Hi there:
Your question is interesting in that there were two people who wrote
under that name and with the passing of time the myths and legends of
the two have combined into one. Taliesin lived around the 6th
century. In the medieval period, another Taliesin wrote, using the
name as his bardic pseudonym and many poems attributed to the sixth
century Taliesin are in fact the medieval Taliesin's.
The twelve poems actually attributed to Taliesin are published as
"Canu Taliesin" by the University of Wales Press with notes and
introduction by Sir Ifor Williams. The poems are also published by the
Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies (DIAS) as "The Poems of Taliesin"
with introduction and notes translated into English by J. E. Caerwyn
Williams.
Since you are looking for academic sources, I am sticking strictly to
the 12 attributable poems and avoiding those works which, while having
been popularly attributed, are now considered as the work of others or
even forgeries.
The authoritive books mentioned above are in Welsh. Since your
question specifies where you may find English translations, the
following should give you exactly what you are looking for. Only
excerpts of these poems may be found online.
"The poems of Taliesin" - English version by J. E. Caerwyn Williams -
Published by the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies - published in
1968 and reprinted 1987. - originally published as "Canu Taliesin" in
1960. The book sells for €10.16 and may be obtained from the dublin
Institute if you cannot find it elsewhere.
If you want to order the book, please contact:
Noreen Granahan
Book Order Department
Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
10 Burlington Road
Dublin 4
Ireland
Phone:
+353 1 614 0113
Fax:
+353 1 668 0561
E-mail:
book-orders@admin.dias.ie
You can find additional information about ordering here:
http://www.celt.dias.ie/publications/cat/orders.html - From Dublin
Institute for Advanced Studies
The book catalog is here:
http://www.celt.dias.ie/publications/cat/authors.html - From Dublin
Institute for Advanced Studies
The book is listed in the catalog, shows as available and is in
hardback version. - Please note that all prices are in Euros.
Since this book contains all twelve of the poems, anything pertaining
to herbs/medical lore will be covered.
If the herbal/medical information you are seeking comes from so called
"Taliesin" sources other than these twelve poems, then you are looking
for references to the work of other authors. Chasing down such
'apocrapha' would entail a completly different question. Much has
been attributed to Taliesin which is not his. This is especially true
within the framework of "New Age" philosophies which attempt to give
unwarrented meaning to many ancient writings. Only the twelve poems,
and no other, constitute the body of Taliesin's work. All the rest
attributed is pure conjecture or outright misrepresentation.
Search - Google
Terms - taliesin, taliesin herbal lore, taliesin poems, welsh myth and
legend, welsh history
If I may clarify anything, please ask.
Cheers
digsalot |
Request for Answer Clarification by
celtman-ga
on
21 Feb 2003 13:56 PST
Thank you for your answer. As far as I know the 12 original poems
attributed to Taliesin are praise poems for Welsh and Scotish Kings
and do not contain any herblore. I must therefore be looking for the
medieval poems that are generally considered the work of others but
are attributed to Taliesin. I consider these academicaly relevent
because they still reflect the beliefs of the times and some may
reflect a continuing oral tradition of taliesin's lore which was
written down at a later date. Did you come across any of these that
refer to herbs etc in your research?
I am not interested in the 18th century forgeries of Iolo Morganwg or
Edward 'Celtic' Davies. More imformation about these can be found at
www.celticwhispers.clara.net/mabin/book_of_taliesin.pdf .These are the
poems that are frequently used by the neo-pagan/new age set. I now
suspect that the 'Elements of Man' poem that I have may be one of
these.
In short, I was hoping to find out about any of the poems attributed
to Taliesin that contain references to herb and medical lore in order
to save me time and money spent buying, inter-library loaning and
reading unnecessary material.
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Clarification of Answer by
digsalot-ga
on
21 Feb 2003 16:38 PST
Now this might be more fun than the research for the straight Taliesin
poems. There is a lot of Taliesin apocrypha (see, I really can spell
it) out there. The perfect project for a snowed in Friday night.
I'll see what I can find for you.
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Clarification of Answer by
digsalot-ga
on
23 Feb 2003 12:28 PST
When the research was opened up to include the "neo-Taliesin" works,
an amazing thing seems to happen. There is little or nothing there
about herb/medical lore either.
