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Then Elphin came with Taliessin to the house of his father, and Gwyddno asked him if he had a good haul at the fish-weir. "I have something better than fish." "What is that?" asked the father. "I have a bard," said Elphin. "Alas, what will he profit thee?" said Gwyddno, to which Taliessin replied, "He will profit him more than the weir ever profited thee."
From this time Elphin always prospered, and he and his wife cared for Taliessin tenderly and lovingly, and the boy dwelt with him until he was thirteen years old, when Elphin went to make a Christmas visit to his uncle Maelgwyn, who was a great king and held open court.
Four and twenty horses were chosen, and Taliessin got four and twenty twigs of holly which he had burnt black, and he ordered the youth who was to ride Elphin's horse to let all the others set off before him, and bade him as he overtook each horse to strike him with a holly twig and throw it down. Then he had him watch where his own horse should stumble and throw down his cap at the place.
Then the king bade Taliessin sing again, and he began: "Discover thou what is The strong creature from before the flood, Without flesh, without bone, Without vein, without blood, Without head, without feet; It will neither be older nor younger Than at the beginning; Great God! how the sea whitens When first it comes!
Then the king and his nobles wondered much, for they had never heard the like from a boy so young. The king then called his wisest bard to answer Taliessin, but he could only play "Blerwm" on his lips as before, and each of the king's four and twenty bards tried in the same way and could do nothing more.
There were weeping willows with light-green feathery foliage, such as sorrowing fairies might plant on the grave of some Taliessin of Oberon's court. There was a double cherry in belated bloom; its flowers of natural size hung amid the slender branches like big birds' nests.
It is indeed known that, up to a somewhat late period, the bards continued to compose pieces under the names which had become popular of Aneurin, Taliessin, and Liwarc'h Hen; but no confusion can be made between these insipid rhetorical exercises and the really ancient fragments which bear the names of the poets cited fragments full of personal traits, local circumstances, and individual passions and feelings.
At a first glance the literature of Wales is divided into three perfectly distinct distinct branches: the bardic or lyric, which shines forth in splendour in the sixth century by the works of Taliessin, of Aneurin, and of Liware'h Hen, and continues through an uninterrupted series of imitations up to modern times; the Mabinogion, or literature of romance, fixed towards the twelfth century, but linking themselves in the groundwork of their ideas with the remotest ages of the Celtic genius; finally, an ecclesiastical and legendary literature, impressed with a distinct stamp of its own.
He devoted the greater part of his time to study; and he boasted that he had almost a complete collection of the manuscript remains of our Welch bards. He was often heard to prefer even to Taliessin, Merlin, and Aneurim, the effusions of the immortal Cadwallo, and indeed this was the only subject upon which he was ever known to dispute with eagerness and fervour.
Taliessin learning this, set forth from home to visit the palace and free his adoptive father, Elphin. In those days it was the custom of kings to sit in the hall and dine in royal state with lords and bards about them who should keep proclaiming the greatness and glory of the king and his knights.
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