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Taliesin The Bard - Blog Posts
I have been working on a project with something similar to that as the premise for a while now, though my Taliesin's not as genre-savvy and the timelines he goes between are all either medieval or of my own invention/amalgamation, not from modern retellings.
It would be cool if he bridged retellings as well, and that could make an excellent fic. What I'm writing is a bit different from that in flavor and I do hope to ultimately publish it.
Anyway, I see your vision and laud it.
Do you think there's potential if you can use Chief Bard Taliesin as The Fourth Wall/Meta Guy™ of Arthuriana?
As in, Taliesin - as a supernatural storyteller, arguably superior to the prophetic Merlin - being an almighty observer of ALL continuities of Arthuriana, able to know who is who, what happens in what version, and just being able to jump in and out of the different storylines whenever he wants.
One moment, Taliesin is hanging out in Caerleon-on-Usk, performing for Lucius Artorius Castus and then teleport on over to laugh at Monty Python!Arthur and co. getting owned by the killer rabbit.
In another scene, Taliesin talks about the different versions of the Grail Quest to Arthur and Peredur, giving comments about what he likes and doesn't like about each one, while expressing how he's annoyed with the French writers obsession with Lancelot and Tristan. Also, Taliesin gets to talk about all the different love interests of Lancelot and Gawain to French!Lancelot (who's in complete meltdown) and Welsh!Gwalchmai, who's like 😎
Taliesin predominantly hangs out with Merlin, his tutor Blaise and fellow aspiring bard, Sir Dinadan, inside Magic Treehouse!Morgan's Treehouse but every once in a while, Taliesin gets into an adventure and then brings along whatever character he needs, from Sir Segurant and Culhwch to BBC Merlin!Merlin and Fate!Artoria.
here iiis a small sketch of taliesin from a story of mine (also if you wanna get your oc or favorite character drawn like this i offer commissions)
Maelgwn is also important in the story of Taliesin, in an incident which doesn't leave him or Taliesin looking great and is Part 2 of my beef with men named Rhun. We do get an impression of Maelgwn as a patron of the arts but not necessarily a discerning one, though it may just be that he didn't have the good fortune to come across as talented a nuisance as Taliesin—he has 24 bards and none of them are very good, or if they are, they can't compare, since no one can. (They end up cursed to say nothing but "blwerm, blwerm" while Taliesin waxes poetic).
Someone once told me that after defecting from Arthur (Cullwch and Olwen plot point), Cai/Sir Kay became a leader in Maelgwn's army, but I am 99% certain there's no source for this and he made it up. All the same, it could be narratively interesting.
Maelgwn Gwynedd
(The lad himself. He looks how I look when confronted with any question at all. An expression of surprise mixed with apprehension. Note the tiny sword and orb.)
Entering the final stretch of 2024 with Arthuriana's favourite 'sodomitical grape' as Gildas called him. Seriously, Gildas has beef with him, almost as much as he has with dubious historical personage, King Arthur.
Not much is known about Maelgwn's reign considering how big of a guy he's become in the Arthurian mythos but what we do know of him is cool!!!
His great-granddad was Cunedda, who was the first king of Gwynedd, and from whom all others were descended. Cunedda had conquered Gwynedd after the fall of Roman Britain. His title, Wledig, is obscure and I won't go into it too much, but Cambrian Chronicles has done a video about it which I will link to at the end! It means 'of a country' but it's more likely it was an expression of some Roman title.
And his great-great-grandad was Edern - yes, the basis of THAT Edern in Welsh mythology - who was a romano-briton. Maelgwn's dad, Cadwallon Lawhir* (long-hand), was *maybe* king but there are also questions about that. Mainly from Gildas. He suggests that his brother, Owain Danwyn (White Tooth), was King and Cadwallon was his right-hand man - which perhaps would fit with him being the guy who drove the last of the Irish from Ynys Môn - and suggests that Maelgwn murdered his uncle to gain the throne. Peter Bartrum also suggests this but does caveat that the term used, 'avunculus' is normally only applied to a maternal uncle.
(Fun fact: Owain Danwyn was the father of St. Seriol who gave his name to Ynys Seriol otherwise referred to as Puffin Island in English. Maelgwn would later be buried here after he died of, well, we'll get to that.)
