“Thereupon came in Caridwen, and saw all the toil of the whole year lost. And she seized a billet of wood and struck the blind Morda on the head until one of his eyes fell out upon his cheek. And he said, ‘Wrongfully hast thou disfigured me, for I am innocent. Thy loss was not because of me.’ “‘Thou speakest truth,’ said Caridwen; ‘it was Gwion Bach who robbed me.’ “And she went forth after him running. And he saw her and changed himself into a hare and fled. “But she changed herself into a greyhound, and turned him. And he ran towards a river and became a fish. And she in the form of an otter-bitch chased him under the water until he was fain to turn himself into a bird of the air. She as a hawk followed him, and gave him no rest in the sky, and just as she was about to stoop upon him, and he was in fear of death, he espied a heap of winnowed wheat on the floor of a barn, and he dropped among the wheat and turned himself into one of the grains. Then she transferred herself into a high-crested black hen, and went to the wheat and scratched it with her feet, and found him out and swallowed him, and, as the story says, she bore him nine months, and when she was delivered of him she could not find it in her heart to kill him, by reason of his beauty. So she wrapped him in a leathern bag, and cast him into the sea, to the mercy of God, on the 29th day of April.” And, Moses-like, was Taliessin afterwards found in the Weir of Gwyddno by that prince’s only son Elphin, who took him to the house of his father. Some of the extraordinary tales which this prodigy of a boy told in verse are given, and it is related how he bewitched the bards of King Mælgron by pouting out his lips after them, and playing “Blerwm, blerwm” with his finger upon his lips as they went to court. His own answers to the king are always in song. Among the curious odes that he sang are those known as— The Excellence of the Bards. The Reproof of the Bards. The Spite of the Bards. One of the Four Pillars of Song. This latter begins:— The Almighty made Down the Hebron Vale, With his plastic hands Adam’s fair form. And five hundred years, Void of any help, There he remained and lay Without a soul. He again did form, In calm paradise, From a left side rib, Bliss-throbbing Eve. Seven hours they were The Orchard keeping, Till Satan brought strife With wiles from Hell.