The greyhound never missed a step. It leapt into the water after him.
As she entered the water, Ceridwen changed too. She became an otter, a fast-swimming animal that swims as swiftly as a fish – and eats fish too, tearing them to pieces with its needle-sharp teeth.
The fish that was Gwion looked back along his silver-scaled side. He knew that, even as a fish, he could not escape from her.
So he changed again. The fish gave a leap, and as it left the water it became a bird, its little wings beating fast, its little heart beating fast too.
But the otter changed again too. She jumped out of the water and became an eagle, with strong claws and cruel beak, and flew after him.
They changed and changed again.
The little bird that was Gwion looked back over his desperate flapping wings. He knew that, even as a bird, he could not escape from her. He looked around for somewhere to hide.
He saw a farm, near the shore of the lake. The farmer had cut his corn and the good golden grains were heaped up in the farmyard. The little bird dropped from the air like a stone.
When he landed in the farmyard he changed again.
Gwion became a golden grain of corn in a heap of thousands of grains of corn, all exactly the same.
But the eagle flew down too, and landed in the farmyard. As she reached the ground, Ceridwen changed her shape. She became a big black hen, with a yellow beak and yellow claws. She scratched and scritched, and pecked and picked, until she found the grain of corn that was Gwion.
She pecked him up and swallowed him down, into her crop.
He stayed there.
But he didn’t die.
When Ceridwen changed back into her own true shape, Gwion was still there, in her belly.
As the days passed and turned to weeks, and the weeks passed and turned to months, Ceridwen’s belly began to swell. Soon everyone could see that she was going to have a baby.
But when the baby was born, Ceridwen didn’t want to keep him, because she knew he would always remind her of what her other son had lost.
So she put the new baby into a bag made of the skins of birds, and took him down to the seashore at Aberdyfi, where the river Dyfi flows into the sea. She bent down and put the baby in the bag into the water. The tide carried him out to sea.
The wind and the waves rocked the baby in the bag in just the same way that mothers and fathers rock babies in their arms. The baby was rocked by the wind and the waves for years and years. The tides carried him here and there. But all the time the baby was in the bag he was never hungry, never thirsty, he never cried and he never got even one day older.
At last, after a long, long time, the wind and the waves brought the baby in the bag back to the place where the river Dyfi flows into the sea. The waves carried the baby up the river to a pool where the sweet water of the river mixed with the salt water of the sea. When the waves rolled out again, the baby in the bag was left in the pool, caught in the roots of a tree. For the first time in a long, long time, the baby in the bag was still.
That pool was the best place in Wales for catching fish. It belonged to the king. The king had given it to his son. The prince went there to fish. He threw his net into the water, but when he pulled it out it was empty, except for a bag tangled up in the net.
The prince took out the bag and looked at it.
‘I wonder what’s inside,’ he said to himself. ‘Perhaps there is gold or treasure.’
He opened the bag, trying to guess what he would see. He did not expect to see a baby inside it. But there was a baby! The baby’s face was shining with wisdom and inspiration from the three drops of magic potion.
‘Oh,’ said the prince. ‘What a shining face!’
But of course, he said this in Welsh, and the old Welsh words that mean ‘shining face’ are ‘tal iesin’.
So the new baby got a new name. He wasn’t Gwion any more. He was Taliesin, and that has been his name ever since.
Taliesin had all the wisdom and inspiration that the three magic drops had given to Gwion. Even though he was only a baby, he could tell stories and make up poems. He told stories and made up poems for the prince all the way back from the river Dyfi to the king’s court. He told stories and made up poems for the king when they reached the court. Everyone was amazed by his words.
The king said, ‘I will make Taliesin the Chief Poet of my court.’
Even today, people still remember Taliesin’s poems, and they tell this story about him.
Bee bo bendit,
This story has ended.
If you don’t like it,
Come to Wales,
Get copper nails
And mend it!
Snip, snap, snout,
All my stories are out.
THANKS
With thanks to William, Alex and Leo Raichura; to their mum, storyteller Katy Cawkwell; to storyteller June Peters; and to everyone in Mrs Mollison-White’s class at Ysgol Carrog in July 2015, for advice and help with this book.
Thanks also to my editor at The History Press, Nicola Guy. And a big Diolch yn fawr iawn to Ed for the pictures.
The stories in this book are all part of the oral tradition, which means many different people have been telling them, for a long time. They don’t ‘belong’ to one person in the way that an authored story does, and can be heard from many storytellers, as well as found in many books. But I would like to express my special thanks for four stories to the people who told them to me. Without their help I would not know these stories.
So, thank you to:
Teleri Jarman, for permission to translate her mother Eldra’s story, ‘Three Wishes’, into English from Welsh;
Esyllt Harker, for ‘Hen Wen the Pig’ and ‘The Prince’s Wizard’, both of which she found in old books and told to me;
Dez and Ali Quarréll for telling me about ‘The King of the Giants’.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AND ILLUSTRATOR
Fiona has been a storyteller for twenty-five years, collecting and telling traditional tales from around the world. She especially loves the stories of North Wales, where she lives and works, telling stories and writing books … like this one.
Ed has lived in the same North Wales cottage for forty-three years, overlooking the Dee valley. It is an area of magic and wonder. Drawing is in his blood, as he is a fourth-generation artist. His grandfather, Josh Fisher, was a well-known landscape painter.
COPYRIGHT
First published in 2016
The History Press
The Mill, Brimscombe Port
Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG
www.thehistorypress.co.uk
This ebook edition first published in 2016
All rights reserved
Text © Fiona Collins, 2016
Illustrations © Ed Fisher, 2016
The right of Fiona Collins to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 6881 2
Original typesetting by The History Press
Ebook compilation by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
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North Wales Folk Tales for Children Page 9