Regardless of who was and wasn't king, Maelgwn was the first to reap the rewards of his great-granddad's conquest.
He is normally regarded as the House of Aberffraw's founder from which all other kings of that line were descended. (Yes, including Law Lad, Hywel Dda) This would make them one of the oldest royal lineages until the English chopped off the last king of Gwynedd and Wales, Llywelyn Ein Llew Olaf's head. Gwynedd is the territory that they ruled over. Basically near enough to the whole of North Wales. At its biggest, would've stretched from Anglesey to Ceredigion. Maelgwn - like Owain Gwynedd - was referred to as 'Maelgwn Gwynedd' because Maelgwn ap Cadwallon was a v common name at the time and it would be fuckin confusing.)
Now, sorting fact from fiction with Maelgwn is... um, difficult, shall we say. Gildas himself said that Maelgwn killed his uncle as previously mentioned, killed his nephew so he could marry his wife, and killed his wife to ensure that she wouldn't object to her husband sharing her bed with another woman. I'm not going into that because I want to keep it short but IT'S WILD.* What we do know suggests that Maelgwn was a deeply religious man, and I'm not being funny, but Gildas smeared like five kings - including Maelgwn's nephew, Cynlas, otherwise known as Cuneglas.
Anyways, while the seat of Aberffraw was traditionally the village of Aberffraw - as the name suggests - Maelgwn's llys (court) was held in Deganwy and where Llywelyn Fawr would later build another llys many years later. 'It is supposed,' Timothy Venning writes, 'that his fort was 'Dinerth on the Clwyd coast, due to which the owner might have been nicknamed 'Artos.' But there is no clear evidence that he was called that but there is plenty of Arthurian sites in Gwynedd! Also, there's a Dinerth in Llandrillo-yn-Rhos near me, and like I like to think maybe there was a fort there somewhere.
He's also known to have given money to many churches and saints which puts Gildas assertions that he was a bad dude in doubt but, I mean, you can make up your mind. In Historia Brittonum, Nennius, remarks, 'the great king Mailcun reigned among the Britons, i.e., in Gwynedd,' and further adds that Cunedda, Maelgwn's ancestor arrived in Gwynedd 146 years ago and slaughtered the Irish living there. He also appears only once in the Welsh Triads in the 'The Tribal Thrones of the Island of Britain' each ruled by King Arthur. Maelgwn was Arthur's Chief of Elders in Mynwy (St. David's, itself a major religious site both for Celts and Christians.)
Honestly, Maelgwn's intertwining with saints is fascinating. It's known, as I've said previously, that he gave to various churches in Gwynedd, while the Book of Llandaff (written in 1125) says he was a benefactor of the Diocese of Llandaff when that first started. Also, his nephew, St. Seriol's, bestie was St Cybi, otherwise known as the lad who gave his name to the Welsh name for Holyhead, 'Caergybi,' which means Cybi's Fort. Maelgwn was, by all accounts, the one who gave the fort to him!
Now, Historium Brittonum is of further interest to us because it, in Kari Maund's words, 'reflects the 9th-century context in which it was written when the rulers of Gwynedd advanced claims of primacy all over Wales.' It would've been, within the rulers of Gwynedd's interests to present Maelgwn and his pedigree as 'pan-Welsh figures,' and many pedigrees further reflect that. (See, when I said sorting fact from fiction was difficult I meant it!)
HB says: 'These are the names of the sons of Cunedda who numbered nine. Tybion was the first-born who died in the land of Manaw of Gododdin and thus did not come with his father and aforesaid brothers. Merrion his son divided the possessions amongst Tybion's brothers: Oswael the second-born, the third Rhufen, the fourth Dunod, the fifth Ceredig, the sixth Afloeg, the seventh Einion Yrth, the eighth Dogfael, the ninth Edern.' The names of these sons became attached to territories within Gwynedd I.e. Dunoding, Rhufeniog, Ceredigion, and, therefore, the divisions (or Cantrefi) of Gwynedd with them. This is propaganda by other monarchs who wanted to show that the Gwyddelian line were the rightful rulers of Ceredigion but it also shows what a Big Fuckin Deal Cunedda and therefore Maelgwn are both as a historical figure and as a propaganda piece. Timothy Venning also suggests that the 'parcelling out' of Gwynedd to members of Cunedda's family was presented by Nennius as 'justification for its reunification by his patron King Merfyn.' Some even say that Owain Gwynedd (him again!) used the legend to 'provide an earlier precedent for its [Gwynedd's] current division' between his sons.' I'm telling u this cuz a) it's of interest because it shows just how embedded this family are in Welsh mythology and culture. Like u cannot go five fuckin mins without seeing them, and b) Maelgwn comes from a fighting pedigree. (And also because I think this is fun.)
