Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/171

Rh ascribed to Taliesin and in a Triad his greatness as the "chief of bards" appears—

He has been with the gods and ranks himself as one of them, telling how he was created and enchanted by them before he became immortal;$52$ he has a chair not only on earth but in the gods' land.$53$ Taliesin was the ideal bard, a god of inspiration like Ogma, and, besides his reincarnation, his birth from Cerrldwen shows his divine nature. Yet, like other semi divine personages connected with inspiration or culture, he obtains his powers by accident or by force. One myth, that of the cauldron, shows the former and Is parallel to the story of Flonn and the salmon;$54$ but In another, darkly referred to in a poem, he with Arthur and many companions goes overseas to Caer Sidi for the spoils of Annwfn, Including the cauldron of Pen Annwfn.$5$ Here, whether successfully or not, the gifts of culture and inspiration are sought by force or craft. Are two separate myths combined in the Hanes Taliesin, one making Taliesin son of a goddess with an abode In the divine land; the other viewing him as a culture hero, stealing the gifts of the gods' land, and therefore obnoxious to Cerrldwen. And if so, do these myths "reflect the encroachment of the cult of a god on that of a goddess, his worshippers regarding him as her son, her worshippers reflecting their hostility to the new god In a myth of her enmity to him"?$56$

Taliesin was supreme In shape-shifting and rebirth. Of no other Brythonic god or hero is the latter asserted, and several poems obscurely enumerate various forms which he assumed and recount his adventures in them. When, however, the poet, speaking In his name, asserts that he has been a sword, tear, word, book, coracle, etc., it is obvious that this is mere bardic nonsense and not pantheism, as some have suggested. The claims of TallesIn and of the Irish Amairgen resemble those of the Eskimo angakok, who has the entrée of the other-world and