Читать книгу Legends & Romances of Brittany - Льюис Спенс - Страница 11

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Taliesin (‘Shining Forehead’) was in the highest repute in the middle of the twelfth century, and he was then and afterward, unless we except Merlin, the bardic hero of the greatest number of romantic legends. He is said to have been the son of Henwg the bard, or St. Henwg, of Caerleon-upon-Usk, and to have been educated in the school of Cattwg, at Llanvithin, in Glamorgan, where the historian Gildas was his fellow-pupil. Seized when a youth by Irish pirates, he is said, probably by rational interpretation of a later fable of his history, to have escaped by using a wooden buckler for a boat. Thus he came into the fishing weir of Elphin, one of the sons of Urien. Urien made him Elphin’s instructor, and gave him an estate of land. But, once introduced into the Court of that great warrior-chief, Taliesin became his foremost bard, followed him in his wars, and sang his victories. He celebrates triumphs over Ida, the Anglian King of Bernicia (d. 559) 22 at Argoed about the year 547, at Gwenn-Estrad between that year and 559, at Menao about the year 559. After the death of Urien, Taliesin was the bard of his son Owain, by whose hand Ida fell. After the death of all Urien’s sons Taliesin retired to mourn the downfall of his race in Wales, dying, it is said, at Bangor Teivi, in Cardiganshire. He was buried under a cairn near Aberystwyth.