Where Caridwen threw little Gwion into the sea was near the fishing-weir of Gwyddno by Aberstwyth. And even as Caridwen had the ugliest son in all the world, so had Gwyddno the most unlucky, and his name was Elphin. This year Gwyddno had told Elphin that he might have the drawing of the weir on May Eve. Usually the fish they drew from the weir were worth about one hundred pounds in good English silver. His father thought that if luck were ever going to come to Elphin, it would come with the drawing of the weir on May Eve. But on the next day, when Elphin went to look, there was nothing in the weir except a leathern bag hanging on a pole. One of the men by the weir said to Elphin: "Now hast thou destroyed the virtue of the weir. There is nothing in it but this worthless bag." "How now," said Elphin, "there may be in this bag the value of an hundred pounds." They took the bag down from the pole, and Elphin opened it, and as he opened it he saw the forehead of a beautiful boy. "Behold a radiant brow!" cried Elphin. "Taliesin shall he be called." Although Elphin lamented his bad luck at the weir, yet he carried the child home gently on his ambling horse. Suddenly the little boy began to sing a song in which he told Elphin that the day would come when he would be of more service to him than the value of three hundred salmon. And this song of comfort was the first poem the little, radiant-browed Taliesin ever sang. But when Gwyddno, the father of Elphin, asked him what he was, he sang again and told the story of how he had fled in many shapes from Caridwen; as a frog, as a crow, as a chain, as a rose entangled in a thicket, as a wolf cub, as a thrush, as a fox, as a martin, as a squirrel, as a stag's antler, as iron in glowing fire, as a spear-head from the hand of one who fights, as a fierce bull, as a bristly boar, and in many other forms, only to be gobbled up in the end as a grain of wheat by a black hen. "What is this?" said Gwyddno to his son Elphin. "It is a bard--a poet," the son answered. "Alas! what will he profit thee?" "I shall profit Elphin more than the weir has ever profited thee," answered Taliesin. And the little, radiant-browed boy began to sing another song: "Wherefore should a stone be hard; Why should a thorn be sharp-pointed; Who is hard like flint; Who is salt like brine; Who is sweet like honey; Who rides in the gale?" Then bade he Elphin wager the King that he had a horse better and swifter than any of the King's horses. Thus Elphin did, and the King set the day and the time for the race at the place called the Marsh of Rhiannedd. And thither every one followed the King, who took with him four-and-twenty of his swiftest horses.