ce, "I am the bark buffeted from wave to wave ... the ship after the
losing of its rudder ... the little apple on the top of the tree that
little thought of its falling."[1217] These are metaphoric descriptions
of a comparatively simple kind. The full-blown bombast appears in the
_Colloquy of the Two Sages_, where Nede and Fercertne exhaust language
in describing themselves to each other.[1218] Other Welsh bards besides
Taliesin make similar boasts to his, and Dr. Skene thinks that their
claims "may have been mere bombast."[1219] Still some current belief in
shape-shifting, or even in rebirth, underlies some of these boastings
and gives point to them. Amairgen's "I am" this or that, suggests the
inherent power of transformation; Taliesin's "I have been," the actual
transformations. Such assertions do not involve "the powerful
pantheistic doctrine which is at once the glory and error of Irish
philosophy," as M. D'Arbois claims,[1220] else are savage medicine-men,
boastful of their shape-shifting powers, philosophic pantheists. The
poems are merely highly developed forms of primitive beliefs in
shape-shifting, such as are found among all savages and barbaric folk,
but expressed in the boastful language in which the Celt delighted.

How were the successive shape-shiftings effected? To answer this we
shall first look at the story of Tuan Mac Caraill, who survived from the
days of Partholan to those of S. Finnen. He was a decrepit man at the
coming of Nemed, and one night, having lain down to sleep, he awoke as a
stag, and lived in this form to old age. In the same way he became a
boar, a hawk, and a salmon, which was caught and eaten by Cairell's
wife, of whom he was born as Tuan, with a perfect recollection of his
different forms.[1221]

This story, the invention of a ninth or tenth century Christian scribe
to account for the current knowledge of the many invasions of
Ireland,[1222] must have been based on pagan myths of a similar kind,
involving successive transformations and a final rebirth. Such a myth
may have been told of Taliesin, recounting his transformations and his
final rebirth, the former being replaced at a later time by the episode
of the Transformation Combat, involving no great lapse of time. Such a
series of successive shapes--of every beast, a dragon, a wolf, a stag, a
salmon, a seal, a swan--were ascribed to Mongan and foretold by
Manannan, and Mongan refers to some of them in his colloquy with S.
Colum