Taliesin in Newcastle

Just over a month ago I was invited to tell for my old friends at A Bit Crack Storytelling Club in Newcastle. Of course, things being as they are, that meant doing it all on zoom. I still get grumpy at our lack of human same place/same time contact but, without the technology that allows us to work remotely, the separation would be even more acute.

Zoom does bring certain advantages and A Bit Crack have become dab hands at using zoom chat to keep a constant stream of comments and questions flowing. I was foolhardy enough to say I would respond to any questions and have attempted to answer them below.

I told a Breton wonder tale from the collection of Francois Marie-Luzel in the first half and Taliesin in the second half. Taliesin is the source of poetry and inspiration in the Welsh tradition and is a wonderful, shapeshifting and mercurial character.

When medieval court poets recited their poetry in public they would do so in the person of Taliesin, using the word ‘I’ not to refer to themselves but the awen or inspired muse of Taliesin that talked through them.

“Where can we read the parts that are not in the Mabinogion?”

Actually, although Taliesin is named in the story of Branwen (the second Branch of the Mabinogi) as one of the seven survivors of a terrible battle in Ireland and he also appears in the long, epic tale of Culhwch and Olwen he is not a major character in the Mabinogion. (See here for a brief explanation of the difference between the Mabinogi and Mabinogion).

We have to go to a more recent manuscript for the full story. In the first half of the sixteenth century Elis Gruffydd was garrisoned with the English forces in Calais, working with the English ambassador. He must have had plenty of time on his hands because, to keep himself busy, he wrote a ‘Chronicle of the Six Ages of the World’ which included the story of Taliesin.

When the redoubtable Lady Charlotte Guest translated the Mabinogion she included Taliesin, hence the confusion about whether it is part of the Mabinogion or not (it isn’t, in case you’re still wondering).

Elis Gruffydd’s text is avaiailable from Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru/Wales University Press with an introduction from Patrick Ford and copious notes on the text but no translation! This leaves me in a bit of a quandary. I have never needed to find Taliesin in English and when I started to look all I found was a lot of Celtic cobblers dressed up with swirling mist and magickk. I am sure there are good English versions out there so if you know of one, do let me know, and I will let people know.

In the meantime you could try a Guest translation of the Mabinogion that contains her retelling of Taliesin or just ask around the story network. I will be bringing out a recording of the story with musician, singer (and wife!) Pauline Down - here’s a snatch of what we’re working on…

“Are the words Taliesin uses in his poetry the same words as in The White Goddess? ”

The White Goddess is a book by Robert Graves (I Claudius, Claudius the God etc) and is an attempt to decode ancient mythology in order to arrive at the basic foundation myth of Europe and the Middle East, long suppressed by the Church. There is no denying Graves’ cleverness and education but, if you’re not paying attention, mythology can just become an echo-chamber for your own theories. Which seems to be what happened to Robert Graves.

When I went to find my copy of the White Goddess it had magically disappeared but I managed to summon up another one and yes, some of the words are the same, particularly the ‘I have been a dog, a stag, a hind on the hill’ bit when Taliesin introduces himself.

Re-opening the book was a reminder of what an extraordinary feat Robert Graves undertook and what a monster ego and sense of entitlement he had. If we just put up with his pomposity and certainty and acknowledge his cleverness and erudition we might be able to enjoy it as a poetic re-imagining of myth but it is not an accurate description of mythology or how it works. In his book Robert Graves refers to Taliesin as ‘Gwion’ which was the name of the boy who was chased by the sorceress Ceridwen, swallowed and reborn as a poet.

Graves wants to keep the mythological and the historical Taliesin separate so as not to spoil his theories about myth but in the Welsh tradition the connection of mythical time and historical time is the whole point. In his book The Taliesin Traditon, Emyr Humphreys (who died recently at the grand old age of 101!) wrote that the characters in our myths are in a “a zone of experience miraculously suspended between myth and reality.”

“I Would love to know more about Taliesin’s poetry that you told in the story”

The main bits of poetry I use are…

• the shape-shifting chase where Taliesin changes from boy to fish to bird to grain of wheat and is then eaten by Ceridwen (that’s one of my bits)

• the moment that Taliesin emerges from the bag that had floated on the sea for forty years and was found and accidentally named ‘Taliesin’ by Elffin (the unluckiest man in the world) which prompted the baby Taliesin to speak his first lines of poetry ‘Elffin deg bydda’n ddedwydd’, ‘Fair Elffin, be happy’ (that bit is from the manuscript)

• the song Taliesin sings when Elffin’s father asks him ‘What are you - human or spirit’ (from the manuscript)

• The Calling the Wind spell towards the end of the story which is a combination of manuscript-based material and my own.

