We may never know to what extent the writers of the past were involved with the intentional preservation of the mysteries, but we can deduce that the tales were important enough to be rendered worthy of scribing. In dark, dusty cells, the scribes scratched away with quill and ink, each one immersed in the tales to a greater or lesser extent, each one serving the old ways, whether intentionally or not.
One must remember that society in Wales at the time of recording was highly Christianised, and the celebration of the old ways would have been scorned. In fact, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the practical application of the themes within the tales would have been punishable by death, as they were more akin to Witchcraft, as perceived by the church, than anything traditional. The authors were subject to a society greatly different from our own. With this in mind, it is easier to understand the differences within the tales and how some themes appear in one script and not in another. We have to take into consideration the nature of the individual scribing them onto parchment. They will have had their own ulterior motives, their own agendas and beliefs, and, in some instances, such as Elis Gruffudd, prejudices. However, superseding the opinions and prejudices of the authors was a drive or a need to preserve; whether the motive was one of curiosity, national literary pride, or of intentional preservation of mystery, we may never know.
Thankfully we have been left a rich legacy of literature that reflects the Pagan past of the Celtic people, but that is simply one facet, one aspect, of the legacy. We have also inherited their passion and drive to appreciate myth and legend as history of the heart and as tools of transformation. It is vitally important to refrain from total literalism; there is no joy there, and it can serve to become inappropriate dogma or doctrine that has the potential to become steadfast and unmoving. The Pagan traditions are not beyond the same fates that befell the revealed religions, where allegory was and is taken as fact, something written by man through the spirit of their god. Within Paganism it must be appreciated that the written form of these tales, however vital to their preservation, is not indicative of stagnant, unchanging mythologies. The written word is not the be-all and end-all of the tales but rather is a portal to their understanding, and this understanding works on two levels. On the one hand, we have the academic passion some have for the evolution and development of the Celtic languages and the manner by which the tales reflect known history and historical figures. On the other hand, we have the visionary, deeply intuitive application of the tales where they serve to combine body and spirit in a manner that is steeped in magic. The two should work together, hand in hand, spirit to spirit; to unbalance either would be foolhardy.
The visionary application of the tales should take the scribal form into consideration, and any effective magician must have an awareness of their origin and to what extent they have been studied. Magicians are practical folk; they see two worlds that dance together harmoniously, and for this to be a dance of integrity, a magician should be learned in the development of the written form as well as being capable of perceiving and utilising the spiritual aspect of the tales. The same can be applied to the purely academic study of the material, and in recent years a change of attitude has been present within academia with the rise of an appreciation that the tales are thematically representative of the Pagan past and its gods. In other words, the spiritual expression of the tales should have an understanding of the academic, and the academic an appreciation and acceptance of the visionary. The two can work and coexist side by side, harmoniously and with integrity. We should never fall into the illusion that what is written is marked in stone; it is not. It is simply one method of connection. The spirit is also more than capable of accessing the mysteries—what lies betwixt and between the words of dry ink—and integrating them into everyday living in a manner that is simultaneously conducive to their continuous preservation and individually transformative.
In addition to the traditional translations of two sixteenth-century authors, I will add my own rendition of the tale, presented in a vivid narrative, representative of twenty-first-century storytelling. I do this to demonstrate that the tales are adaptable, non-stagnant, and applicable to the here and now. One could even present the tale as happening today, using modern symbols to represent the allegories of the original.
An important facet in the tale’s retelling by a magical practitioner or bard is the connection he or she has to the mysteries, for it is this connection that is primarily transmitted through the tale—it is this spirit that entices and invokes the spirit of another. Without this connection, without the experience of the initiatory qualities hidden in the heart of allegory, the tale is just a story; connection is vital to effective transmission. To become a priest of the old gods and their mysteries, one must first experience transformation, and this tale provides the keys to access the magic that transforms the profane into the sublime. You will hopefully note and sense the different connection the two authors I have utilised for translation had to the tale, and feel the quality of that connection reaching out to you from over five hundred years of history.
And so we move on to the telling of the tale. I suggest that the manner by which you read the following be different from the ordinary task of reading. They are written in a manner that is strange and unfamiliar to the modern eye. We have been programmed in ways of grammar and the effective use of language in its written form; these tales do not conform to those rules and may therefore seem oddly structured and peculiar. The sentences are brief; they focus primarily on the fundamental themes and do not engage in verbosity or the vivid invoking of imagination by in-depth descriptions. They simply serve to get the story across efficiently and effectively, in a manner that is easy to remember and recall.
Read the following traditional translations sequentially, and then reread them out loud. Close the book and rerun the tale in your mind, recalling the imagery it presents; you will find that you will easily remember the tale with very little difficulty. Now tell the tale out loud; it doesn’t matter if there is anyone there to listen to you or not, just tell it as you see it in your imagination. This simple task alone is sufficient to instigate a connection to the tale. By using imagination, speech, imagery, and words, you utilise several methods of communicating with the story, forming a connection to it that is beyond the simple task of reading.
