Page:The Mabinogion.djvu/528

Rh of the baptismal bards of Britain; Taliesin being their chair-president; for which reason he was designated Taliesin, Chief Bard of the West. They are likewise called the nine superinstitutionists of the baptismal chair; and no institution is deemed permanent unless renewed triennially, till the end of thrice three, or nine years. The institution was also called the Chair of the Hound Table, under the superior pririleges of which Gildas, the prophet, and Saint Cattwg the Wise, of Lancarvan, were bards; and also Llywarch Hên, the son of Elidr Lydanwyn, Tstudvach, the bard, and Tstjphan, the bard of Teilo."

There are evidently in the foregoing notices some authentic historical facts, as well as legendary traditions of the age of chivalry, which it would require an able critic to separate from each other.

Tradition has handed down a Cairn near Aberystwyth as the grave of Taliesin, the locality of which agrees with the foregoing account.

At one of the meetings of the Cambrian Archæological Association this Cairn was visited. It contains a Cistvaen, eight feet long by two feet six wide, and about three feet deep, composed of rude slabs of stone. One of the top stones, which lies near it, measures five feet nine by three feet nine. The Cairn was opened some fifty or sixty years ago, and the Cistvaen then contained some earth of a different colour to that of the adjoining soil.

The various poems recited in the Tale of Taliesin appear to have been composed at different periods, and it is not improbable that the above-mentioned Thomas ab Einion Offeiriad collected the poems attributed to Taliesin, which were in existence before his time, and added others to form the Mabinogi, which from expressions in page 474, and the very numerous transformations stated in the poetry, but not given in the prose, must have been much more complete than in its present state.

That the story of Taliesin was current in the Middle Ages is well known. If proof were wanting the lines of Llywarch Prydydd Moch, in allusion to the liberation of Elphin, might be adduced. They occur in an ode to Uywelyn ap lorwerth, composed probably not later than 1220.

"I will address my Lord with the greatly greeting muse, with the dowry of Keridwen, the Ruler of Bardism, in the manner of Taliesin, when he liberated Elphin, when he overshaded the Bardic mystery with the banners of the Bards."—Davies's Myth, of the Druids.