Remember that there are two Taliesins. All the poems in the my performance come directly from Elis Grufydd’s manuscript or are inspired by it. There was also a historical Taliesin who created poetry sometime in the 6th Century for Brythonic leaders. The manuscript we have is from the 14th century and is known as Canu Taliesin (the singing of Taliesin) and made up of twelve poems praising tribal leaders, particularly Urien Rheged.

You can see a couple of examples of poetry from our work in progress Taliesin (remember this is the mythic Taliesin, not the historical one).

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“ I have a question regarding Taliesin’s suggestions of using burnt hazel for leaving a black mark. Is there anything special about burnt hazel?”

That is a really great question and I’m not sure I have a complete answer. Hazel is generally connected with wisdom in Celtic sources. Fionn mac Cumhaill, the leader of the Fianna, was granted wisdom when, as I child, he ate a tiny bit of the Salmon of Knowledge that had eaten nine hazelnuts after they fell into the Well of Wisdom. The poet Finn Eces had caught it and left the cooking to the child Fionn who burnt his finger as he turned the fish over. He put his burnt finger in his mouth and was filled with wisdom. The parallels with Taliesin, who also gained supernatural wisdom by accident, are clear.

Some (like Robert Graves, perhaps) might search for one-for-one symbolic meanings like ‘the sticks are burnt because they have been transformed by the fire of ‘awen’ the source of poetic inspiration.’ Well, yes - maybe. Or, perhaps more importantly, maybe not. Which brings me to a really important point in the telling of myth, as opposed to the study of it…

Talking about myth and telling myth are both valuable and different in the same way that talking about food and eating it are different. Conceptually the burnt sticks could lead us to talk about fire and transformation or the darkness of soot and the importance of recongnising and honouring shadow.

But stories are not that conceptual. They are reports and re-enactments of things that have happened and need to be based in the practices of everyday life to become real. The sticks are burnt so that they can leave a mark. The rider needs to demonstrate that he has passed all the other horses in the race. The race is not a start to finish race but the winner is the horse which is the last one running. This means that, because they are going backwards and forwards along the beach at Colwyn Bay in North Wales, the leading horse is not at the front, because there is no ‘front’. By leaving a black mark on the rump of each horse that he passes the rider demonstrates that he had passed all of the other horses and, therefore won the race. In story terms it is also a clear and suspense building way of pushing the action along.

These practical details are embodied by the listener when a storyteller makes the story feel real. The story medium is not a medium of discussion (although it often provokes it) but a way of experiencing moments of myth as if we were actually living it and mixing our own everyday experiences with those of mythical characters.

The Taliesin story also includes many real places which range from the beautiful and evocative (Bedd Taliesin, the grave of Taliesin, near the village of Taliesin in Mid Wales) to the seaside resort of Colwyn Bay. And, as in so much Welsh mythology, the landscape and place names conspire to bring the mythological world into a strange relationship with our everyday, humdrum existences. Leading from the crowded holiday beach of Colwyn Bay and traveling inland for half a mile towards a wood is Pwllycrochan Ave. The Pool of the Cauldron Ave. Presumably the same cauldron that was dug up from under the sand on the beach and, when opened, was full of gold and treasure at the end of the Taliesin story.

“What is the best way into the Mabinogion? Which are the recommended doorways?”

For English speakers I usually point people to the Prof. Sioned Davies translation published by OUP. It is the most recent scholarly and readable translation and has a good introduction and notes that give you enough background and orientation to get the feel of the stories. There is also a good modern Welsh version by Rhiannon and Dafydd Ifans (Gwasg Gomer). Mythology is a process and with material like this I have no hesitation in telling people to start with simple, children’s versions first, just to get your head round what is going on and who is who, before moving onto the manuscript derived material.

There is a lot of Celtic nonsense out there but it usually advertises itself quite well by the naffness of it’s artwork. If you are looking for a window onto the Mabinogion that is both scholarly and creative I can recommend the videos of Dr. Gwilym Morus. There is one just below to get you started.

I’ve been telling the story of Taliesin for many years and still find new things in it every time I tell it. I am by no means a Celtic scholar so if you have other perspectives do respond to this post and, if you tell the story yourself, it would be interesting to hear your take on it.

Many thanks once more to A Bit Crack for asking me to be their guest teller for October. If you would like to help them out with the costs of running the club and paying professional storytellers you can use their gofundme page.