I reiterate that only the first half of the tale is pertinent to this book. Although I touch briefly upon the second, it is not relevant to the exploration of the mysteries; as stated previously, the two parts are considerably different in nature and purpose.
The following version was translated by me from the text of Elis Gruffudd’s Chronicle of the History of the World. This is the oldest known written record of the first half of the tale. The first line of the tale is significant, for Elis informs us that the tale was widespread in Wales, and its telling was current among the people of that time. This tells us that the tale itself was still a relevant aspect of the popular imagination and was in continuous use—it was not an ancient relic but an essential part of the bard’s repertoire. Elis is drawing from two relevant sources here: the written format that he is copying and the narrative tradition that he is listening to within the folkloric consciousness. Although we are not informed of who the people actually are, we can assume that he is referring to the bards of the day and the common family storytellers. The medievalist Will Parker suggests that the relevance of written and oral sources sought by Elis reflected a legacy of the School of Taliesin, a repository for the Narrative Spirit and covert initiates of the mysteries.8
The Tale of Gwion Bach
(nlw ms 5276d)
The following is the story of Gwion Bach that is most prevalent in Wales.
In the days of Arthur, a nobleman lived in the land that today is called Penllyn. His name was Tegid Foel, and his homestead according to the story was a body of water known today as Llyn Tegid. And the story says that he also had a wife and to
her was given the name Cerridwen, and she, so says the tale, was learned in the three crafts, which are known as magic, witchcraft, and divination. Also, the tale says that Tegid and Cerridwen had a son whose looks, shape, and form were terribly ugly. They named him Morfran, meaning “sea crow,” but owing to his ugliness they eventually called him Afagddu, “utter darkness.”
Because of their son’s wretchedness, his mother became very sad in her heart, for there was no obvious means by which her son would win acceptance amongst the learned men of the day unless he beheld qualities markedly different from his looks. And so to deal with this matter, she turned her thoughts towards her craft to see how best she could make him in possession of the Prophetic Spirit and a great storyteller of the world to come.
After much labouring she discovered that there was such a way of bestowing upon him such knowledge by using the powers of the herbs of the earth and the effort of a human. This was what she must do: gather certain herbs and plants of the earth upon certain days and hours, and to cast them all into a cauldron of water, and then to arrange the cauldron upon a fire. This had to be warmed continuously in order to boil the cauldron night and day for as long as a year and a day. Within this allotted time she would see that three drops of all the multitude of herbs would spring forth, and upon whichever man they would fall, she would see that he would be all-knowing in all arts and full of the Prophetic Spirit. She would also see that the remaining liquid of the herbs, except for the three drops which came before, shall be the most powerful poison there could be in the world, and this shall cause the cauldron to shatter and spill its poison upon the earth.
Now, this story is against reason and contrary to faith and piety. But the body of the story tells how she did collect great numbers of herbs of the earth, these which she put into the cauldron of water and placed upon a fire. The story says that she took an old blind man to stir the cauldron and to tend it, but it says nothing of his name any more than it tells us who the author of the tale is. But it does tell us the name of the boy who led the old man: Gwion Bach, he who Cerridwen set the task to stoke the fire beneath the cauldron. In this manner, each kept to his task, tending the fire and stirring the cauldron, whilst Cerridwen kept it full of water and herbs until the end of a year and a day.
At that time Cerridwen took her son, Morfran, and placed him close to the cauldron to receive the drops when their hour of readiness arrived for them to leap out of the cauldron. In that time Cerridwen set her haunches down to rest; in that time she happened to sleep, and during that time the three amazing drops leapt from the cauldron, these which fell on Gwion Bach, who had pushed Morfran out of the way. And at that, the cauldron let out a scream and, owing to the poison, it shattered. At that Cerridwen awoke from her slumber and was enraged to see Gwion, who was filled with knowledge. Gwion in his wisdom sensed her temper was poisonous and that she intended to destroy him totally as soon as she discovered how he had deprived her son of the remarkable drops. At this he took to his feet and fled. Cerridwen, upon recovering from her madness, enquired of her son and thus discovered how Gwion had driven him away from that place she had stationed him. On knowing this she ran from the house like a madman in pursuit of Gwion Bach, and it is said that she saw him run in the shape of a hare. Because of this she turned herself into a black greyhound bitch and followed him here and there. After a lengthy pursuit, Gwion tired and became a salmon in water; Cerridwen gave chase in the form of an otter bitch. In pursuit, the chase took to air, Gwion as a bird and she as a hawk. After a long pursuit in many shapes, she chased him so hard he was forced to enter a barn where a great tower of winnowed wheat stood. And in this manner he became a grain of wheat. Cerridwen, unrelented, turned herself into a black tufted (or crested) hen, and as the tale tells, she pecked and swallowed Gwion into her belly.
