Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/169

Rh to ransom her."$47$ Ritual combats between representatives of summer and winter occur among the folk everywhere and in origin symbolized the defeat of winter, as well as actually aided the gods of light and growth. The story of Creidylad is perhaps the débris of an old myth explaining the reason of such a contest when its real purpose was forgotten.

Another group of divine personages is found in the Hanes Taliesin, which was written in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, although references to incidents in it occur in far earlier poems in the Book of Taliesin and presuppose its existence in some form when they were composed. It contains mythical elements which introduce old divinities, a culture hero or god, Taliesin, and the conceptions of inspiration, rebirth, and shapeshifting, the last being expressed in the folk-tale formula of the Transformation Combat, as it already is in one of the poems.$48$ Taliesin is unknown to the Mabinogion, save as a bearer of Bran's head, and this suggests his local character, while the saga was probably developed in a district to the south of the estuary of the Dyfi.$49$ Before story or poem was written, three facts concerning his mythic history must have been remembered—his inspiration, his shape-shifting powers, and his being the rebirth of Gwion. Whether or not there was an actual poet called Taliesin living in the sixth or, as his latest translator and commentator, Mr. J. G. Evans, thinks, in the thirteenth century, it is certain that his poems contain many mythical references which must once have been told of a mythical being doubtless bearing the same name as himself.

Tegid the Bald lived in Lake Tegid (Bala) with his wife Cerridwen, their beautiful daughter Creirwy, and their sons Morvran and Avagddu, the latter the, most ill-favoured of men, although Morvran ("Sea-Crow") is elsewhere said to have been also of repellent aspect. Cerridwen wished to compensate Avagddu by giving him knowledge, so that he might have entry among men of standing; and with the aid of the books of Ffergll (Vergil) she prepared a cauldron of inspiration