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1 Chapter 1 : Cad Goddeu - Wikipedia Full text of "Taliesin, or, The bards and Druids of Britain: a translation of the remains of the earliest Welsh bards, and an examination of the bardic mysteries". Medieval Welsh storytelling for the modern world. Taliesin and Aneirin - Christian Bards or Pagan? Taliesin and Aneirin â Christian Bards or Pagan? Throughout its recorded history, Welsh poetry â true to its Indo-European roots â has been first and foremost praise poetry: The earliest examples of this poetry of which we have record is that attributed to the historical poets Taliesin and Aneirin, who probably sang in the second half of the sixth century CE c. Traditionally these early bards have been assumed to be Christians. This paper will examine the background of that assumption, and will perhaps reach a different conclusion. Although the question of the dating of this earliest material is complex and contentious, I will assume for the purpose of this discussion that at least some of it, in at least some core parts, is the work of the early bards to whom it has long been ascribed. The British bards were in their functions the descendants of one of the three Celtic learned classes â Druids, Bards, and Seers â described by a number of the classical writers, and argued about ever since. In Britain the druids were suppressed by the incoming Romans in the first century CE, but the bards survived; and after the Roman withdrawal c. In Ireland, as the druids declined in status, losing their religious function to the Christian priests and becoming simply magicians, the seers â the Irish filid or high-caste poets â acquired some of their lore-keeping and judicial functions, while splitting their poetic functions with the lower-caste bards. Whether or not something like this happened in Britain, with the British bards acquiring some of the druidical functions as the druids and seers disappeared, is a matter for speculation. Be that as it may, the Cynfeirdd were highly respected professionals whose craft was important to their society. They were not only poets in the modern sense, but genealogists, historians, performers, entertainers, and publicists Bromwich lxxi. Theirs was a craft of memory and oral transmission in a mostly illiterate society; they proclaimed the deeds of heroes, and knew the descent of kings. In Ireland their counterparts the filid were one of only a few groups who could travel freely though the little kingdoms, and the honor price of an ollam fili â a chief poet â was equal to that of a minor king Kelly The poets were well paid for their services: Our information on Taliesin and Aneirin as individuals is limited to the little that can be gleaned from their work. On the slight evidence of the one possibly early poem by Taliesin to Cynan Garwyn, a prince of Powys based near modern Shrewsbury, and of later traditions Bromwich ; Williams xxxix; lix; lxi, it has been suggested that he was a native of that area, who subsequently journeyed north to Elmet an area north and east of modern Manchester, possibly located on the east side of the Pennines Charles-Edwards 13, whose prince he praised in two surviving songs. Aneirin, on the other hand, may have been a native of the kingdom of Gododdin an area which included modern Edinburgh where his work was composed. If this is correct, he might also have been a younger brother or half-brother to Saint Deiniol, founder of the monastery of Bangor in North Wales Bartrum ; Depending on largely hypothetical reconstructions of the relationships among the latter three kingdoms and their Anglo-Saxon neighbors, historians have located the floret of these two bards anywhere from the middle of the sixth century CE to the first quarter of the seventh century CE, with the last quarter of the sixth century being most likely. It is time now to take a closer look at the religious environment of the courts where they sang. Like many other strange cultural innovations, Christianity first came to Britain through the Roman Empire. The earliest evidence of its presence is around CE, with its first British martyrdom St. Alban dated to about CE. Even by CE, when at least five British clerics attended the Council of Arles, it was evidently well established in southern Britain. By the time of the Roman withdrawal in c. There is plentiful historical and archaeological evidence for it in these areas from the sixth century onward Laing Later historical records refer to Saints Dubricus and Illtud as being active in southeastern Wales c. David in southwest Wales during the later sixth century Laing, Ninian in southern and east-central Scotland around the mid-fifth century, Kentigern along the Clyde-Forth axis in the sixth century, and St. Columba in northern and western Scotland after CE Laing Archaeologists have looked chiefly at burial practices, incised stone monuments, and chance finds on sites of occupation. These graves Page 1

