He many a boar and huge dun cow
Did, like another Guy, o’erthrow ...
With greater troops of sheep he’d fought
Than Ajax or bold Don Quixote.
S. Butler, Hudibras. i. 2 (1663).
Taliesin or Taliessin, son of St. Henwig, chief of the bards of the West, in the time of King Arthur (sixth century). In the Mabinogion, are given the legends connected with him, several specimens of his songs, and all that is historically known about him. The bursting in of the sea through the neglect of Seithenin, who had charge of the embankment, and the ruin which it brought on Gwyddno Garanhir, is allegorized by the bursting of a pot called the “caldron of inspiration,” through the neglect of Gwion Bach, who was set to watch it.
That Taliessen, once which made the rivers dance,
And in his rapture raised the mountains from their trance.
Shall tremble at my verse.
Drayton, Polyolbion, iv. (1613).