The Mabinogion · 185 of 192 · tr. Lady Charlotte Guest
Tale TALIESINf
The first of the three is, that it is certain, by your grace’s leave, that wheresoever my wife is at this present hour, whether sitting, or standing, or lying down, this ring would never remain upon her thumb, whereas you can plainly see that it was hard to draw it over the joint of the little finger of the hand whence this was cut; the second thing is, that my wife has never let pass one Saturday since I have known her without paring her nails before going to bed, and you can see fully that the nail of this little finger has not been pared for a month.
The third is, truly, that the hand whence this finger came was kneading rye dough within three days before the finger was cut therefrom, and I can assure your goodness that my wife has never kneaded rye dough since my wife she has been.” Then the king was mightily wroth with Elphin for so stoutly withstanding him, respecting the goodness of his wife, wherefore he ordered him to his prison a second time, saying that he should not be loosed thence until he had proved the truth of his boast, as well concerning the wisdom of his bard as the virtues of his wife.
In the meantime his wife and Taliesin remained joyful at Elphin’s dwelling.
And Taliesin showed his mistress how that Elphin was in prison because of them, but he bade her be glad, for that he would go to Maelgwn’s court to free his master.
Then she asked him in what manner he would set him free.
And he answered her:— “A journey will I perform, And to the gate I will come; The hall I will enter, And my song I will sing; My speech I will pronounce To silence royal bards, In presence of their chief, I will greet to deride, Upon them I will break And Elphin I will free.
Should contention arise, In presence of the prince, With summons to the bards, For the sweet flowing song, And wizards’ posing lore And wisdom of Druids, In the court of the sons of the Distributor Some are who did appear Intent on wily schemes, By craft and tricking means, In pangs of affliction To wrong the innocent, Let the fools be silent, As erst in Badon’s fight,— With Arthur of liberal ones The head, with long red blades; Through feats of testy men, And a chief with his foes.
Woe be to them, the fools, When revenge comes on them.
I Taliesin, chief of bards, With a sapient Druid’s words, Will set kind Elphin free From haughty tyrant’s bonds.
To their fell and chilling cry, By the act of a surprising steed, From the far distant North, There soon shall be an end.
Let neither grace nor health Be to Maelgwn Gwynedd, For this force and this wrong; And be extremes of ills And an avenged end To Rhun and all his race: Short be his course of life, Be all his lands laid waste; And long exile be assigned To Maelgwn Gwynedd!” After this he took leave of his mistress, and came at last to the Court of Maelgwn, who was going to sit in his hall and dine in his royal state, as it was the custom in those days for kings and princes to do at every chief feast.
And as soon as Taliesin entered the hall, he placed himself in a quiet corner, near the place where the bards and the minstrels were wont to come in doing their service and duty to the king, as is the custom at the high festivals when the bounty is proclaimed.
Themes
◆Divine Providencetheology
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The narrative frames Taliesin's intervention as correcting a wrong against the innocent, implying a moral order upheld by higher wisdom.
Final, collective cosmic judgment as an event in which the wicked are sentenced and the cosmos restored; distinct from psychopomp_journey (individual passage at death) and emphasising verdict where Zoroastrian frashokereti emphasises restoration.
Taliesin prophesies an 'avenged end' and waste of lands for Maelgwn and his race, functioning as a verdict or curse upon the tyrant.
The doctrine and practice that spoken or sung word carries causal-magical force — that uttering names, formulas, songs, or incantations alters reality directly rather than merely communicating about it. Vainamoinen's runo-songs that move mountains and command iron, Norse galdr, Vedic mantra, Shinto kotodama, the magician's barbarous names in the Greek Magical Papyri, Iamblichean arcane signatures and inexplicable symbols, biblical creation-by-word. Distinct from sacred_names (the ontological power of names themselves) and prayer (address to the divine); word_power_incantation is the magical-causal efficacy of the spoken word as such.
Taliesin explicitly claims his song and speech will silence bards, free Elphin, and curse the King, demonstrating a belief in the causal-magical force of spoken words.