2 consisted of a supine extended burial â the body was buried on its back with legs extended, not crouched â often with the head to the west and the feet to the east, and usually without grave goods. However, this form of burial has been found to have been normal throughout much of Europe in the Roman and sub-roman periods, and to have been used by both Christians and pagans; it is not now generally considered evidence of Christianity Charles-Edwards ; Fraser 37; Harding ; but see Smyth 34 for a contrary opinion; Laing e. In Scotland they have been shown to predate Christianity in some areas Harding, but do seem to have become more common after its arrival. Inscribed stones are another matter, those bearing crosses as well as usually Latin inscriptions being unequivocally Christian, but they are less common than long-cist cemeteries although they often accompany them, especially those datable to our period of interest. Christian memorial stones dating back to as early as the fifth century CE and possibly earlier have been found at Whithorn in Galloway an area which may have lain in Rheged, a site associated with St. A long cist cemetery near Edinburgh is accompanied by a late fifth or sixth century CE inscribed stone called the Catstane, now unfortunately within the perimeter of Edinburgh airport; this is the only known Christian memorial stone in Gododdin territory Laing ; Harding A Welsh Classical Dictionary: People in History and Legend up to about A. National Library of Wales, University of Wales Press, A Visit to the Pictish Nation. Canongate Books with Historic Scotland, Wales and the Britons, Oxford University Press, The Lords of Battle: From Caledonia to Pictland Scotland to Edinburgh University Press, The Iron Age in Northern Britain: Celts and Romans, Natives and Invaders. The Law of Hywel Dda: Law Texts of Medieval Wales. A Guide to Early Irish Law. Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, The Archaeology of Celtic Britain and Ireland, c. Cambridge University Press, Warlords and Holy Men: The Poems of Taliesin: Page 2

3 Chapter 2 : Taliesin or Bards and Druids of Britain by D.W. Nash Taliesin, or, The bards and Druids of Britain: a translation of the remains of the earliest Welsh bards, and an examination of the bardic mysteries by Nash, David William, or Publication date Geirfa Barrdoniaeth Gynnar Cymraeg, ed. Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, The title Preid d eu Annwn looks to be written in a different hand from that of the scribe who copied the poem, and seems to echo the phrase in line 7 with a later spelling of annwfyn. The "r" of Preiddeu is the long insular "r," and the form of the "d" indicates that it is to be taken as the voiced interdental fricative with the later spelling preiddeu. Williams, Jackson, and Haycock support emending py to the perfective particle ry. Haycock translates "who has extended" on the grounds that ry has relative force; thence the subject should be "the Lord" and not "sovereignty. Several of these lines, however, are triplets--three units wherein the first two rhyme and two caesuras--that stand out metrically and dramatically. This is one such line, and all the concluding lines that repeat "except seven none rose up" are triplets lines 10, 19, 28, 34, 42, and Other triplets are to be found in lines 8, 13, 32, and I indicated the caesuras by printing them with line breaks. University of Wales Press, ], p. Kaer Sidi appears in another poem in The Book of Taliesin in a line with the same rhyming patterns: Here, Taliesin boasts of being seated in formality and honor in an otherworldly place of pleasure Nys plawd heint aheneint auo yndi, "neither disease nor old-age afflicts him who may be here", wherein three musical? He sits in a fortress whose peaks or corners are surrounded by the sea Ac am y banneu ffrydyeu gweilgi, with the fruitful fountain above him Ar ffynhawn ffrwythlawn yssyd oduchti. Like the sparkling beverage in Preideu Annwn, "sweeter than white wine is the drink in it" ys whegach nor gwin gwyn yllyn yndi. The speaker declares that "Manawyddan and Pryderi know it" ys gwyr manawyt aphryderi, suggesting that Kaer Sidi is like Gwales in the Second Branch of The Mabinogi, where the bereaved retinue of Bendigeiduran rest for eighty years in pleasant forgetfulness. These otherworldly abodes were often submerged, which may account both for the "fruitful fountain" above the chair in the one poem and the fact that the survivors "rose up" in Preideu Annwn. Instead of the bardic chair, it is a prison that is equipped in this Kaer Sidi. Reward and punishment alike are doled out in the fairy