tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6777969075081429511.post1287788514256182546..comments2023-08-12T12:42:41.871+01:00Comments on GORSEDD ARBERTH: Taliesin and the AWEN /|\Heronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02055792516386371373noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6777969075081429511.post-70010738467010268822013-12-30T15:03:04.135+00:002013-12-30T15:03:04.135+00:00As a footnote to this post I'd recommend looki...As a footnote to this post I'd recommend looking at:<br /><br />http://welshmythology.com/2013/12/25/alternative-interpretations-of-dwfn-in-gogynfeirdd-poetry-part-1/<br /><br />There's a direct link to this site in the sidebar of this blog.Heronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02055792516386371373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6777969075081429511.post-61086069152006389812013-12-02T13:10:41.673+00:002013-12-02T13:10:41.673+00:00Yes I think so Hilaire.
Out of theological and pol...Yes I think so Hilaire.<br />Out of theological and political necessity, of course, but also I think because - in spite of some polemical clerics in the Middle Ages, and some polemical pagans today - sources of divinity are not so rigidly categorised by those for whom the Awen is a living presence.Heronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02055792516386371373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6777969075081429511.post-23399671883538393582013-12-02T11:14:54.974+00:002013-12-02T11:14:54.974+00:00I find it interesting that the Caldron of Poesy te...I find it interesting that the Caldron of Poesy text is also seeking, among other things, to reconcile Christianity with older beliefs about poetry, poets and inspiration. <br /><br />In this text, Ireland’s legendary mythical poet, ‘white-kneed, blue-shanked, grey-beared Amairgen’, proclaims that poetic ability and inspiration flow from a cauldron - but it is a cauldron which God has given:<br /><br />"Mine is the proper Cauldron of Goirath, warmly God has given it to me out of the mysteries of the elements"<br /><br />The mysteries of the universe in the form of the dúile, the elements (which are an important concept in ancient Irish tradition) are also implicated. <br /><br />So this is another way of squaring the circle, not through the ‘clever bardic word-wizardry’ of Taliesin as you neatly put it, Heron, but closer to Prydydd y Moch, though with more confidence and celebration. <br /><br />So it would seem that both traditions, the Welsh and the Irish, were finding ways to reconcile these beliefs but in their own way.Hilairehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12698057844619063857noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6777969075081429511.post-66083970157126678982013-11-26T19:27:05.551+00:002013-11-26T19:27:05.551+00:00There's a lot of discussion about links betwee...There's a lot of discussion about links between Irish and Welsh material. Certainly Patrick Ford in the discussion referred to includes references to the story of Amairgen and other Irish parallels. Disagreement tends to centre on whether the medieval sources of Irish and Welsh material can have any direct link, though it might be argued that they have a common origin.<br /><br />There are also discussions about the links between different appearances of objects like the Cauldron which can tend to interpret one example in terms of the others. We might suppose that every time the Cauldron appears it is the 'same' one. Or that there could have been several different cauldrons. I think the idea of the Caudron as the source of magical power is what we need to think of here. <br /><br />So there is the Cauldon that Arthur brought back from his raid on Annwn which is often discussed in relation to the Cauldron that was brought from Ireland and then given back to the Irish king by Bendigeidfran in the Mabinogi tales of Branwen. <br /><br />But where, as here, different cauldrons are specifically identified as the source of poetic inspiration it seems to me difficult to come to any other conclusion that they are either directly or indirectly related. Though <i>how</i> is more difficult to say!<br />Heronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02055792516386371373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6777969075081429511.post-78360306241056273572013-11-26T11:55:01.739+00:002013-11-26T11:55:01.739+00:00Do you think it's possible that the cauldron i...Do you think it's possible that the cauldron in the Welsh sources you have mentioned above could be related to the Irish text about the Cauldron of Poesy?<br />http://www.obsidianmagazine.com/Pages/cauldronpoesy.html<br />Link provided for anyone reading not familiar with the Cauldron of Poesy.Potiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14366323335295317871noreply@blogger.com