rally the timbering or material, of the planets. The next reference to be mentioned is to a Taliessin poem called the Ale Song,[1] where we have the following couplet:
|
'Ef kyrch kerdoryon. |
'It they seek, the artists |
The bards have suffered enormously from thirst for ages unnumbered, and the pronoun here probably stands for the cwrw or ale they desired; but the passage is interesting as promiscuously describing poets and musicians of all descriptions as the artists of Se Seon, and as recording the simpler form of the name Seon: compare Nav Neivion, March Meirchion and the like, not forgetting an instance in the case of the very god in question, namely, that of Gwyd Gwydion,[2] to be mentioned presently.
There was a place in North Wales called Caer Seon or Seion, that is to say, Seon's Town or Fortress, and it was probably no other than that which the Romans called Segontium, the site of which is now occupied by the town of Carnarvon. This appears from a poem printed in the Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, i. 476, and supposed to date from the thirteenth century or the earlier part of the succeeding one. It alludes to Maelgwn and his court coming from 'Tir Mab Dôn Dueᵭ,' or the side of the Son of Dôn's Land, whereby Mona was meant, to Caer Seion; and the story goes that Maelgwn, who took a delight in fomenting the natural rivalry existing between the poets and the musicians of his court, ordered them all to swim across, which they did, with the result of rendering the strings on which the latter depended
