Page:The Mabinogion.djvu/529

500 From several poems being addressed to Hopkin ap Thomas ab Einiawn, by Davydd y Coed, Iorwerth Uwyd, and others who flourished about the years 1300 to 1350, it may be inferred that Hopkin's father, the above Thomas ab Einiawn, was contemporary with Lly waroh Prydydd y Moch, and therefore not the author but merely the compiler of the already well-known story of Caridwen, Taliesin, and Elphin.

No perfect copy of the Mabinogi of Talesin being accessible, it has been necessary to print it in the present series from two fragments. The former of the two is contained in a MS. in the Library of the Welsh School, in London. It is written in a modem round hand and bears the title "Y Prif-feirdd Cymreig, sef Canau &c, a gasglwyd ganwyf fi, William Morris o Gaergybi ym Môn, 1758." The MS. is of quarto size.

The second fragment is from a MS. in the library of the late Iolo Morganwgy and was kindly communicated by his son, the late Mr. Taliesin Williams (Ab Iolo).

It should be mentioned that the Mabinogi of Taliesin has already been published, although not in so complete a form as the present version, with a translation, by the late Dr. Owen Pughe, in the fifth volume of the Cambrian Quarterly ; and, with two exceptions (the poems beginning "Discover thou what is," and "I adore the Supreme, Lord of all animation," pp. 485, 487), the translations of the poems now published are extracted from that work, the necessary alterations being made where the text differed materially. The first portion of it is also to be found (untranslated) in the Myvyrian Archaiology, vol. I. page 17, and part of it is inserted in Jones's Welsh Bards.

The Transmigrations of Taliesin will remind the general reader of the adventures of the second Royal Calender in the Arabian Nights.

—Page 471. is generally considered to be the Goddess of Nature of Welsh mythology. The principal circumstances of her fabulous history are those detailed in the Mabinogi of Taliesin. Upon them are founded most of the allusions to her contained in the poems of the bards, with whom the cauldron of Caridwen, of Inspiration, or the Awen, ib a subject of frequent reference. As regards her singular family we have but little information and few details Several notices, however, occur in Welsh writings of her fair