The White Goddess

by Robert Graves

  It is a pity that one cannot be sure whether the ascription of the romance in an Iolo manuscript printed by the Welsh MSS. Society, to one ‘Thomas ap Einion Offeiriad, a descendant of Gruffydd Gwyr’, is to be trusted. This manuscript, called ‘Anthony Powel of Llwydarth’s MS.’, reads authentically enough – unlike the other notices of Taliesin printed by Lady Guest, on Iolo Morganwg’s authority, in her notes to the Romance of Taliesin:

  Taliesin, Chief of the Bards, the son of Saint Henwg of Caerlleon upon Usk, was invited to the court of Urien Rheged, at Aberllychwr. He, with Elffin, the son of Urien, being once fishing at sea in a skin coracle, an Irish pirate ship seized him and his coracle, and bore him away towards Ireland; but while the pirates were at the height of their drunken mirth, Taliesin pushed his coracle to the sea, and got into it himself, with a shield in his hand which he found in the ship, and with which he rowed the coracle until it verged the land; but, the waves breaking then in wild foam, he lost his hold on the shield, so that he had no alternative but to be driven at the mercy of the sea, in which state he continued for a short time, when the coracle stuck to the point of a pole in the weir of Gwyddno, Lord of Gredigion, in Aberdyvi; and in that position he was found, at the ebb, by Gwyddno’s fishermen, by whom he was interrogated; and when it was ascertained that he was a bard, and the tutor of Elffin, the son of Urien Rheged, the son of Cynvarch: ‘I, too, have a son named Elffin,’ said Gwyddno, ‘be thou a bard and teacher to him, also, and I will give thee lands in free tenure.’ The terms were accepted, and for several successive years he spent his time between the courts of Urien Rheged and Gwyddno, called Gwyddno Garanhir, Lord of the Lowland Cantred; but after the territory of Gwyddno had become overwhelmed by the sea, Taliesin was invited by the Emperor Arthur to his court at Caerlleon upon Usk, where he became highly celebrated for poetic genius and useful, meritorious sciences. After Arthur’s death he retired to the estate given to him by Gwyddno, taking Elffin, the son of that prince, under his protection. It was from this account that Thomas, the son of Einion Offeiriad, descended from Gruffyd Gwyr, formed his romance of Taliesin, the son of Cariadwen – Elffin, the son of Goddnou – Rhun, the son of Maelgwn Gwynedd, and the operations of the Cauldron of Ceridwen.

  If this is a genuine mediaeval document, not an eighteenth-century forgery, it refers to a muddled tradition about the sixth-century poet Taliesin and accounts for the finding of the Divine Child in the weir near Aberdovey rather than anywhere else. But probably ‘Gwion’ was more than one person, for the poem Yr Awdyl Vraith, which is given in full in Chapter Nine, is ascribed in the Peniardd MS. to Jonas Athraw, the ‘Doctor’ of Menevia (St. David’s), who lived in the thirteenth century. A complimentary reference to the See of St. David’s concealed in the Hanes Taliesin supports this ascription. (Menevia is the Latin form of the original name of the place, Hen Meneu, ‘the old bush’; which suggests the cult of a Hawthorn-goddess.)

  Dr. Williams explains the confused state of the texts of the poems contained in the Romance by suggesting that they are the surviving work of the Awenyddion of the twelfth century, described by Giraldus Cambrensis:

  There are certain persons in Cambria, whom you will find nowhere else, called Awenyddion, or people inspired; when consulted upon any doubtful event, they roar out violently, are rendered beside themselves, and become, as it were, possessed by a spirit. They do not deliver the answer to what is required in a connected manner; but the person who skilfully observes them will find, after many preambles, and many nugatory and incoherent though ornamented speeches, the desired explanation conveyed in some turn of word; they are then roused from their ecstasy, as from a deep sleep, and, as it were, by violence compelled to return to their proper senses. After having answered the question they do not recover until violently shaken by other people; nor can they remember the replies they have given. If consulted a second or third time upon the same point, they will make use of expressions totally different; perhaps they speak by means of fanatic and ignorant spirits. These gifts are usually conferred upon them in dreams; some seem to have sweet milk and honey poured on their lips; others fancy that a written schedule is applied to their mouths, and on awakening they publicly declare that they have received this gift…. They invoke, during their prophecies, the true and living God, and the Holy Trinity, and pray that they may not by their sins be prevented from finding the truth. These prophets are found only among those Britons who are descended from the Trojans.