fortress, but note that Gweir, like a poet, is singing or lamenting before the "Spoils of Annwn. As Loomis suggests, though, the texts that remain to us have probably been recompiled, and earlier stories lost; there may well have been an Ebostol Pwyll a Phryderi, just as there are other mentions in the branches to tale titles. This phrase is ambiguous. Rac in GM has several meanings: But preideu can also mean "cattle," "herds", and however unlikely this meaning fits the context, recall that there are magical beasts mentioned further on in the poem. Yn bardwedi is subject to various interpretations. The most common use of prefixed yn is "our. Are they singing together? Are they similarly incarcerated? Do they speak for all bardic and divine prisoners and singers? Haycock disambiguates with "our own," as though the speaker is using the "royal we. Many scholars suggest emending to ochlywit to cohere with the rhyme on -it, in which case we would have "song was heard. It is to this story that the poet in Preideu Annwn clearly refers, as the cauldron is literally the source of his "foremost utterance. This cauldron has the property of bringing slain warriors back to life. When Bendigeiduran comes to rescue his sister Branwen from ill-treatment, war breaks out between Wales and Ireland, and the cauldron is broken. It is stated that seven Welsh warriors returned from that tragic event: But there is also a wrested Irish cauldron in Culhwch and Olwen in which Arthur is directly involved. Having promised to help Culhwch complete the impossible tasks demanded of Ysbyddadan, one of them being the attainment of the cauldron of the giant Diwrnach, Arthur sails in his ship to Ireland and comes away with it after a more successful battle than the one described here. Ireland may also have been conceived of as a kind of "Otherworld" in Welsh lore, which may explain the Irish name given to the first mention of the fortress. Book of the Dun Cow, R. Best and Osborn Bergin, eds. Royal Irish Academy, ], pp. Barnes and Noble, ], pp. It has in common with Preideu Annwn a sea voyage, a raid upon an island stronghold with iron doors and a subterranean chamber, magic cattle, a cauldron which is filled with treasure, and an escape. Koch has "a sword of lightning slaughter" p. Another possibly muddled name. Haycock is skeptical; she suggests it means "leaping one" and may be an epithet for Arthur. She also notes its appearances in other texts as a personal Page 3

4 name p. Koch has "strong door" p. Pybyr in GM is defined as "staunch, strong, enthusiastic, bright, fine. University of Wales Press], p. Intrigued by the more seductive imagery, I too originally had "flaming door" "Material Poetry," p. Nothing is more manifest than that the Celts blended such incongruous pictures, not only without effort but even with delight. Williams advised as he did because "I do not deserve X" or "I do not merit X" unfortunately first convey in English the sense of "I am not worthy of X. This, alas, may be the only way to express the valency of gobrynaf. I wonder if it is a verb that exhibits one more argument than our English word "deserve," such that it can mean both "merit" and "bestow merit. The speaker is denigrating the llawyr, not looking up to them. The Taliesin poet speaks frequently of scoring "merit points" or winning contests with his poetry, and I wonder if gobrynaf carries this sense of keeping score. So, with a concession to the lack of an equivalent verb in English, I go with "merit. As chief poet, Taliesin does not merit the worthless men of letters whom he looks upon as poor readers, unlearned competitors, sloppy copiers perhaps and holier-than-thou critics. This is a revision of my earlier translation "reward". Llawyr is a compound of llaw, "small," "mean," "paltry," and gwyr, "men": She also argues that llewyr might not have been "immediately familiar to the scribe of the BT or one of his predecessors. Further, it collapses an important link between "readers" with slack shield straps and "warriors. Llen llywyadur presents another conundrum. How do we connect these three words--llawyr llen llywyadur--across the caesura? Haycock argues that because llen llywyadur makes a prosodic unit, divided from llawyr by the caesura, we should see it as a grammatical unit: They attack the castle with thirty ships which founder, save one; and the people of that ship populate the whole of Ireland. See the translation by Pamela S. Koch, in The Celtic Heroic Age: Koch and John Carey, p. This word breaks the rhyme with -ur. The question here is whether it is golud or colud. Goludd, "hindrance," "impediment," gives good sense in the context of this stanza about a glass castle and an incommunicative sentinel. Loomis translates "frustration" p. Haycock mentions a number of possibilities