The Book of Taliesin: Poems of Warfare and Praise in an Enchanted Britain

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Among probably less archaic but still early texts, the manuscript also preserves a few hymns, a small collection of elegies to famous men such as Cunedda and Dylan Eil Ton and also famous enigmatic poems such as The Battle of Trees, The Spoils of Annwfn (in which the poet claims to have sailed to another world with Arthur and his warriors), and the tenth-century prophetic poem Armes Prydein Vawr. Several of these contain internal claims to be the work of Taliesin, but cannot be associated with the putative historical figure. Wikisource has the text of the 1885–1900 Dictionary of National Biography's article about Taliesin. The very first poem in the collection is the Ymddiddan or ‘Dialogue’ between Myrddin and another legendary poet, Taliesin.

a b c Robinson, Simon (2000). Shades of Deep Purple Remastered (CD Booklet). Deep Purple. London, UK: EMI 7243 4 98336 23. p.6.

References

In legend and medieval Welsh poetry, he is often referred to as Taliesin Ben Beirdd ("Taliesin, Chief of Bards" or chief of poets). He is mentioned as one of the five British poets of renown, along with Talhaearn Tad Awen ("Talhaearn Father of the Muse"), Aneirin, Blwchfardd, and Cian Gwenith Gwawd ("Cian Wheat of Song"), in the Historia Brittonum, and is also mentioned in the collection of poems known as Y Gododdin. Taliesin was highly regarded in the mid-12th century as the supposed author of a great number of romantic legends. [3] Scholarly English translations of all these are available in Poems from the book of Taliesin (1912) and the modern anthology The Triumph Tree. [7] Later Old Welsh poems [ edit ]

The great work of Welsh literature, translated in full for the first time in over 100 years by two of its country's foremost poets It is difficult to know which parts of Taliesin’s life were real, and which were fiction. Early sources revealed little about Taliesin beyond his skills, and songs and stories attributed to him cannot be trusted. Such songs and tales were likely amalgamations combined into a single written source by later Christian writers. Supernatural elements in stories of Taliesin’s life do not automatically disqualify them from being true, though they do imply exaggeration and ahistoricism. It was created around the year 1250, most likely in the Augustinian priory of St. John and Teulyddog at Carmarthen, where it was found when that monastic house was dissolved by Henry VIII’s agents. The agent gave me the title saying that the art director wanted a 'fantasy Arthurian touch' and to include hand lettering for the title and the musicians' names. I mainly drew from The Book of Taliesin, which is a collection of poems, said to be written by the sixth century Welsh bard Taliesin. [51]The Book of Taliesin ( Welsh: Llyfr Taliesin) is one of the most famous of Middle Welsh manuscripts, dating from the first half of the 14th century though many of the fifty-six poems it preserves are taken to originate in the 10th century or before. The Book of Taliesin, written during the first half of the fourteenth century, is another collection poetry, with Taliesin himself as the organizing principle driving the work. Eisteddfod - Bardic competitions held in Wales since 1176. the points/scores mentioned - what do these scores mean?

It’s worth mentioning another of these Old Welsh texts, the so-called Computus fragment, written during the early 10th century. As Easter is celebrated on different calendar days, calculating the date of Easter is an extremely important matter for the Christian church. In Charles Williams' unfinished series of Arthurian poems, found in Taliessin Through Logres and The Region of the Summer Stars, he is the central character, Arthur's bard and Captain of Horse, and the head of a companionship dedicated to Christian Charity in Camelot. According to legends that first appear in the Book of Taliesin, Taliesin's early patron was Elffin ap Gwyddno, son of Gwyddno Garanhir, who was a lord of a lost land in Cardigan Bay called Cantre'r Gwaelod. Taliesin defended Elffin and satirised his enemy, the powerful Maelgwn Gwynedd, shortly before the latter died (probably in 547 CE). [12] The Latin-Breton Life of Iudic-hael refers to Taliesin visiting the monastery of Gildas at Rhuys in Brittany. [13]According to legend Taliesin was adopted as a child by Elffin, the son of Gwyddno Garanhir, and prophesied the death of Maelgwn Gwynedd from the Yellow Plague. In later stories he became a mythic hero, companion of Bran the Blessed and King Arthur. His legendary biography is found in several late renderings (see below), the earliest surviving narrative being found in a manuscript chronicle of world history written by Elis Gruffydd in the 16th century. Based on Phillimore's (1888) reconstruction of the dating of the Annales Cambriae (A Text) – see Phillimore, Egerton (1888), The Annales Cambriae and Old Welsh Genealogies, from Harleian MS. 3859, in Phillimore, Egerton, Y Cymmrodor IX, Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, pp. 141–183 Koch, John T., "Waiting for Gododdin: Thoughts on Taliesin and Iudic-Hael, Catreath, and unripe time in Celtic studies" in Woolf, Alex (ed.)(2013), Beyond the Gododdin: Dark Age Scotland in Medieval Wales, University of St. Andrews, pp. 177 - 204, ISBN 9780951257388 a b c d Viglione, Joe. "Deep Purple The Book of Taliesyn review". AllMusic. Rovi Corporation . Retrieved 26 December 2013.

Williams, Ifor. 1960. Canu Taliesin. Translated into English by J. E. Caerwyn Williams as The Poems of Taliesin Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies: Dublin. (first edition 1967, reprinted 1975, 1987) The manuscript was the work of a single scribe, probably living in Glamorgan; this same scribe is thought to have produced other manuscripts, and J. Gwenogvryn Evans believed he worked on parts of the White Book of Rhydderch. It's exact history is unknown; it passed through the hands of several collectors during the seventeenth century, until finally being bought by Robert Vaughan, who added it to his library in Hengwrt, and stayed there until it entered the hands of W.W.E. Wynne in Peniarth. It was then donated to the National Library of Wales. According to this mythologised version, the bard begins life as Gwion Bach, a servant boy on the shores of Bala Lake, where the giant Tegid Foel and his witch wife Ceridwen live.there's also some discussion here of specific poetic structure, including cynghanedd, metre/metrics/measures of the poems. alliteration, rhyme, strict syllable counting... a b c Tyler, Kieron. "On The Roundabout With Deep Purple". Deep Purple.net . Retrieved 21 September 2014. The band returned in England on 3 January 1969 and went straight into De Lane Lea Studios to record new songs. [65] The recording sessions were interspersed with gigs and lasted from January to March; most of the songs ended up in their eponymous album, which would be released by Tetragrammaton in the US only in June 1969. [66]