Page:The Mabinogion.djvu/524



, literally, the "Radiant Brow," was a Welsh Bard of the sixth century. His name, regarded by his countrymen with the reverence due to the "Prince of Song," is known to the Saxon chiefly through the brief but spirited invocation of Gray.

The text records the fiction of which Taliesin is the hero. Of his real history little is known, excepting what may be gleaned from his works, and from the following notices given in the volume of Iolo MSS. recently published by the Welsh MSS. Society. The first of these latter is taken from Anthony Powel of Llwydarth's MS.

"Taliesin, Chief of the Bards, the son of Saint Henwg of Caerlleon upon Usk, was invited to the court of Urien Rheged, at Aberllychwr. He, with Elffin, the son of Urien, being once fishing at sea in a skin coracle, an Irish pirate ship seized him and his coracle, and bore him away towards Ireland; but while the pirates were at the height of