  The Awenyddion, the popular minstrels, may indeed have disguised their secrets by a pretence of being possessed by spirits, as the Irish poets are recorded to have done by buffoonery, and they may have induced their ecstasies by toadstool eating; but Câd Goddeu, Angar Cyvyndawd and all the other strange poems of the Book of Taliesin medley read like nonsense only because the texts have been deliberately confused, doubtless as a precaution against their being denounced as heretical by some Church officer. This explanation would also account for the presence of simple, dull religious pieces in the medley – plausible guarantees of orthodoxy. Unfortunately a large part of the original material seems to be lost, which makes a confident restoration of the remainder difficult. When an authoritative version of the text and an authoritative English translation has been published – none is so far available, else I should have used it – the problem will be simpler. But that the Awenyddion were descended from the Trojans is an important statement of Gerald’s; he means that they inherited their traditions not from the Cymry but from the earlier inhabitants of Wales whom the Cymry dispossessed.

  The context of the thirteenth-century version of the Romance can be reconstructed from what Gwynn Jones has written of Phylip Brydydd of Llanbadarn Fawr and the poem in which he mentions his contention with the beirdd yspyddeid, vulgar rhymesters, as to who should first present a song to Prince Rhys Ieuanc on Christmas Day.

  ‘The evidence of this poem is extremely valuable, as it shows us conclusively that, by this time, at any rate, the lower order of bards had won for themselves the privilege of appearing at a Welsh court, and of being allowed to compete with the members of the closer corporation. It is exceedingly difficult to make out with certainty the meaning of the poem, but the bard seems to lament the relaxation or abandonment of the ancient custom of the court of the house of Tewdwr [afterwards the English House of Tudor], where formerly, after a battle, none were without recompense, and where frequently he had himself been presented with gifts. If praise were the pledge of bravery, then his desert should have been to receive liquor, rather than to become an ‘ermid’. The bard also mentions a certain Bleiddriw, who would not have given him his due, and seems to imply that this person was guilty of versifying untruth, as well as to apply to him the epithet twyll i gwndid [sc. perverter of poetic practice]. The suggestion in this poem, therefore, is that the person referred to was the author of a broken or irregular song. We are further told by Phylip that the Chair of Maelgwn Hir was meant for bards, not for the irregular rhymesters, and that if that chair in his day were deserved, it should be contended for by the consent of saints and in accordance with truth and privilege. A Penkerdd [privileged bard] could not be made of a man without art. In a second poem, the poet’s patron, probably also of the house of Tewdwr, is asked to pay heed to the contention of the bards and the rhymesters, and the appearance of Elffin in the contentions of Maelgwn is referred to. The bard says that, since then, mere chattering had caused long unpleasantness, and the speech of strangers, the vices of women and many a foolish tale had come to Gwynedd [North Wales], through the songs of false bards whose grammar was bad and who had no honour. Phylip solemnly states that it is not for man to destroy the privilege of the gift of God. He laments the fall of the office of the bards, and describes his own song as “the ancient song of Taliesin” which, he says – and this is significant – “was itself new for nine times seven years”. “And”, he adds finally, “though I be placed in a foul grave in the earth, before the violent upheaval of judgement, the muse shall not cea
se from deserving recognition while the sun and moon remain in their circles; and unless untruth shall overcome truth, or the gift of God shall cease in the end, it is they who shall be disgraced in the contention: He will remove from the vulgar bards their vain delight.”

