This little golden door may be the oldest in all the palace, for long before the Arthur story was born there were other tales which the Cymru loved. There is a word "prehistoric" which accurately describes some of these stories known as Mabinogion, which means, literally, Tales for the Children, or Little Ones. This famous book was translated from Welsh into English by Lady Charlotte Guest in 1838. Among the oldest of these tales is "Taliesin," which has behind it a prehistoric singer, a mythic singer.
And now let us open that door over which is written Cymric, or Welsh, and look in.
Long ago, at the beginning of King Arthur's time and the famous Round Table, there lived a man whose name was Tegid Voel. His wife was called Caridwen. And there was born to them a son, Avagddu, who was the ugliest boy in all the world.
When Caridwen looked at Avagddu, and knew beyond any doubt that he was the ugliest boy in all the world, she was much troubled. Therefore she decided to boil a caldron of Inspiration and Science for her son, so that Avagddu might hold an honorable position because of his knowledge.
Caridwen filled the caldron and began to boil it, and all knew that it must not cease boiling for one year and a day—that is, until three drops of Inspiration had been distilled from it. Gwion Bach she put to stirring the caldron, and Morda, a blind man, was to keep the caldron boiling day and night for the whole year. And every day Caridwen gathered charm-bearing herbs and put them in to boil.
And it was one day toward the close of the year that three drops of the liquid in the caldron flew out upon the finger of Gwion Bach, who was stirring the liquid. It burnt him, and he put his finger in his mouth. Because of the magic of those drops he knew all that was going to happen. And he was afraid of the wiles of Caridwen, and in fear he ran away.
All the liquor in the caldron, except the three charm-bearing drops that had fallen upon the finger of Gwion Bach, was poisonous, and therefore the caldron burst. When Caridwen saw the work of her whole year lost, she was angry and seized a stick of wood. With the stick she struck Morda on the head.