Taliesin Comes of Age - adapted by Monika Townsend/Anubh de Mona
When Keridwen’s child was born
Her wrath and rage were less, though far from gone.
She felt a duty to her other son
But once she saw the beauty fair of this new babe
She could not bear to kill him
Nor could she will him harm.
Yet, she could not keep him
And so weeping fierce the hag
Tied the baby fast in a leather basket bag and cast
Him in the sea
(sploosh)
Now at that time there was a king in North Wales named Maelgwn
This king’s squire Gwyddno granted to his own son Elphin then this boon:
If Elphin braved his fear and went to the weir
On Samhain night it would be his right
To take and keep what the waters deep
Had brought to be caught in the trap.
It happened that
Elphin was a good man
But he had a small amount of gambling debt
Which he of course wished to pay
–perhaps in fish!
So on that day he dreamed of Samhain salmon drawn in bounty from the weir.
Counting on a mound of fish, imagine his dismay
When all he found was one brown leather bag!
He dragged it out and, pouting, peered within
Taliesin! Elphin shouted
How the moon shines on this baby’s forehead!
Taliesin, shining brow.
From the bag the child spoke to bring indebted Elphin’s heart some peace:
Cease your sorrow, Elphin
For from this day, your fortunes shall increase! The baby sang.
Though warily did Elphin bring the child home to rear
Prosperity did follow in the years to come
Elphin won favor in the court of King Maelgwn
–the sort of favor, sadly
That allows men to forget their place and boast.
So when the court did one day toast the king,
Admiring both the king’s bards and the virtue of the queen
Drunk Elphin leaned too far over his ale, and slurred
It’s not my place to say this and I know it
But I’ve got a better poet
And my wife’s as chaste as any woman here.
The king said: A bold claim about your wife and poet
Lead you to cold jail until their deeds can fairly show it
To be true.
Maelgwn then sent his own notorious son Rhun
To Elphin’s home to stain the virtue of Elphin’s wife.
It was well known that any woman seen in company of Rhun
Soon fell sway to his charms.
But Taliesin got the lady from harm’s way.
By then he was the gifted bard of whom Elphin spoke.
Taliesin broke into his lady’s chambers, explaining Maelgwn’s plan.
Soon enough the lady had switched places with her maid
And on the maid’s rough hands
Placed her own fine rings.
So when the man Rhun knocked, it was not Elphin’s wife
But that wife’s maid unlocked the door.
She received him, and deceived him
And received him then some more…
As night wore on, the lass in her cups
At last did pass into a slumber
Sooooo deep, as it is told
She did not wake to feel Rhun take hold of her little finger
AND CUT IT OFF
(yeah right)
At any rate, soon Rhun
The rat, the slug
Slunk off to kingly court with finger trophy
Fat and smug
Gleeful Maelgwn waved the severed finger in Elphin’s face
Asking how chaste his wife was nooooow?
Elphin said, I will allow
That’s my wife’s ring
But I can see it’s not her finger
And there’s three things I can say to show my wife has kept her vows.
First, that is a pinkie finger and the ring is tight, it pinches some
Yet this same ring hangs wide on my wife’s thumb!
Second, never has my pure wife worn
Her nails untrimmed or torn
Yet this grim nail is ragged
and has not seen a trimming in a month or more.
And third, by my good name, no wife of mine
Has had to knead a loaf of dough since we’ve been wed
Yet sure this finger’s marked
from kneading up a loaf of dark rye bread.
The king, shocked as he was that the virtue of Elphin’s wife remained unmarred
Still locked him up again until proof came of Elphin’s claim about his bard.
That was when young Taliesin ambled in.
He sat down in the back and kept quiet.
When the king’s sage well-skilled silk-tongued bards walked by it
Seemed a slack-eyed lad
Made noises with the tips
of his fingers on his lips, so:
(blwerm, blwerm)
The bards continued on their courtly way
Until they came before the king
And didn’t think a thing of what they passed.
But to the last, before Maelgwn each bard’s tongue failed him fast.
These well-known poets flailed about
Before the throne and droned, so:
(blwerm, blwerm)
Until a well-aimed plate
Applied to bald poetic pate
Did heal them of what ailed
And they revealed the source of their distress.
Your best bards have been forced to this by yon lad there
We are made sport of! Came the cry
So bring him forward, the king replied.
The bard Taliesin rose and sang four times:
First, a song of introduction
Diction of the wilds, true nature’s tongue
He sung, and, singing, stunned.
Myriad, mysterious, legion and delirious
The things Taliesin knew, and spoke, and saw.
The king and all his kingly court were filled with awe.
Surely was he Taliesin and no less
Than Chief Bard of the West.
Second came a song petitioning for Elphin’s freedom
From his fetters and his cage
–Followed by a song of succor so a storm did pound and rage
So hard the walls around them trembled.
Elphin was released, and the storm ceased.
The last song sung was satire and it stung the stately poets of the court
For sucking off the royal teat
By aught but flattery of those in power.
If, before that hour, Taliesin was not Chief of Bards
That song made him so.
He grew in wisdom and in skill until
Beside his work all other poetry did pale
His Cad Goddai describes an army turned to trees engaged in war
–but that’s another tale.