  ‘It will be observed that these poems supply a very interesting account of the points of contention. We see that the song of Taliesin and the contentions of Maelgwn Hir are set up as standards; that those standards were believed to have been regulated in agreement with the will of saints and in accordance with truth and privilege; that the contentions were not open to the lower order of bards; and that a man without art could not become a Penkerdd. It is alleged that the speech of strangers, the vices of women, and numerous foolish tales had come to Gwynedd – even to Gwynedd, where the contentions of Maelgwn had been held – by means of the songs of false bards whose grammar was faulty. We see that the song of the official or traditional bards is claimed to be the gift of God; that its essence was truth, compared with the untruth of the newer song; and that Phylip Brydydd was prepared, as it were, to die in the last ditch, fighting for the privilege of the true gift of poesy. We observe that, in spite of all this, the rhymesters were allowed to tender a song on Christmas Day at the court of Rhys Ieuanc.

  ‘It will have been observed that the first poem of Phylip Brydydd mentions a Bleiddriw who refused to acknowledge him, and whose own song, as I interpret the extremely compressed syntax of the poem, Phylip describes as broken and irregular. It is not improbable that we have here a reference to the much discussed Bledri of Giraldus Cambrensis, “that famous dealer in fables, who lived a little before our time”. The probability is that, in this Bledri, we have one of the men who recited Welsh stories in French, and so assisted their passage into other languages. Gaston Paris, so long ago as 1879, identified him with the Breri, to whom Thomas, the author of the French poem of Tristan, acknowledges his debt, describing him as having known “les histoires et les contes de tous les rois et comtes qui avaient vécu en Bretagne”. Phylip Brydydd is said to have flourished between 1200 and 1250. As Rhys Ieuanc, his patron, died about 1220, probably Phylip was born before 1200. Giraldus himself died in 1220. This brings them sufficiently near to allow of the possibility of their both referring to the same Bledri. At any rate, this is the only case known to me in Welsh of a contemporary reference to a Bledri corresponding to the person mentioned by Giraldus. But I would base no argument upon this possible identity. If the Bleiddri of Phylip’s poem be another Bleiddri, the fact still remains that he was regarded as being of the lower order of bards, and that Phylip, the traditional bard, charged his class, at any rate, with debasing the poetic diction of the bards and with making untruth the subject of poetry.

  ‘What then could be the meaning of untruth as the subject of song? Considering the word in the light of the Codes, and of the contents of the poems of the court-bards themselves, I submit that it simply means tales of imagination. The official bards were prohibited from writing imaginative narrative and material for representation; they were enjoined to celebrate the praise of God and of brave or good men. This they did, as we have seen, in epithetical verse of which the style is remarkably and intentionally archaic.’

  Phylip’s complaint that his opponent Bleiddri had no ‘honour’ means that he did not belong to the privileged class of Cymric freemen from which the court-bards were chosen. In the Romance of Taliesin we have the story from the side of the minstrel, but an extraordinarily gifted minstrel, who had studied abroad among men of greater learning than were to be found anywhere in Wales and who insisted that the court-bards had forgotten the meaning of the poetry that they practised. Throughout the poems the same scornful theme is pressed:

  Am I not a candidate for fame, to be heard in song?…

  A vaunt, you boastful bards….

  This unprivileged minstrel boasts that the Chair is rightly his: he, not any poet of Phylip Brydydd’s merely academic attainment, is the true heir of Taliesin. However, for courtesy’s sake, the tale of Gwion and Cerridwen is told in terms of sixth-century, not thirteenth-century, history. ‘The speech of strangers’ which, Phylip complains, has corrupted Gwynedd is likely to have been Irish: for Prince Gruffudd ap Kynan, a gifted and progressive prince educated in Ireland, had introduced Irish bards and minstrels into his principality in the early twelfth century. It may have been from this Irish literary colony, not from Ireland itself, that Gwion first derived his superior knowledge. Gruffudd also had Norsemen in his entourage. His careful regulations for the government of bards and musicians were revived at the Caerwys Eisteddfod in 1523.

