Running to the water, he became afish; but she became another and chased him below the waves. He turnedhimself into a bird, when she became a hawk and gave him no rest in thesky. Just as she swooped on him, he espied a pile of winnowed wheat on thefloor of a barn, and dropping upon it, he became one of the wheat-grains.Changing herself into a high-crested black hen, Cardiwen scratched him upand swallowed him, when he changed at last into a boy again and was sobeautiful that she could not kill him outright, but wrapped him in aleathern bag and cast him into the sea, committing him to the mercy ofGod. This was on the twenty-ninth of April.Now Gwyddno had a weir for catching fish on the sea-strand near hiscastle, and every day in May he was wont to take a hundred pounds' worthof fish. He had a son named Elphin, who was always poor and unsuccessful,but that year the father had given the son leave to draw all the fish fromthe weir, to see if good luck would ever befall him and give him somethingwith which to begin the world.When Elphin went next to draw the weir, the man who had charge of it saidin pity, "Thou art always unlucky; there is nothing in the weir but aleathern bag, which is caught on one of the poles." "How do we know," saidElphin, "that it may not contain the value of a hundred pounds?" Taking upthe bag and opening it, the man saw the forehead of the boy and said toElphin, "Behold, what a radiant brow" (Taliessin).
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