Taliesen, radiant front! The prince replied, Radiant front be his name. CHAP. v. Taliesin immediately composed for Elphin a song of praise, in which he predicted his future renown: and Elphin in return presented him to his father Gwyddno, who demanded whether he was a human being or a spirit. Taliesin replied in a mystical song; wherein he professed himself to be the general primary bard who had existed in all ages, identified his own character with that of the Sun, and declared himself to have been thrice-born from the womb of his various mothers '.

The key to this whole narrative is afforded us at its very commencement: for, as the ship-god Hu, the ship-goddess Ceridwen, the Raven of the sea, the primeval Darkness, the mystic token of the egg, the holy island, and the consecrated lake, are formally introduced; the tale itself, as indeed its subsequent structure demonstrates, can only relate to an initiation into those Mysteries, which Artemidorus and Dionysius have declared to be substantially the same as the Orgies of Bacchus and the Samothracian Cabiri.

(1.) Our attention is first called to the boiling of the magic cauldron, the purport of which may without much difficulty be ascertained by attending to what the bards have said respecting it.

I will adore, says the epopt Taliesin, the sovereign, the supreme ruler of the land. If he extended his dominion over the shores of the World, yet in good order was the prison of Gwair in the inclosure of Sidi. Through the mission of Intellect, no one before him entered into it. The heavy blue chain didst thou, O just man endure; and, for the spoils of the deep, woeful is thy song. Thrice the number that would have filled Prydwen, we entered into the deep; excepting seven, none have returned from Caer Sidi Am I not contending for the praise of that lore, which was four times reviewed in the quadrangular inclosure? As the first sentence, was it uttered from the cauldron. Is not this the cauldron of the ruler of the deep? With the ridge of pearls round its border, it will not boil the food

'Hanes Taliesin apud Davies's Mythol. p. 189-240.

* The name of the mystic shield of Arthur, in which he embarked on the sea with seven companions.

BOOK V.

of a coward who is not bound by his sacred oath. Against him will be lifted the bright-gleaming sword; and in the hand of the sword-bearer shall he be left and before the entrance of the gate of hell shall the horns of light be burning. When we went with Arthur in his splendid labours, excepting seven, none returned from Caer Vediwid. Am I not contending for the honor of a lore which deserves attention? In the quadrangular inclosure, in the island with the strong door, the twilight and the pitchy darkness were mingled together, whilst bright wine was the beverage placed before the narrow circle. Thrice the number that would have filled Prydwen, we embarked upon the sea: excepting seven, none returned from Caer Rigor. I will not redeem the multitudes with the ensign of the governor. Beyond the inclosure of glass, they beheld not the prowess of Arthur. They knew not on what day the stroke would be given, nor at what hour in the serene day the agitated person would be born, or who preserved his going into the dales of the possession of the water. They knew not the brindled or with the thick head-band. When we went with Arthur of mournful memory, excepting seven, none returned from Caer Vandwy'.

Here we find the cauldron ascribed to the ruler of the deep; and, in what manner it is so ascribed, is sufficiently plain from the whole tenor of the song. A just man, the supreme ruler of the world, celebrated as the first mythological Arthur whose allegorical consort bears the name of Gwenhwyoar or The lady on the surface of the water, enters into the inclosure of the ship-goddess Sidi, described not unaptly as a prison, in consequence of the prophetic mission of Intellect or Nous or Menu'. Within this quadrangular inclosure, this floating island with a strong door which is represented as being the gate of hell, he sits darkling at the head of seven companions, who alone return in safety from a perilous voyage when the rest of mankind perish in the mighty deep. These know, neither the day

• Preidden Annwn. apud Davies's Mythol. p. 514.

• Caer Vediwid, Caer Rigor, and Caer Vandwy, are but different names of Caer Sidi or the Inclosure of Sidi. This was the mystic title of Stonehenge, which shadowed out the Ark and the World. Hence the Druids were accustomed to style it the Ark of the World, and hence they feigned it to have sailed over the sea which separates Ireland from Britain..

when the unexpected stroke would be given, nor the hour when the tem- CHAP. VI. pest-tossed patriarch would be born again from the square inclosure which preserved him, nor the mode in which he was saved while navigating the dales of the interminable waters. But all such matters are fully declared in the Mysteries: where a boat of glass, in which Merlin and his initiated associates are said to have navigated the ocean', represents the floating island with the strong door; and where an officer with a drawn sword stands ready to execute vengeance upon the perjured and to guard against the intrusion of the profane. The cauldron then, which is described as boiling a year and a day, the contents of which like the churned sea in the Courma Avatar become a liquid poison, and which yet produces three precious drops of renovated knowledge, is something immediately connected with the history of the deluge.