  Here, finally, is the Hanes Taliesin riddle in Lady Charlotte Guest’s translation. In it, Little Gwion answers King Maelgwyn’s questions as to who he was and whence he came:

  Primary chief bard am I to Elphin,

  And my original country is the region of the summer stars;

  Idno and Heinin called me Merddin,

  At length every king will call me Taliesin.

  5 I was with my Lord in the highest sphere,

  On the fall of Lucifer into the depth of hell

  I have borne a banner before Alexander;

  I know the names of the stars from north to south;

  I have been on the Galaxy at the throne of the Distributor;

  10 I was in Canaan when Absalom was slain;

  I conveyed Awen [the Divine Spirit] to the level of the vale of Hebron;

  I was in the court of Dôn before the birth of Gwydion.

  I was instructor to Eli and Enoch;

  I have been winged by the genius of the splendid crozier;

  15 I have been loquacious prior to being gifted with speech;

  I was at the place of the crucifixion of the merciful son of God;

  I have been three periods in the prison of Arianrhod;

  I have been the chief director of the work of the tower of Nimrod.

  I am a wonder whose origin is not known.

  20 I have been in Asia with Noah in the Ark,

  I have witnessed the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah;

  I have been in India when Roma was built;

  I am now come here to the remnant of Troia.

  I have been with my Lord in the manger of the ass;

  25 I strengthened Moses through the water of Jordan;

  I have been in the firmament with Mary Magdalene;

  I have obtained the muse from the Cauldron of Caridwen;

  I have been bard of the harp to Lleon of Lochlin.

  I have been on the White Hill, in the court of Cynvelyn,

  30 For a day and a year in stocks and fetters,

  I have suffered hunger for the Son of the Virgin,

  I have been fostered in the land of the Deity,

  I have been teacher to all intelligences,

  I am able to instruct the whole universe.

  35 I shall be until the day of doom on the face of the earth;

  And it is not known whether my body is flesh or fish.

  Then I was for nine months

  In the womb of the hag Caridwen;

  I was originally little Gwion,

  40 And at length I am Taliesin.

  The deceitful cry of the Lapwing! Gwion was not so ignorant of sacred history as he pretended: he must have known perfectly well that Moses never crossed the Jordan, that Mary Magdalene was never in the Firmament, that Lucifer’s fall had been recorded by the prophet Isaiah centuries before the time of Alexander the Great. Refusing to be lured away from the secret by his apparently nonsensical utterances, I began my unravelling of the puzzle by answering the following questions:

  Line 11. Who did convey the Divine Spirit to Hebron?

  13. Who did instruct Enoch?

  16. Who did attend the Crucifixion?

  25. Who did pass through Jordan water when Moses was forbidden to do so?

  I felt confident that I would presently catch a gleam of white through the tangled thicket where the Roebuck was harboured.
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  Now, according to the Pentateuch, Moses died on Pisgah on the other side of Jordan and ‘no man knoweth his sepulchre to this day’; and of all the Children of Israel who had come with him into the wilderness out of the house of bondage, only two, Caleb and Joshua, crossed into the Promised Land. As spies they had already been bold enough to cross and recross the river. It was Caleb who seized Hebron from the Anakim on behalf of the God of Israel and was granted it by Joshua as his inheritance. So I realized that the Dog had torn the whole poem into shreds with his teeth and that the witty Lapwing had mixed them up misleadingly, as she did with the torn shreds of the fruit passage in the Câd Goddeu. The original statement was: ‘I conveyed the Divine Spirit through the water of Jordan to the level of the vale of Hebron.’ And the ‘I’ must be Caleb.

  If the same trick had been played with every line of the Hanes Taliesin, I could advance a little farther into the thicket. I could regard the poem as a sort of acrostic composed of twenty or thirty riddles, each of them requiring separate solution; what the combined answers spelt out promised to be a secret worth discovering. But first I had to sort out and reassemble the individual riddles.