin

Some of the texts of The Book of Taliesin, scholars believe, are examples of 10th century Welsh. Since much if not all Welsh poetry was transmitted orally in Taliesin's day, it is possible that the original poems were first written down four centuries later using the contemporary spellings of that day. Sir Ifor Williams, whose work helped lay the foundations for the academic study of Old Welsh, particularly early Welsh poetry, published the text with notes in Canu Taliesin (1960), and subsequently in an English version as The Poems of Taliesin (1968).

John Gwenogvryn Evans dated the Book of Taliesin to around 1275, but Daniel Huws now dates it to the first quarter of the 14th century. Most of the poems in the collection are quite late (around 10th to 12th century), though some claim Taliesin as author while others are attributed internally to other poets. A few of the "marks" presumably awarded for poems - or at least measuring their "value" - are extant in the margin of the Book of Taliesin.

Of the poems in The Book of Taliesin, twelve are addressed to known historical kings such as Cynan Garwyn, king of Powys, and Gwallog of Elmet. Eight of the poems, however, are addressed to Urien Rheged, whose kingdom was centered in the region of the Solway Firth on the borders of present-day England and Scotland and stretched east to Catraeth (identified by most scholars as present-day Catterick in North Yorkshire) and west to Galloway. One poem, a "marwnad" or death lament, was addressed to Owain, son of Urien.

The rest comprises some poems addressing mythological and religious topics as well as a few works such as 'Armes Prydein Vawr', the content of which implies that they were by later authors. Many lack the characteristics, metre and 'poetic tag' associated with the work of the historical Taliesin. Much of this material is associated with the legendary Taliesin.

The legendary account of his life

Search Wikisource Wikisource has original text related to this article:

In the mid 16th century, Elis Gruffydd recorded a legendary account of Taliesin which resembles the story of the boyhood of the Irish hero Fionn mac Cumhail and the salmon of wisdom in some respects, and has many characteristics of creation mythology[clarification needed]. The tale was also recorded in a slightly different version by John Jones of Gellilyfdy (c. 1607). A composite version based on these accounts is given below.

Birth

Taliesin began life as Gwion Bach, a servant to the enchantress Ceridwen. Ceridwen had a beautiful daughter and an ugly son named Morfran (also called Avagddu), whose appearance no magic could cure. Ceridwen sought to give him the gift of wisdom as compensation and cooked a potion granting wisdom inspiration (Awen), which had to be constantly stirred and cooked for a year and a day. A blind man named Morda tended the fire beneath the cauldron, while Gwion Bach stirred. The first three drops of liquid from this cauldron would give wisdom; the rest was a fatal poison. Three hot drops spilled onto Gwion's thumb as he stirred, and he instinctively put his thumb in his mouth, instantly gaining wisdom and knowledge. The first thought that occurred to him was that Ceridwen would kill him, so he ran away.

All too soon he heard her fury and the sound of her pursuit. He turned himself into a hare on the land and she became a greyhound. He turned himself into a fish and jumped into a river: she then turned into an otter. He turned into a bird in the air, and in response she became a hawk.

Exhausted, he turned into a single grain of corn and she became a hen and ate him. She became pregnant. She resolved to kill the child, knowing it was Gwion, but when he was born he was so beautiful that she couldn't, so she threw him in the ocean in a leather bag.

Discovery by Elffin

The baby was found by Elffin, the son of Gwyddno Garanhir, 'Lord of Ceredigion', while fishing for salmon. Surprised at the whiteness of the boy's brow, he exclaimed "dyma Dal Iesin", meaning "this is a radiant brow." Taliesin, thus named, began to recite beautiful poetry, saying:

Fair Elffin, cease your lament!
....Though I am weak and small,
On the wave crest of the the surging sea,
I shall be better for you
Than three hundred shares of salmon.
Elffin of noble generosity,
Do not sorrow at your catch.
Though I am weak on the floor of my basket,
There are wonders on my tongue....''

Amazed, Elffin asked how a baby could talk. Again Taliesin replied with poetry:

"Floating like a boat in its waters,
I was thrown into a dark bag,
and on an endless sea, I was set adrift.
Just as I was suffocating, I had a happy omen,
and the master of the Heavens brought me to liberty."

At the court of Maelgwn Gwynedd

A few years later, when Taliesin turned thirteen, Elffin was at the court of King Maelgwn Gwynedd, claiming Taliesin was a better bard and that his wife a better woman than anyone the king had in his court. Maelgwn's son Rhun went to Elffin's house to seduce his wife and prove Elffin's claims weren't true. Rhun got her drunk and tried to take off her wedding ring to prove her unfaithfulness. But Elffin was unconvinced. Maelgwn then demanded Taliesin prove the claim that he was a better bard than the ones in his court. Taliesin then prophesied the king's downfall in a flood of stanzas, while the king's bards could only play with their lips and make baby noises. Elffin was released from the prison into which he had been cast.

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b c d e English Writers: An Attempt Towards a History of English Literature.
  2. ^ by Welsh scholar Ifor Williams.
  3. ^ Ifor Williams, Canu Taliesin (University of Wales Press, 1960), poem I.

References

  • Ford, Patrick K. 1977. The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Ford, Patrick K. 1992. Ystoria Taliesin University of Wales Press: Cardiff.
  • Ford, Patrick K. 1999. The Celtic Poets: Songs and Tales from Early Ireland and Wales Ford and Bailie: Belmont, Mass.
  • Haycock, Marged 2007. Legendary Poems from the Book of Taliesin (CMCS, Aberystwyth)
  • Haycock, Marged. 1997. "Taliesin's Questions" Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 33 (Summer): 19–79.
  • Haycock, Marged. 1987. "'Some talk of Alexander and some of Hercules': three early medieval poems from the 'Book of Taliesin." Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 13 (1987): 7–38.
  • Haycock, Marged. 1987–88. "Llyfr Taliesin," National Library of Wales Journal 25: 357–86.
  • Haycock, Marged. 1983–1984. "Preiddeu Annwn and the Figure of Taliesin" Studia Celtica18/19: 52–78.
  • Koch, John and John Carey. 2003.The Celtic Heroic Age 3rd ed. Celtic Studies Publishing: Malden, Mass.
  • Williams, Ifor. 1960. Canu Taliesin. Translated into English by J. E. Caerwyn Williams as The Poems of Taliesin Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies: Dublin. (first edition 1967, reprinted 1975, 1987)
  • Williams, Ifor. 1944. Lectures on Early Welsh poetry. Dublin: DIAS
  • English Writers: An Attempt Towards a History of English Literature, Henry Morley, William Hall Griffin, Published by Cassell & Company, limited, 1887

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World Mythology Dictionary. A Dictionary of World Mythology. Copyright © Arthur Cotterell 1979, 1986, 2003. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
British History. A Dictionary of British History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Celtic Mythology. A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Copyright © James MacKillop 1998, 2004. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.  Read more
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