Nor what animal they keep, with its head of silver.
When we went with Arthur, of anxious striving,
Except seven, none returned from Caer Ochren[[383]]”.
Many of the allusions of this poem will perhaps never be explained. We know no better than the “leaders of literature” whom the vainglorious Taliesin taunted with their ignorance and lack of spirit in what hour Cwy was born, or even who he was, much less who prevented him from going to the dales of Devwy, wherever they may have been. We are in the dark as much as they were with regard to the significance of the brindled ox with the broad head-band, and of the other animal with the silver head.[[384]] But the earlier portion of the poem is, fortunately, clearer, and it gives glimpses of a grandeur of savage imagination. The strong-doored, foursquare fortress of glass, manned by its dumb, ghostly sentinels, spun round in never-ceasing revolution, so that few could find its entrance; it was pitch-dark save for the twilight made by the lamp burning before its circling gate; feasting went on there, and revelry, and in its centre, choicest of its many riches, was the pearl-rimmed cauldron of poetry and inspiration, kept bubbling by the breaths of nine British pythonesses, so that it might give forth its oracles. To this scanty information we may add a few lines, also by Taliesin, and contained in a poem called “A Song Concerning the Sons of Llyr ab Brochwel Powys”:—
“Perfect is my chair in Caer Sidi:
Plague and age hurt not him who’s in it—
They know, Manawyddan and Pryderi.
Three organs round a fire sing before it,
And about its points are ocean’s streams
And the abundant well above it—