es and dogs, and afterwards
slays Pryderi by power of enchantments; he produces a fleet by magic
before Arianrhod's castle; with Math's help he forms Blodeuwedd out of
flowers; he gives Llew his natural shape when he finds him as a wasted
eagle on a tree, his flesh and the worms breeding in it dropping from
him; he transforms the faithless Blodeuwedd into an owl. Some of these
and other deeds are referred to in the _Taliesin_ poems, while Taliesin
describes himself as enchanted by Gwydion.[369] In the _Triads_ he is
one of the three great astrologers of Prydein, and this emphasis laid on
his powers of divination is significant when it is considered that his
name may be derived from a root _vet_, giving words meaning "saying" or
"poetry," while cognate words are Irish _faith_, "a prophet" or "poet,"
German _wuth_, "rage," and the name of Odinn.[370] The name is
suggestive of the ecstasy of inspiration producing prophetic and poetic
utterance. In the _Mabinogion_ he is a mighty bard, and in a poem, he,
under the name of Gweir, is imprisoned in the Other-world, and there
becomes a bard, thus receiving inspiration from the gods' land.[371] He
is the ideal _faith_--diviner, prophet, and poet, and thus the god of
those professing these arts. Strabo describes how the Celtic _vates_
(_faith_) was also a philosopher, and this character is given in a poem
to Seon (probably = Gwydion), whose artists are poets and
magicians.[372] But he is also a culture-god, bringing swine to men from
the gods' land. For though Pryderi is described as a mortal who has
himself received the swine from Annwfn (Elysium), there is no doubt that
he himself was a lord of Annwfn, and it was probably on account of
Gwydion's theft from Annwfn that he, as Gweir, was imprisoned there
"through the messenger of Pwyll and Pryderi."[373] A raid is here made
directly on the god's land for the benefit of men, and it is
unsuccessful, but in the _Mabinogi_ a different version of the raid is
told. Perhaps Gwydion also brought kine from Annwfn, since he is called
one of the three herds of Britain,[374] while he himself may once have
been an animal god, then an anthropomorphic deity associated with
animals. Thus in the _Mabinogi_, when Gwydion flees with the swine, he
rests each night at a place one of the syllables of which is _Moch_,
"swine"--an aetiological myth explaining why places which were once sites
of the cult of a swine-god, afterwards worshipped as Gwydion, we