so much suspicion. The story of Taliesin begins thus:-

'In former times there was a man of noble descent in Penllyn. His
name was Tegid Voel, and his paternal estate was in the middle of the
Lake of Tegid, and his wife was called Ceridwen.'

Nothing could well be simpler; but what Davies finds in this simple
opening of Taliesin's story is prodigious:-

'Let us take a brief view of the proprietor of this estate. Tegid
Voel--BALD SERENITY--presents itself at once to our fancy. The
painter would find no embarrassment in sketching the portrait of this
sedate venerable personage, whose crown is partly stripped of its
hoary honours. But of all the gods of antiquity, none could with
propriety sit for this picture excepting Saturn, the acknowledged
representative of Noah, and the husband of Rhea, which was but
another name for Ceres, the genius of the ark.'

And Ceres, the genius of the ark, is of course found in Ceridwen,
'the British Ceres, the arkite goddess who initiates us into the
deepest mysteries of the arkite superstition.'

Now the story of Taliesin, as it proceeds, exhibits Ceridwen as a
sorceress; and a sorceress, like a goddess, belongs to the world of
the supernatural; but, beyond this, the story itself does not suggest
one particle of relationship between Ceridwen and Ceres. All the
rest comes out of Davies's fancy, and is established by reasoning of
the force of that about 'bald serenity.'

It is not difficult for the other side, the Celt-haters, to get a