Now, Maelgwn's death is pretty confusing. Reports say he died from the 'Yellow Plague or Justinian's Plague' which had made its way over from Byzantium. My school and grandad both said to me when I was little that Maelgwn died from yellow fever passing through a keyhole and infecting him that way which I think is very scary. I would cry if I was confronted with that. Thank you, Ysgol Nant-y-Coed and Grandad Barry, you gave me nightmares about a yellow fog coming to claim me late at night. That's why I now have to block the keyhole of my room door up with blutac. He was buried off Ynys Seriol so yeah. The throne would eventually pass to Maelgwn's son, Rhun, otherwise known as that 'hot lecher of women' himself.
As for Maelgwn, he's bound up in Arthuriana as are his family. Many kings of his line claimed descent from Arthur further down the line and it's not a stretch to think that maybe that's why he's such a big part of Arthuriana. Also, he's such a cool character in his own right that it would be a disservice not to include him. Edern, Maelgwn's great-grandad, is sometimes said to be Guinevere's lover in Welsh mythology, and that would make him and his line have the genes of the wife defender of Britain and the literal Lad Everybody Gets Their Knickers In A Twist Over, Arthur. It's not a stretch to think that later chronicles went fuckin Mad with this info. I would!
*The video about the term 'Wledig' is here.
* If you want to learn more about these events can I suggest this web page which explains it far better than I ever could:
https://www.ancientwalesstudies.org/id166.html
Tagging people I think might get a kick out of this: @dullyn @gwalch-mei @gawrkin @crwbannwen @believerindaydreams @queer-ragnelle @cesarescabinet
Okay, hwyl fawr! I'll be back next year to chew your ears off about the Mabinogion in the context of ladies or something.
"What's the deal with Taliesin?"
A somewhat lengthy ramble about the most powerful (or most arrogant) character in Arthurian legend
On the one hand, his powers exceed Merlin’s—Merlin describes himself as “second only to Taliesin” (in “Ymddiddan Myrtin a Talyessin”), and Taliesin claims to have profound knowledge of the cosmos dating back to Creation (he says poetic inspiration was created at the same time as fresh milk, dew, and acorns). He knows everything and can shapeshift into pretty much anything, if the catalogues he gives are anything to go by. He survived being swallowed alive, being thrown in the sea ("Ystoria Taliesin"), and (it seems) going on a raid of the Otherworld during which all but seven of Arthur’s many warriors died ("Preiddeu Annwn"). Then or at some other point while he was in Annwn, he pierced 8,000 men with spears he got from Heaven ("Cad Goddeu"). That puts his casualty count above that of anyone else I can think of in Arthurian legend (They fall "by the hundred" to Bedwyr--"Pa Gur"--but by "forty score hundred" to Taliesin). For all we know, he's indestructible; from what he claims, he's omniscient.
On the other hand, he sometimes seems like Sir Kay Xtreme Bard Edition with Extra Arrogance. In The Book of Taliesin, he has a really bitter (one-sided?) feud with other scholars and monks (some variant on "pathetic men of letters” appears many a time), who he accuses of ignorance because they don’t know the answers to various questions he never gives the answers to himself, and he loses or alienates everyone until the only person who visits him is a dude named “Goronwy, from the dales of Edrywy” ("Cad Goddeu"). Not much is known about this Goronwy, though it’s been speculated that he’s the speaker in “Claf Abercuawg”, in which case he’s an ailing societal outcast and probably couldn’t get anyone to talk to him except Taliesin. There’s a strong pathos to this—time, and maybe hubris, came with a fall, leaving him somewhat like a washed-up starlet or a burned-out wunderkind, abandoned now that he’s no longer the shiny new thing.
