it happened that three drops of the
powerful water flew out of the kettle and fell on Gwyon's finger. They
scalded him and he stuck his finger in his mouth. As the precious drops
touched his lips all the events of the future were opened to his eyes, and
he saw that he must be on his guard against Ceridwen [dreaded mother]. He
rushed home. The kettle split into two parts [motive of the tearing apart
of the uterus], for all the water in it except the three powerful drops
were poisonous [danger of introversion], so that it poisoned the chargers
of Gwyddno Garantur, which were drinking out of the gutter into which the
kettle had emptied itself [the flood]. Now Ceridwen came in and saw that
her whole year's work was lost. She took a pestle and struck the blind man
so hard on the head that one of his eyes fell out on his cheeks. "You have
unjustly deformed me," cried Morda; "you see that I am guiltless. Your
loss is not caused by my blunder." "Verily," said Ceridwen, "Gwyon the
Small it was that robbed me." Immediately she pursued him, but Gwyon saw
her from a distance and turned into a hare and redoubled his speed, but
she at once became a hound, forced him to turn around and chased him
towards a river. He jumped in and became a fish, but his enemy pursued him
quickly in the shape of an otter, so that he had to assume the form of a
bird and fly up into the air. But the element gave him no place of refuge,
for the woman became a falcon, came after him and would have caught him
[forms of anxiety]. Trembling for fear of death, he saw a heap of smooth
wheat on a threshing floor, fell into the middle of it and turned into a
grain of wheat. But Ceridwen took the shape of a black hen, flew to the
wheat, scratched it asunder, recognized the grain and swallowed it
[impregnation, incest]. She became pregnant from it and after being
confined for nine months [regeneration] she found so lovely a child
[improvement] that she could no longer think of its death [immortality].
She put it in a boat, covered it with a skin [skin = lanugo of the foetus,
belongs to the birth motive], and at the instigation of her husband cast
the skiff into the sea on the 29th of April. At this time the fish weir of
Gwyddno stood between Dyvi and Aberystwyth, near his own stronghold. It
was usual in this weir every year on the 1st of May to catch fish worth
100 pounds. Gwyddno had an only son, Elphin. He was very unfortunate in
his undertakings, and so his father t