Further light will be thrown on the subject by another bardic fragment. There is still extant an ancient hymn, used by the Druids in the celebration of their Mysteries, and termed A song of dark import composed by the distinguished Ogdoad. In this hymn is celebrated a great influx or deluge mingled with the blood of men: and certain suppliants, who vainly attempt to escape in their ships, are described as imploring the oracular ark of Adonai against the overwhelming flood. The catastrophè however had been previously foretold to an irreclaimable and unbelieving world. The heat of the Sun shall be wasted: yet shall the Britons have an inclosure of great renown, and the heights of Snowdon shall receive inhabitants. Then will come the spotted cow, and procure a blessing. On the serene day will she bellow: on the eve of May shall she be boiled: and, on the spot where her boiling is completed, shall her consumer rest in peace. Let truth be ascribed to Menwydd the dragon chief of the world, who formed the curvatures of Kydd; which passed through the dale of grievous water, having the fore part stored with corn and mounting aloft with connected serpents. To each stanza of the poem is subjoined a burden; which is put, like a sort of chorus, into the mouth of those, who, terrified by the

• Cambrian Biography.

2 Gwawd Lludd y Mawr, apud Davies's Mythol. p. 563. et infra.

Pag. Idol.

VOL. III.

Y

BOOK V. raging flood, approach the ark of the just man and implore protection. This burden is not written in the Celtic, but in some foreign language: and it is a most curious circumstance, that, upon examination, that language proves to be genuine Hebrew or Chaldaic, agreeably to the express assertion of Taliesin, that his lore has been delivered in Hebrew'. The chaunt seems to have been brought out of Asia by the ancestors of the Britons and it is wonderful, how accurately the Druids have preserved it by the ear, agreeably to the observation of Cesar, that their pupils were required to learn by heart a great number of traditional verses then deemed too sacred to be committed to writing. Its purport exactly agrees with the general tenor of the poem, in which it occurs: for the following is a literal translation of it. Alas my covenant! The covenant it is of Nuh. The wood of Nuh is my witness. My covenant is the covenant of the ship besmeared. My witness, my witness, it is my friend".

Here we find, that the cauldron of the British Mysteries represents that mighty vessel, in which the symbolical cow is boiled or tossed about during the space of an entire year: and that boiling is studiously introduced into a song, which palpably relates to the deluge. The boiling is completed, and the sacrificer rests in peace, on the eve of May. But that is the identical day, on which the coracle of the initiated Taliesin drifts to shore: so that the initiation of the bard stands inseparably connected with the boiling of the cow; and the boiling of the cow again stands equally connected with the voyage of Nuh or Menwydd or Menu, which he performs in the womb of Kydd or Ceridwen then floating as a ship on the surface of the waters, and which (according to the local figment of the Druids) termi

'Angar Cyvyndawd. apud Davies's Mythol. p. 573.

* The chaunt is expressed in the following words; which, as being in some foreign language, Mr. Davies leaves untranslated. O brithi brith oi nu oes nu edi brithi brith anhai sych edi edi eu roi. I express them more accurately, and write them in Hebrew characters as below.

O Brithi! Brith i Nuh.

Es Nuh edi.

Brithi Brith ani such.

Edi edi eu roi,

אוי בריתי : ברית היא נוח; עץ נוח עדי :

בריתי ברית אני סוך :

עדי עדי הוא רעי :

nated on the summit of their holy mount Snowdon'. The boiling caul- CHAP. VI. dron then clearly shadows out the ocean cup: and its boiling continues for the space of a year, because so long the just man was a prisoner within the inclosure of the Ark.

This witching cauldron is doubtless the same as the cauldron of the Irish Dagh-dae or Dagon: and, as the boiling of it was deemed so important by the bards, that the term was used metaphorically to describe both the Mysteries themselves and all the benefits supposed to result from them; so there was a ceremony not dissimilar in the Orgies of the Eleusinian Ceres, who is certainly the same character as the British Ceridwen. The officer, named Hydranus, corresponds with the aspirant who is ordered to watch the boiling of the cauldron: and the cauldron itself may be identified with the deep vase or kettle, which Ascalaphus offers to Ceres when she is wandering round the world in quest of her daughter Proserpine 3. Antoninus does indeed grievously mar the story in relating it: but the mode, in which the Eleusinian Mysteries were celebrated, affords ground for believing, that such was the nature of the deep vase which he particularises. On the ninth and last day, when all the purifications had been completed, two deep earthen vessels, which widened from the bottom upwards, were filled, according to Athenèus, with water. After the recital of certain prayers, the water was poured into a kind of pit or channel, much in the same manner as the contents of the British cauldron are spilt by its disruption: and the aspirants exclaimed, May we be able auspiciously to pour the water of these vessels into the terrestrial sink. In both cases, the action alluded to the retiring of the deluge into the central abyss, as we may collect plainly enough from the ceremony observed in the temple of Hierapolis: at the festival of the Syrian goddess, which occurred twice in every year, water was poured by the devotees into a chasm through which the flood was believed to have descended into the bowels of the earth.

(2.) Such was the mystic cauldron of Ceridwen: our attention is next

'Welsh Archæol. vol. ii. p. 64. apud Davies.

* Vallancey's Vind. of the anc. hist. of Ireland. p. 153. I need scarcely observe, that the cauldron of Ceridwen is the prototype of the magical cauldron in Macbeth.

Anton. Liber. Metam. c. xxiii.

Davies's Mythol. p. 222, 223.