On the third hand, which I don't have but Taliesin could probably manage if he felt like it, much of this is from his point of view, and we have no way to prove he's telling the truth. When he tells his own origin story, he claims that he was Frankensteined together by enchanters at the dawn of time. This flatly contradicts "Ystoria Taliesin", so either there are multiple canons for his life story, he's talking as the Awen rather than as himself (in which case he's still contradicting himself--he also says it's a creation of the Lord), or he's lying about some of it. Why he would want to is anyone's guess, since he is quite powerful regardless.
If we don't take Taliesin at his word about his ability to kaiju battle giant toad monsters ("Cad Goddeu"), or take it with a grain of salt, then what are his accomplishments apart from self-preservation and repaying a life debt to Elphin? I am by no means an expert on him, but in what I've read, he does almost nothing in anyone else's story. It's almost like, apart from one or two times, he isn't able to find a way to use his powers for anyone else's good.
Then again, what is his primary power? Shapeshifting seems obvious (too obvious). He uses it for self-preservation (which is valid), for the heck of it (maybe), and/or for really dubious ends (see "Angar Kyfundawt" if you really must know, but trust me, you don't want to). Fighting is a less talked about ability of his. He can cause a lot of destruction (according to himself). It's not really clear what he fights for, though the various legendary kings he hangs out with are probably implied. Then, there's...
...the Awen. Inspiration. Poetry. He can do poetry, and he can do it very well. That is what he boasts about the most, and his boasts seem pretty justified. He’s Taliesin Ben Beirdd, Taliesin “Chief of Bards”, not Taliesin “the Shapeshifter” or Taliesin “Best of Warriors”, even though he may be both of those things. Shapeshifting only benefits him, and he's seen the horrors of war more than most people: his close friend Merlin killed his own nephew in a battle. When Taliesin fights, he kills terrifying numbers of people, maybe without full control (whether he's fully cognizant while he's using his powers is an interesting question which I won't get into right now). Perhaps that's why he doesn't interfere with others' adventures much: he is too powerful to do less harm than good for the people around him and for the narrative tension. Or maybe he just doesn't feel like it, or he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or they just don't want him there anymore, or his role as a teller of stories is more important than his role as a person in them.
I'm sure he meant this as a compliment but it could just as easily be a grievous insult.
(from "The Dialogue of Myrddin and Taliesin" in The Black Book of Carmarthen)
A few things which are “canon” somewhere for people who are worried they’re stretching it too far
Arthur was killed by a giant cat.*
Arthur killed the cat.
Arthur didn’t fight the cat. Kay did.
Kay and Bedivere use salmon as taxis.
Lucan is half giant, half lion. (This Lucan, Lucano in the original Italian, is evil and not related to Bedivere).
King Arthur raided the land of the dead.
The human knight Caradoc Briefbras has three half siblings: a dog, a horse, and a pig.
A large portion of Arthur’s troops was killed a while before Badon by his nephew’s attack ravens in self-defense. Arthur and said nephew were playing chess at the time and neither did much to stop it. [Edit: before Badon, not Camlann, which has apparently already happened despite Arthur and Mordred being alive]
Merlin retired peacefully and went to live in the countryside with his also-magic sister Ganieda, Taliesin, and another of their friends. [Edited]
Wherever Arthur walks, plants die. They don’t grow back for years.
Arthur had a spunky (half?) brother who died in battle after making a mysterious oath.
Dagonet is more or less able to run the kingdom when Arthur is gone. His biggest error is overspending on mercenaries.
Guinevere has an evil almost identical twin half-sister.
Hector beat up all the best knights except for Galahad while possessed by a demon.
Gawain plays tennis.
Gawain has used a chessboard as a weapon.
Near the start of his reign, Arthur left Lot in charge of the kingdom and went on a quest with a sassy parrot.
Gawain or Galahad succeeded Arthur as king.**
*Whether or not this is canon anywhere is a somewhat meta matter. André de Coutance complains that the story that Chapalu/Cath Palug killed King Arthur and conquered England is a slanderous lie while also implying it's widely circulated. He's saying that it's canon in other places and also that it's wrong. As far as I know, no other text mentions a tradition where the cat kills the king.
**Not in different texts--Bhalbhuaidh is either Irish Gawain or Irish Galahad.