Welsh Magic

Long ago, at the beginning of King Arthur's time and the famous Round
Table, there lived a man whose name was Tegid Voel. His wife was called
Caridwen. And there was born to them a son, Avagddu, who was the
ugliest boy in all the world.

When Caridwen looked at Avagddu, and knew beyond any doubt that he was
the ugliest boy in all the world, she was much troubled. Therefore she
decided to boil a caldron of Inspiration and Science for her son, so
that Avagddu might hold an honorable position because of his knowledge.

Caridwen filled the caldron and began to boil it, and all knew that it
must not cease boiling for one year and a day--that is, until three
drops of Inspiration had been distilled from it. Gwion Bach she put to
stirring the caldron, and Morda, a blind man, was to keep the caldron
boiling day and night for the whole year. And every day Caridwen
gathered charm-bearing herbs and put them in to boil.

And it was one day toward the close of the year that three drops of the
liquid in the caldron flew out upon the finger of Gwion Bach, who was
stirring the liquid. It burnt him, and he put his finger in his mouth.
Because of the magic of those drops he knew all that was going to
happen. And he was afraid of the wiles of Caridwen, and in fear he ran
away.

All the liquor in the caldron, except the three charm-bearing drops
that had fallen upon the finger of Gwion Bach, was poisonous, and
therefore the caldron burst. When Caridwen saw the work of her whole
year lost, she was angry and seized a stick of wood. With the stick she
struck Morda on the head.

"Thou hast disfigured me wrongfully," he said, "for I am innocent."

"Thou speakest truth," she replied; "it was Gwion Bach robbed me."

And Caridwen went forth after Gwion Bach, running.

When little Gwion saw her coming, because of the magic drops that had
touched his finger, he was able to change himself into a hare. But
thereupon Caridwen changed herself into a greyhound, and there was a
race fleeter almost than the wind. Caridwen was nearly upon him when
little Gwion turned toward the river and became a fish. Then Caridwen
changed herself from a greyhound into an otter, and chased little Gwion
under the water. So close was the chase that he had to turn himself
into a bird of the air. Whereupon Caridwen became a hawk and followed
him and gave him no rest in the sky. She was just swooping down upon
him, and little Gwion thought that the hour of his death had come,
when he saw a heap of winnowed wheat on the floor of the barn, and
he dropped into the wheat and turned himself into one of the grains.
And then what do you think happened? Caridwen changed herself into a
high-crested black hen, hopped into the wheat, scratching it with her
feet, found poor little Gwion Bach, who had once been a boy, then in
turn became a rabbit, a fish, a bird of the air, and was now a grain of
wheat.

Caridwen swallowed him! But so powerful was the magic of those three
drops of Inspiration which had touched his finger, that little Gwion
appeared in the world again, entering it as a beautiful child. And even
Caridwen, because of his beauty, could not bear to kill him, so she
wrapped him in a leathern bag and cast him into the sea. That was on
the twenty-ninth day of April.

Where Caridwen threw little Gwion into the sea was near the
fishing-weir of Gwyddno by Aberstwyth. And even as Caridwen had the
ugliest son in all the world, so had Gwyddno the most unlucky, and his
name was Elphin. This year Gwyddno had told Elphin that he might have
the drawing of the weir on May Eve. Usually the fish they drew from the
weir were worth about one hundred pounds in good English silver. His
father thought that if luck were ever going to come to Elphin, it would
come with the drawing of the weir on May Eve.

But on the next day, when Elphin went to look, there was nothing in the
weir except a leathern bag hanging on a pole.

One of the men by the weir said to Elphin: "Now hast thou destroyed the
virtue of the weir. There is nothing in it but this worthless bag."

"How now," said Elphin, "there may be in this bag the value of an
hundred pounds."

They took the bag down from the pole, and Elphin opened it, and as he
opened it he saw the forehead of a beautiful boy.

"Behold a radiant brow!" cried Elphin. "Taliesin shall he be called."

Although Elphin lamented his bad luck at the weir, yet he carried the
child home gently on his ambling horse. Suddenly the little boy began
to sing a song in which he told Elphin that the day would come when he
would be of more service to him than the value of three hundred salmon.

And this song of comfort was the first poem the little, radiant-browed
Taliesin ever sang. But when Gwyddno, the father of Elphin, asked him
what he was, he sang again and told the story of how he had fled in
many shapes from Caridwen; as a frog, as a crow, as a chain, as a rose
entangled in a thicket, as a wolf cub, as a thrush, as a fox, as a
martin, as a squirrel, as a stag's antler, as iron in glowing fire, as
a spear-head from the hand of one who fights, as a fierce bull, as a
bristly boar, and in many other forms, only to be gobbled up in the end
as a grain of wheat by a black hen.

"What is this?" said Gwyddno to his son Elphin.

"It is a bard--a poet," the son answered.

"Alas! what will he profit thee?"

"I shall profit Elphin more than the weir has ever profited thee,"
answered Taliesin.

And the little, radiant-browed boy began to sing another song:


"Wherefore should a stone be hard;
Why should a thorn be sharp-pointed;
Who is hard like flint;
Who is salt like brine;
Who is sweet like honey;
Who rides in the gale?"


Then bade he Elphin wager the King that he had a horse better and
swifter than any of the King's horses. Thus Elphin did, and the King
set the day and the time for the race at the place called the Marsh of
Rhiannedd. And thither every one followed the King, who took with him
four-and-twenty of his swiftest horses.

The course was marked and the horses were placed for running. Then
in came Taliesin with four-and-twenty twigs of holly, which he had
burned black, and he put them in the belt of the youth who was to ride
Elphin's horse. He told this youth to let all the King's horses get
ahead of him; but as he overtook one horse after the other he was to
take one of the burnt twigs of holly and strike the horse over the
crupper, then let the twig fall. This the youth who rode Elphin's horse
was to do to each of the King's horses as he overtook it, and he was
to watch where his own horse should stumble, and throw down his cap on
that spot.

Thereupon the youth who rode Elphin's horse, and all the King's riders,
pricked forth upon their steeds, their horses with bridles of linked
gold on their heads, and gold saddles upon their backs. And the racing
horses with their shell-formed hoofs cast up sods, so swiftly did they
run, like swallows in the air. Blades of grass bent not beneath the
fleet, light hoofs of the coursers.

Elphin's horse won the race. Taliesin brought Elphin, when the race was
over, to the place where the horse had stumbled and where the youth had
thrown down his cap as he had been told. Elphin did as Taliesin bade
him and put workmen to dig a hole in this spot. And when they had dug
the ground deep enough, there was found a large caldron full of gold.

Then said Taliesin: "Elphin, behold! See what I give thee for having
taken me out of the weir and the leathern bag! Is this not worth more
to thee than three hundred salmon?"

* * * * *

In the _Mabinogion_ stories, first collected and set down some time in
the twelfth century, we live in a world of enchantment and fairies.
Those tales are full of gold--the gold of a wondrous imagination.
It would be nice if we could keep this door, over which is written
_Welsh_, open long enough so that I might tell you the story of
Pryderi, too, and how Pryderi found a castle where no castle had ever
been, how he entered it and saw "In the center of the castle floor
... a fountain with marble-work around it, and on the margin of the
fountain a golden bowl on a marble slab, and chains hanging from the
air, to which he saw no end." What happened to him when he seized
this cup, how the castle faded away, how the heroes of the story were
changed to mice--for none of this can we hold open the golden door any
longer. The ends of the golden chains of many a story are not to be
seen by us.