I am Taliesin. I sing perfect metre -- Anonymous

 The archetype of the Wandering Minstrel...

(Poem #175) I am Taliesin. I sing perfect metre I am Taliesin. I sing perfect metre, Which will last to the end of the world. My patron is Elphin... I know why there is an echo in a hollow; Why silver gleams; why breath is black; why liver is bloody; Why a cow has horns; why a woman is affectionate; Why milk is white; why holly is green; Why a kid is bearded; why the cow-parsnip is hollow; Why brine is salt; why ale is bitter; Why the linnet is green and berries red; Why a cuckoo complains; why it sings; I know where the cuckoos of summer are in winter. I know what beasts there are at the bottom of the sea; How many spears in battle; how may drops in a shower; Why a river drowned Pharaoh's people; Why fishes have scales. Why a white swan has black feet... I have been a blue salmon, I have been a dog, a stag, a roebuck on the mountain, A stock, a spade, an axe in the hand, A stallion, a bull, a buck, I was reaped and placed in an oven; I fell to the ground when I was being roasted And a hen swallowed me. For nine nights was I in her crop. I have been dead, I have been alive. I am Taliesin. -- Anonymous

From the Mabinogion.
Translated by Ifor Williams.
Taliesin, by the way, means 'radiant brow'.

[About the Mabinogion]

The tales of the Mabinogion are not the product of any single hand;
rather, they evolved over the centuries, passing from storyteller to
storyteller, until some master bard put them together around the twelfth
century. Its contents draw upon the myths and history of Celtic Britain:
four branches of a storyline set largely within the confines of Wales
and the otherworld.

The tales create a dreamlike atmosphere and preserve much of the
primitive, fascinating world of Celtic myth. They exemplify the heroic
and idealistic world of Celtic literature. The Mabinogion does not seem
to have been very well known until its translation into English in 1849
when Lady Charlotte Guest's version appeared. The tales comprise an
ensemble of parts, the first four "Pwyll", "Branwen", "Manawydan", and
"Math" comprising the Four Branches of the Mabinogi. It was Lady
Charlotte who supplied the title Mabinogion. Previously, the tales were
simply identified as part of this or that manuscript. Each of the Four
Branches ends with the term 'So ends this Branch of the Mabinogi.' The
Welsh word 'mab' means 'son'. Lady Charlotte concluded that 'mabinogi'
was a noun meaning 'a story for children' and that the word 'mabinogion'
was its plural. Another interpretation is that the word mabinog refers
to "a student in the bardic class" and mabinogi (pl. mabinogion)
therefore being "a tale belonging to the mabinog's repertoire".

The Mabinogion are found in the "Red Book of Hergest", a large
fourteenth-century manuscript kept at Jesus College, Oxford. An earlier
manuscript called 'The White Book of Rhydderch' (c. 1325) is incomplete
but more than likely contained all the tales when it was whole.
Fragments of these tales appear elsewhere, the earliest of which is
believed to be 'Peniarth 6' which dates to c. 1225. The stories were
probably drawn up in their present shape towards the end of the twelfth
century, but the stories are of much greater antiquity, some belonging
even to the more distant past of Celtic paganism and to the period of
Gallo-Breton unity. Welsh scholars tend to favour an earlier
amalgamation, wanting to maximize the extent of their ancestors'
contribution to The Mabinogion, while French scholars argue for 1200 -
1250 CE with the same thing in mind. Ifor Williams proposed 1060 CE as a
likely date and gives a number of arguments: the occurrence of outdated
word forms in the text, the scarcity of French words, references to
extinct customs, and the peaceful period 1055-63 which was a time of
bards from north and south to exchange and tell their tales.

It is interesting to note that in the main "Four Branches" there is no
mention of Arthur. Besides these four tales, the Mabinogion includes two
from romantic British history ("The Dream of Maxen Wledig" and "Lludd
and Llevelys"), two more interesting ones ("Rhonabwy's Dream" and
"Kilhwch and Olwen"), "Taliesin", and, finally, three tales ("Owain or
The Lady of the Fountain", "Gereint the Son of Erbin", "Peredur ab
Evrawc") which show a marked kinship with certain medieval French tales.

The three-volume edition with English translation by Lady Charlotte
Guest was printed by Llandovery in 1849 with the English translation
alone appearing in an edition of 1879. The Welsh text has been printed
in a diplomatic edition, "The Red Book of Hergest", by J. Rhys and J.
Gwenogfryn Evans (Oxford, 1887). Lady Guest's translation has been
re-edited with valuable notes by Alfred Nutt (London, 1902).

    -- from an Arthurian sources page, http://www.gorddcymru.com/

[Links]

The complete text of the Mabinogion (including the tale of Taliesin) can
be found online at [broken link] http://www.gorddcymru.com/mabinogion/
This is the original Charlotte Guest translation, and not the Ifor
Williams version that appears in today's poem.

There are lots of sites related to Celtic mythology (I suppose because
it's a very New Age sort of thingy). The most comprehensive links I
could find are at
http://www.cyberphile.co.uk/~taff/taffnet/mabinogion/mabinogion.htm

Another goodly set of links can be had at
[broken link] http://www.ancientsites.com/~Torrey_Philemon/calliope/mabinogion.htm

Finally, here's a prose summary of Taliesin's life:
http://www.employees.org/~pcorless/pendragon/taliesin.txt
The context of this last is... interesting, to say the least :-).

thomas.