Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/574

558 I see a river pouring forth a stream of loamy water out of the pledge of the Lord of Hosts.

I know where Heimdall's Horn is hidden under the shadowy Holy Tree:

Mim drinks out of the clanging Horn a draught of mead every morning from the Burn."

All this agrees fairly well, despite the mythic tree of the ancient Norsemen being an ash, with the ancient Irish idea, which traced science and wisdom beyond the Salmon, and even the holy water in which he swam, to a Tree of Knowledge that overshadowed its banks—more correctly speaking, to nine trees; and this is to be specially noticed, as it seems to give a clue to the meaning. The Salmon of Llyn Llyw had more to say than the other ancients questioned by Arthur's men, because he had lived longer in the world; and here probably the nine hazels are to be regarded as symbolic of time, the bringer of experience and the great teacher of all. The number nine refers here, I take it, to the nine-night week of the ancients, as it does also in the case of another source of knowledge, the wonderful Cauldron of the Head of Hades, that was kept boiling by the breath of nine maidens (p. 256): these are, to borrow other terms, the Nine Muses of the Greek classics, and the Nine Maiden Mothers of Heimdal, whom the Norsemen of old sometimes regarded as the first birth of time, the father of princes, churls and thralls alike.

We left Taliessin and Gwion placed respectively over against Ossín and Finn. Beyond the account of Gwion tasting of the contents of the Cauldron of Sciences, and the unfailing knowledge he thereby acquired of all coming events, the references to his name in Welsh literature are so obscure that we learn little from them. They