for peridyd: Pwy could be "who" or "whom. Could ymeindyd be "mid-day"? No one has a confident translation for this word cwy or for the whole line. Cwy could be a personal name; Haycock makes the interesting suggestion, based on a proposed emendment by John Lloyd-Jones in his G, that it is an error for dwy, "God. This word dychnut has occasioned some confusion among lexicographers. The GM entry seems driven by the context of the word, and it must have been assumed that it was a compound with udo, "howl," instead of cnud, "pack. If the monks are dogs or young wolves "packing together" in a choir, then one can also imagine them howling instead of singing. So while the dogs are clearly in a pack, as monks they are also sequestered in a chancel or choir, where they customarily sing. O gyfranc udyd is translated by Koch as "[shrinking] from encounter with the lords. Page 4

5 Chapter 3 : Taliesin - Wikipedia Taliesin Or Bards and Druids of Britain [D. W. Nash] on blog.quintoapp.com *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Tantra And Taliesin by Steve Parfitt Tantra is not so much a religion, by which I mean a set of dogmas and doctrines, as a fundamental operation of human consciousness that seeks to express itself in all religion and cultures. It may be obfuscated, denied, repressed, reviled, concealed or otherwise wished away, particularly in body-fearing, patriarchal cultures, but it continues to surface in different guises in all cultures. When I learned the story of Taliesin, used as the principal teaching instrument of at least one modern school of Druidry, I was struck by the Tantric nature of the story and its symbolism. Only the final part of the story did not seem to fit exactly but when I learned of the Eighty Four Mahasiddhas the final similarity was revealed. Those who are can skip the following five paragraphs and continue reading from the one after. The Goddess Ceridwen has two children, one a beautiful daughter, the other an ugly son. She decides that her son, deprived of worldly advantages, should have spiritual riches and arranges at some considerable trouble to herself for a magical potion to be brewed over the course of a year and a day. This potion will bestow enlightenment on Her son, Afagddu, when he drinks just three drops of it. The remainder of this magical soup is actually harmful â the Baleful Brew. The brewing is supervised by an old, blind man, Morda, and a young boy called Gwion Bach or Little Innocent. On the night before the process is completed Ceridwen arrives to await the final moment and to take the mere three drops required to enlighten her son. However, Gwion throws the last handful of herbs into the cauldron and three drops splash onto his thumb. Instinctively he sucks them from his scalded thumb and is instantly illuminated. The Goddess is furious that her son has been deprived of the three drops needed and descends on Gwion who takes flight and, with his newfound powers, shapeshifts into a hare in order to expedite his escape. Not to be thwarted however, Ceridwen shapeshifts into a greyhound and continues the pursuit. Gwion jumps into a stream and becomes a fish, Ceridwen follows and becomes an otter. Gwion jumps out of the water and becomes a bird only to be followed by Ceridwen becoming a hawk. Finally Gwion spies a pile of winnowed grain and dives into it while converting into a grain himself. He thinks that he is well hidden but Ceridwen becomes a hen and pecks her way through the grain eventually managing to swallow Gwion. Miraculously, Ceridwen becomes pregnant with Gwion and vows to kill the child on the instant that he is born. And so Taliesin acquired his name, for Taliesin means Radiant Brow. Elffin adopts the child and his worldly fortunes instantly take a turn for the better, acquiring wealth and happiness, until he antagonises King Maelgwn and is imprisoned as a result. He is rescued by Taliesin who performs some spectacular magical feats by means of his singing. The story can be understood on several levels also typical of Tantric texts but here I shall consider that all the characters are emblematic of energies manifesting in a single psyche i. The story begins with a sense of incompleteness; of the need to develop in order to overcome some sense of unease and alienation. The innate urge to develop oneself spiritually and seek happiness, recognised in humanistic psychology as the actualising tendency, is the initial manifestation of the Goddess energy seeking the recipe for the magical brew. A point emphasised by the presence of the old, blind man â vision is no longer directed to outer phenomena but to inner processes and this leads to wisdom, symbolised by age. And what a result! In Tantric terms the Kundalini Shakti has been awakened and is proceeding through the chakras. As