And as for Arthur himself, Taliesin's Spoils of the Deep,* a poem which treats wholly of Diluvian mythology, represents this prince as presiding in the ship which brought himself, and seven friends, safe to land, when that deep swallowed up the rest of the human race. This has no connection with the history of the sixth century. It relates entirely to the deluge; and the personage here commemorated, was the same as his mystical parent, Uthyr Pendragon, or the deified patriarch Noah.

It appears from Taliesin, that Ceridwen also was esteemed a character of the most remote antiquity: for the Bard places the origin of her mysteries very remote in the primitive ages.

Cyvarchav i'm Rhên
Ystyriaw Awen

Py ddyddwg Anghen
Cyn no Cheridwen !
Cyssevin ym Myd
A vu ei Sywyd.

"I implore my sovereign, to consider the inspiring muse "(a title of this goddess)—what did necessity produce,

more early than Ceridwen! The primary order in the "world was that of her priests."

These mystical characters, it must be acknowledged, were still regarded as existing in the sixth century; and so they would have been to this day, had they been still personified

Appendix, No. 3.

+ Taliesin's Mabgyvren, or Elements. W. Archaiol. p. 24.

in their priests, and had the superstition which upheld them continued to prevail.*

To this short defence of the antiquity of the British mysteries, or rather of the characters to which they were consecrated, I must add, that I have thought it convenient to divide the story of Hanes Taliesin into chapters, in order to place the long annotations which it may require, as near as possible to the subject from which they arise. I have also translated the names of men and places: for this I need but little apology. Though many of these names occur in history, yet in the present, and in similar cases, they are evidently selected for the purpose of carrying on the allegory, without wholly removing the mystic veil: their import, therefore, ought to be known to the reader.

HANES TALIESIN.-CHAP. I.

"In former times, there was a man of noble descent in "Penllyn, the end of the lake. His name was Tegid Voel, "bald serenity, and his paternal estate was in the middle of "the lake of Tegid, or Pemble meer.

"His espoused wife was named Ceridwen. By this wife " he had a son, named Morvran ap Tegid, raven of the sea, "the son of serenity, and a daughter called Creirvyw, the

Thus Ceridwen still exists in the middle of the twelfth century. See the poems of Hywel, in the conclusion of this section.

+ In other passages, this name is written Creirwy, the token of the egg,

"sacred token of life. She was the most beautiful damsel "in the world

"But these children had a brother, named Avagddu, "utter darkness, or black accumulation, the most hideous "of beings. Ceridwen, the mother of this deformed son, "concluded in her mind, that he would have but little "chance of being admitted into respectable company, un"less he were endowed with some honourable accomplish"ments, or sciences; for this was in the first period of "Arthur, and the round table."

This opening of the tale carries us at once into mythological ground. In the situation of Tegid's paternal estate, in the figure presented by that personage, and in the names and characters of his children, we have the history of the deluge presented to our view; and that history is sketched upon British canvas.

The Britons, as we have seen in the preceding section, represented the deluge as having been occasioned by the bursting forth of the waters of a lake. Hence they consecrated certain lakes, as symbols of the deluge; whilst the little islands which rose to the surface, and were fabled to have floated, or else artificial rafts, representing such floating islands, were viewed as emblems of the ark, and as mystical sanctuaries. They also regarded certain rocks, or mounts, attached to such lakes, as typifying the place of the patriarch's debarkation; and in the midst of these hallowed scenes, they celebrated the memorials of the deluge by some periodical rites. We are therefore told, that the paternal estate of Tegid Voel, the husband of Ceridwen,

was in the centre of Pemble meer, the largest of the Welsh lakes. This estate must have been limited to the space of a raft, ship, or boat, which could have floated in such a situation; or else it must be supposed to have suffered that kind of submersion, by which our ancestors commemorated the destruction of the ancient world.

But the selection of Pemble meer, in this tale, is not made at random. That lake, and its vicinity, are deeply impressed with mythological memorials of the deluge.

Camden favours us with the description of it by an antiquarian poet, in which several circumstances exactly correspond with the British accounts of Llyn Llion, their Diluvian lake, and justify the choice of our mythologists, in making the one a type of the other.

Hispida qua tellus Mervinia respicit Eurum,
"Est Lacus, antiquo Penlinum nomine dictus.
"Hic Lacus illimis, in valle Tegëius aliâ,
"Late expandit aquas, et vastum conficit orbem,
"Excipiens gremio latices, qui, fonte perenni,
"Vicinis recidunt de montibus, atque sonoris
"Illecebris captas, demulcent suaviter aures.
"Illud habet certè Lacus admirabile dictu,
"Quantumvis magnâ pluviâ non æstuat; atqui,

"Aere turbato, si ventus murmura tollat,
"Excrescit subito, rapidis violentior undis,
"Et tumido superat contemptas flumine ripas.”

It is here that the sacred Dee rises, from two fountains, which retain the names of the god and goddess of the arkhere these fountains unite their venerated stream, which they roll, uncorrupted, through the midst of the Diluvian lake, till they arrive at the sacred mount of the debarkation.

And here we find one or two objects, which connect the terms of British mythology with those employed by other heathens.

Mr. Bryant observes from Josephus, that the place of descent from the ark, on Mount Ararat, was called AoCar; and from Pausanias, that the place where Danaus made his first descent in Argolis, was called Amoladus. And that Danaus (whose sole history is referred to the deluge, and to Arkite superstition) is supposed to have brought, with him the Amphiprumnon, or sacred model of the ark, which he lodged in the Acropolis of Argos, called Larissa.*

Hence our mythologist infers, that the place where the ark, or its representative, came to land, was distinguished by a name, which implied a descent, or going forth.

Agreeably to this idea, in the spot where Dayvawr and Dwyvach, or the incorruptible Dee, emerges safe from the waters of the lake, we find the Bala, or going forth. The term is applied to the shooting, or coming forth of leaves

Analysis. V. II, p. 329.