me are who did appear
Intent on wily schemes,
By craft and tricking means,
In pangs of affliction
To wrong the innocent,
Let the fools be silent,
As erst in Badon's fight,--
With Arthur of liberal ones
The head, with long red blades;
Through feats of testy men,
And a chief with his foes.
Woe be to them, the fools,
When revenge comes on them.
I Taliesin, chief of bards,
With a sapient druid's words,
Will set kind Elphin free
From haughty tyrant's bonds.
To their fell and chilling cry,
By the act of a surprising steed,
From the far distant North,
There soon shall be an end.
Let neither grace nor health
Be to Maelgwn Gwynedd,
For this force and this wrong;
And be extremes of ills
And an avenged end
To Rhun and all his race:
Short be his course of life,
Be all his lands laid waste;
And long exile be assigned
To Maelgwn Gwynedd!"

After this he took leave of his mistress, and came at last to the court
of Maelgwn, who was going to sit in his hall and dine in his royal state,
as it was the custom in those days for kings and princes to do at every
chief feast. And as soon as Taliesin entered the hall, he placed himself
in a quiet corner, near the place where the bards and the minstrels were
wont to come to in doing their service and duty to the king, as is the
custom at the high festivals when the bounty is proclaimed. And so, when
the bards and the heralds came to cry largess and to proclaim the power
of the king and his strength, at the moment that they passed by the
corner wherein he was crouching, Taliesin pouted out his lips after them,
and played "Blerwm, blerwm," with his finger upon his lips. Neither took
they much notice of him as they went by, but proceeded forward till they
came before the king, unto whom they made their obeisance with their
bodies, as they were wont, without speaking a single word, but pouting
out their lips, and making mouths at the king, playing "Blerwm, blerwm,"
upon their lips with their fingers, as they had seen the boy do
elsewhere. This sight caused the king to wonder and to deem within
himself that they were drunk with many liquors. Wherefore he commanded
one of his lords, who served at the board, to go to them and desire them
to collect their wits, and to consider where they stood, and what it was
fitting for them to do. And this lord did so gladly. But they ceased
not from their