each chakra is associated with a particular element the chase over land, through water and air and finally the sun-fostered grain being subjected to the fire of digestion and metabolism is a journey through the elements as well as the chakras. Ceridwen is unable to kill the child as she had planned because she is so moved by his beauty. We see that the physical ugliness of Afagddu, symbolising ignobility of character has become physical beauty, symbolising nobility, in Gwion transformed by his meditative effort and journey through the chakras and elements. Highly accomplished practitioners of Buddhist insight meditation are known as Arahants, meaning Noble Ones. There is, however, still the element of Spirit or Ether to be negotiated and this is symbolised by his isolation from the world of matter and everyday experience in the leather bag. This retreat from the world is exemplified by the Tibetan Tantric practice of the three year retreat during which Page 5

6 practitioners are instructed in the most profound teachings and expected to practise them intensely. Sometimes, as with Gwion, the practitioner is alone for most of the time. Having thus opened the throat chakra Taliesin returns to the world. The symbolism of being discovered by a hapless young man matches the Tantric view of the world being characterised by suffering and dissatisfaction and how spiritual practice is to be anchored in the body and the world of ordinary experience to bear real fruit. The action of opening the bag lets in the light, literally enlightening Gwion. As I mentioned above, I could not equate the final part of the story with anything Tantric until I discovered the legends of the eighty four mahasiddhas. This freedom is not a self conscious rebellion against the repressive rules of society, which comprises another form of enslavement, but a spontaneous expression of their true being, free of all calculation and self consciousness, because it arises from a state ontologically prior to the construction of the self concept. Probably the best known of these songs is The Royal Song of Saraha. Superficially the two songs appear to be quite different and to have different motivations. Elffin can be seen as pure consciousness and the iniquitous courtiers the kleshas, or afflictions, that obscure it and lead us to imprison our true nature behind a conceptualised view of self and the world. Elffin is Everyman, you and me struggling in this world of suffering. Other examples outside the Mahasiddhas reveal that the liberated consciousness is wont to express itself in verse, the Buddha for example, who, quite rightly, has a reputation for meticulous analysis and detailed expositions of his teaching, also expressed himself in spontaneous verse, as recorded in the section of the Buddhist Canon called the Udana. The difference between Druidry and Wicca on the one hand and Tantra on the other seems to be one of emphasis rather than content. The former concentrating more on external natural phenomena and the latter on the body and internal processes, the two paths converging on to the same point. It is fortunate that we have two strands of Tantra - Hindu and Buddhist - that have not been subject to mutilation at the hands of a repressive and hostile dogma and have thus survived intact to the present day. Chapter 4 : Taliesin Or Bards And Druids Of Britain Taliesin; or, The bards and druids of Britain. A tr. of the remains of the earliest Welsh bards, and an examination of the bardic mysteries, by D.W. Nash. Chapter 5 : Taliesin or Bards and Druids of Britain Oxfam GB Oxfamâ s Online Shop Buy Taliesin, Or, the Bards and Druids of Britain: A Translation of the Remains of the Earliest Welsh Bards, and an Examination of the Bardic Mysteries by David William Nash (ISBN: ) from Amazon's Book Store. Chapter 6 : Preiddeu Annwn: The Spoils of Annwn Robbins Library Digital Projects Taliesin or Bards and Druids of Britain has 6 ratings and 1 review. A translation of the earliest Welsh bards and an examination of the bardic mysteries. Chapter 7 : Tantra And Taliesin Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids Taliesin, or, The bards and Druids of Britain: a translation of the remains of the earliest Welsh bards, and an examination of the bardic mysteries. [D W Nash]. Chapter 8 : Taliesin, Or, the Bards and Druids of Britain : David William Nash : Taliesin, or the Bards and Druids of Britain: A Translation of the Remains of the Earliest Welsh Bards, and an Examination of the Bardic Mysteries by D W Nash Starting at $ Chapter 9 : Tre Gwernin: Taliesin and Aneirin - Christian Bards or Pagan? Page 6

7 Taliesin: The Bards and Druids of Britain by David William Nash, The Book of Taliesin at the National Library of Wales. Gives access to colour images of Peniarth MS 2. Page 7