Where most of this has come from, are not from things writen "by"
Taliesin, but about him. Most of this has to do with the "myth"
rather than any realistic biography. The 'myth' opens up endless
possibilities. This is where the New Agers can get off with giving
him just about any attribute they want. And in his case, not all the
"New Agers" were even 20th century. Some were much earlier than that.
Even though you wanted to avoid the New Age connection, some of the
myth and background of this mystical aspect of the Taliesin legend
might be needed in order to give some foundation and understanding of
just how the myth and reality blurred.
"It is curious to note that in the folk-lore of Wales Taliesin appears
as an ideal of mystical origin, possessed of supernatural powers, and
very different from the real poet of the sixth century.
"The mythological Taliesin is represented as being doomed throughout
eternity to remain on earth, and to him are imputed all the
fascinating arts of the magician and wizard, until at length..." -
Quote from "Poets and Poetry of Wales"
http://www.red4.co.uk/Folklore/trevelyan/glimpse/poetsnpoetry.htm
One of the mythological poems describes him as:
"Primary chief bard
Am I to Elphin,
And my original country
Is the region of the summer stars;
Johannes the diviner
Called me Merddin;
At length every king
Will call me Taliesin.
I was with my Lord
In the highest sphere
On the fall of Lucifer
Into the depth of hell;
I have borne a banner
Before Alexander;
I know the names of the stars
Of the north and of the south.
I was in the Court of Don
Before the birth of Gwydion;
I was at the place of Crucifixion
Of the merciful Son of God.
I have been for three periods
In the Court of Arianrod;
I have obtained the muse
From the cauldron of Ceridwen.
I have been bard of the harp
To Lleon of Lochlin;
I have been on the White Hill
In the Court of Kynvelyn:
I have been a teacher
To the whole universe;
I shall be until the day of doom
On the face of the earth."
The above quote from "Poets and Poetry of Wales"
http://www.red4.co.uk/Folklore/trevelyan/glimpse/poetsnpoetry.htm
I haven't any way of knowing how familiar you already are with the
Taliesin myth but from the directions you have pointed me and the
sources you want disregarded, I must presume it is quite a bit. So
forgive me if I cover some areas you may be already aware of..
As you can see, the differences in the perceptions between Taliesin
the Poet and Taliesin the Poet are enormous and leave room for a lot
of interpretive wobble. I can imagine at least one of these versions
of 'Taliesin the Poet' being somewhat interesting to "Lord of the
Rings" or other fantasy fans.
Even his birth was spoken of as miraculous but I think the above sets
enough of a stage for now.
I have run into both extremes but nothing really 'in the middle.'
Every lead I have found relating to the subject matter you want winds
its way back to the fantasy/myth aspect of Taliesin and to those
sources which either are, or orbit around, the ones you are not
interested in.
It would seem, other than the 12 poems, that Taliesin the historical
personage has been drowned in a wave of subsequent myth and cult. We
may be lucky that as much is known of his reality as there is. This
kind of drowning of reality in a sea of myth is not uncommon. When we
look back through history and realize just how many of our teachers
and wisemen have over the course of time been elevated to divine or
near divine status and accompanied by all the necessary mythic
baggage. It would seem our friend Taliesin falls into that class of
personage.
It would take such a long stretch of the imagination to connect
anything relating to the mythical Taliesin's herb and medical lore to
the real Taliesin or even his namesake a few centuries later, that I
would be entering the realm of invention and leaving behind straight
research on the question. I don't think you came here for a
researcher's imagination but for materials that clearly support or
shoot down what you are asking about.
Beyond the initial answer relating to the twelve poems, I have been
able to find nothing with which to definitely link herbal or medical
lore to either of the two men who worked under the name Taliesin. It
seems to be all wrapped up in the "myth."
digs
|
Request for Answer Clarification by
celtman-ga
on
24 Feb 2003 12:42 PST
While I appreciate your research, you have not really answered my
question as you have not been able to tell me of even one
herbal/medical quote attributed to Taliesin. Apart from the two
quotes, of dubious origin, that I listed in my original question, I
have found two more 'genuine' reference to herblore in Taliesin poems.
The 'Chair of Taliesin' discribes Water-Cress as having a 'purifying
juicy quality' while the 'Kadir Taliesin' discribes the herb Selago as
being called 'The Gift of God'. As far as I know these quotes are from
13th century manuscripts.
I was hoping that a professional researcher would uncover a lot more
than I could about journal articles/books/websites on the subject. It
seems that, for now, the herblore of Taliesin will remain a mystery...
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