should be very near the great secret of the Druidic religion
and of Celtic mythology, as well as the secret of Merlin's actual and
imaginary effect in Welsh literature.

The battle of Arderydd has been cited above as a determining event in
Merlin's history. The opening poem in the 'Black Book of Carmarthen'
is a remarkable rhymed dialogue between Merlin and Taliesin, some of
whose lines are extremely imaginative and touching in their archaic
simplicity. Merlin begins:--

"How sad is Merlin now! how sad!
Keduyf and Kadvan--are they dead?
The furious slaughter filled the field,
And pierced was the Tryrwyd shield!"

Taliesin replies:--

"His house-folk did not falter in the fight!"

So it goes on, telling of the battle and its consequences, until one
reaches at the end that mysterious verse which haunts the imagination
and the ear of the reader. Merlin again speaks:--

"Sevenscore chieftains
Were turned into spirits;
In the wood of Celyddon
Were they transformed.

The wood of Celyddon is the Caledonian Forest. So far as these
excerpts go, they might seem to be the writing of the real Merlin.
There is internal evidence however that this poem, the much disputed
poem of the 'Apple-trees,' and others that follow it in the 'Black
Book,' were written not earlier than the twelfth century. Stephens,
usually an acute critic, imputes in his 'Literature of the Kymry'
these poems to Gwalchmai and other bards of later date. But even so,
these poets evidently founded their poems upon earlier ones,
traditionally handed on as Merlin's.

From such later sources as the 'Myvyrian Archaeology,' or Skene's 'Four
Ancient Books of Wales,' or the admirable Oxford texts edited by
Professor Rhys and Mr. Gwenogfvyn Evans, one can rehabilitate at will
the Merlin of the 'Black Book of Carmarthen,' much as Villemarque has
done after a fashion quite his own. Enough will so be certainly
discovered to outline a primitive Merlin, an original sixth-century
Merlin, under the impressive mediaeval robes of the Latin-Welsh
romantic chroniclers and poets. Enough too will be made clear to show
a basis of myth and prehistoric legend behind the remotest recorded
name, time, or place that can be counted historical.

The same is true of Taliesin, who appears, by the poetical remains
attributed to him,--some of them clearly mediaeval, others just as
clearly primitive,--even more interesting as a poet than Merlin. Just
as there are se