And there she carried him for nine months, when after which time she delivered him forth. When she looked upon that child who entered the world, she did not have within her heart the ability to do him physical harm nor permit any other in her sight to harm him. In the end, she had made a coracle, or skin-belly, which would fit around the babe entirely; this she cast into the lake—some say that it was a river, whilst other books says she put him to sea. He was found a long time afterwards, as this present work will show in good course.9
At this point, the writer pursues further histories of the British Isles, returning later in the body of his work, to the second half of the tale, which finds Taliesin caught in the salmon weir of Gwyddno Garanhir on the eve of Calan Gaeaf (Samhain); more on this a little later.
• • •
The following version was translated by me from the text of John Jones of Gellilyfdy. As mentioned previously, I have maintained sentence length, style, punctuation, and so on as much as possible to maintain their original nuances.
Hanes Taliesin
(peniarth ms 111)
In ages past, a nobleman who was named Tegid Foel lived in the middle of Lake Tegid with his betrothed wife, who was named Karidwen [sic], and from that wife was born a son who was named Morfran the son of Tegid, and also a daughter named Creirfyw, and the fairest maiden in all the world was she, but Morfran was of such ugliness that he was named Afagddu (“utter darkness”). Karidwen took to thinking that it would be unlikely for him to be amidst the noble because of his ugliness unless there was upon him some skill or honourable knowledge, which were attributes of Arthur and his Round Table.
So she took to the crafts of the book of the Pheryllt to boil a cauldron of Awen and knowledge to impart upon her son so that he would be dignified of character for his knowledge and acquaintance of the world.
And so she took to boil the cauldron, and once begun, the boiling could not be halted until a year and a day had passed and three blessed drops from the Prophetic Spirit be found therein. She employed a young boy called Gwion Bach from LlanFair yn Caer Einion in Powys to tend the cauldron, and a blind man named Morda to tend the fire beneath it, and she entrusted them to not allow the boiling to cease until a year and a day had passed. And she by means of books of astronomy and by the hours and movements of the planets did gather the beneficial herbs of all kinds. And as Cerridwen was resting from her profits near the end of the year and a day, three drops of liquid accidentally leapt from the cauldron onto the thumb of Gwion Bach; lest he be burnt, he thrust the digit into his mouth, and as soon as those drops entered his being Gwion knew all that was and all that would be, and he knew also of Karidwen’s fury to come, for great was his knowledge, and in fear of her he took towards his own land and the cauldron broke in two pieces; the water within was now poison except for the three blessed drops. The liquid poisoned the horses of Gwyddno Garanhir who drank from the estuary whose waters were contaminated by the cauldron, and because of that the estuary has forever been named Gwenwynfeirch Gwyddno (“the estuary of Gwyddno’s poisoned horses”).
And with that Karidwen came forth and saw that her labours over a year and a day were lost. In her fury she hit Morda until his remaining eye became loose in its socket and shouted at him for being stupid to lose the contents of the cauldron. This is true, he told Karidwen, but it was Gwion Bach, not I, who ingested the liquid. Knowing this, Gwion took forth in the shape of a hare and Karidwen took speed in the shape of a greyhound bitch towards the river Ayrfen; he jumped into the river and became a fish and she also took to the water in the shape of an otter bitch, but he took to the sky in the shape of a bird and she took chase in the form of a hawk; she chased him without mercy. Gwion feared he would be caught and killed, and below him he spied a pile of winnowed wheat, and to it he took in the shape of a single grain. Relentlessly Karidwen took the form of a black crested hen, and with her feet she scratched at the pile until she came upon that single grain; promptly she swallowed him. And, according to the story, for nine months she was with child, and pity befell her: she could not bring her heart to kill the child who was born so fair, so instead she dressed him wit
hin a skin-belly coracle and set him to sail on the twenty-ninth day of April.10
• • •
Pertinent to an understanding of the continuation of the Taliesin story, it is worthy to note that he is said to have floated in his coracle for approximately forty years (depending on the manuscript at hand), from the time of Arthur to the beginning of Maelgwn’s time. It is said that a wealthy gentleman by the name of Gwyddno Garanhir living near the fort of Deganwy in North Wales had a son by the name of Elffin, who was in service at the court of King Maelgwn of Gwynedd. The old texts state that Gwyddno had a salmon weir in which was caught an abundance of salmon every Halloween or Beltane, depending on which text you read. This discrepancy of seasons has caused some confusion in the academic world for decades, but for the purposes of an exploration of mystery, they are easily reconciled. Both Halloween/Samhain (or Calan Gaeaf in the native tongue) and Beltane (also known as Calan Mai) are liminal periods—they are the pivotal points in time when one season gives birth to another. At Beltane spring gives way to summer, and at Samhain we see the first stirrings of the birth of winter. Within the tale, the river and the salmon weir, at the point where it meets the sea, is a place of liminality that presents the newborn Taliesin to the world.
It is written that when Gwyddno Garanhir’s son Elffin and his people arrived at the weir, they were disappointed to not find any salmon; normally over one hundred pounds’ worth of fish would be found. Instead they discovered a coracle. Elffin took a knife and cut the skin of the coracle, revealing a radiant human forehead. Upon seeing this, Elffin declared, “Behold the radiant brow,” i.e., Taliesin.
From the Cauldron Born Page 5
