Chapter 32

CHAPTER XXXII.
TALIESIN. GWYDDNO GARANHIR was sovereign of Gwaelod, a territory bordering
on the sea. And he possessed a weir upon the strand between Dyvi and
Aberstwyth, near to his own castle, and the value of an hundred pounds
was taken in that weir every May eve, And Gwyddno had an only son
named Elphin, the most helpless of youths, and the most needy. And
it grieved his father sore, for he thought he was born in an evil
hour. By the advice of his council his father had granted him the
drawing of the weir that year, to see if good luck would ever befall
him, and to give him something wherewith to begin the world. And
this was on the twenty-ninth of April.
The next day, when Elphin went to look, there was nothing in the
weir but a leather bag upon a pole of the weir. Then said the
wier-ward unto Elphin, "All thy ill-luck aforetime was nothing to
this; and now thou hast destroyed the virtues of the weir, which
always yielded the value of an hundred pounds every May eve; and
to-night there is nothing but this leathern skin in it." "How now,"
said Elphin, "there may be therein the value of a hundred pounds."
Well! they took up the leathern bag, and he who opened it saw the
forehead of an infant, the fairest that was ever seen; and he said,
"Behold a radiant brow!" (in the Welsh language, taliesin.)
"Taliesin be he called," said Elphin. And he lifted the bag in his
arms, and, lamenting his bad luck, placed the boy sorrowfully behind
him. And he made his horse amble gently, that before had been
trotting, and he carried him as softly as if he had been sitting in
the easiest chair in the world. And presently the boy made a
Consolation and praise to Elphin; and the Consolation was as you may
here see:- "Fair Elphin, cease to lament!
Never in Gwyddno's weir
Was there such good luck as this night.
Being sad will not avail;
Better to trust in God than to forebode ill;
Weak and small as I am,
On the foaming beach of the ocean,
In the day of trouble I shall be
Of more service to thee than three hundred salmon." This was the first poem that Taliesin ever sung, being to console
Elphin in his grief for that the produce of the weir was lost and,
what was worse, that all the world would consider that it was
through his fault and ill-luck. Then Elphin asked him what he was,
whether man or spirit. And he sung thus:- "I have been formed a comely person;
Although I am but little, I am highly gifted;
Into a dark leathern bag I was thrown,
And on a boundless sea I was set adrift.
From seas and from mountains
God brings wealth to the fortunate man." Then came Elphin to the house of Gwyddno, his father, and Taliesin
with him. Gwyddno asked him if he had had a good haul at the weir, and
he