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Subtitle: Or, the Bards and Druids of Britain. a Tr. of the Remains of the Earliest Welsh Bards, and an Examination of the Bardic Mysteries, by D.w. Nash General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1858 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II. PERSONAL HISTORY OF TALIESIN -- OF URIEN RHEOED. Before proceeding to an examination of the various compositions attributed to the celebrated Chief of Bards, Taliesin, we may offer a few observations on his history and the legends connected with his name. If Taliesin really flourished in the sixth century, his genuine poems may be expected to contain references to historical events and personages, which will readily identify the age and locality of their author. It may also reasonably be anticipated, that, even should they fail to supply important authentic materials of history, they will at least, as Mr. Rees has observed, be interesting as records of a valiant and high-spirited people, nobly struggling against overwhelming odds, to preserve their liberties and the independence of their country. We have before observed, that although it is now admitted by the better-informed Welsh Scholars, that the poems which constitute the " Hanes Taliesin," or romantic history of the Bard, as well as the majority of the other poems attributed to him, were composed in their present form as late as the thirteenth century, it is nevertheless contended that the ideas and traditions embodied in the romance composed by Thomas ap Einion Offeiriad, had previously existed in the form of tales and poems which had already acquired an extensive popularity and circulation, and that from these earlier fragments, the Druidism, philosophy, and superstition, of th...