“Do what you like,” growled Cuall and swung himself up into the saddle. “Are you coming, Ermid?”

Ermid rose and fetched a fur from his horse, draped it over Elphin’s shoulders, and remounted.

Elphin held the child for a long moment and felt the tiny body warm against his skin. Snow swirled down through the overarching branches, casting a pal! of silence over the surrounding forest-a silence that was broken by a small, muffled cry.

Lowering the bundle, Elphin watched in wonder as the child in his arms drew a deep, shuddering breath and cried again, stretching out its tiny hands. The infant’s voice seemed to fill the world with its cry.

“By the Mother Goddess!” exclaimed Ermid. “The babe lives!”

Cuall just stared, his fingers instinctively making the sign against evil.

“Here,” said Elphin getting up and holding the child out. “Hold him while I dress myself. We must get him to the caer quickly.”

Ermid sat frozen in the saddle. “Hurry!” commanded Elphin. “I mean to take him back alive, that all may see my fortune.” At this Ermid dismounted and took the babe gingerly in his hands.

Elphin quickly pulled on his trousers and Belted his tunic over them, stuffed his feet into his boots, then fastened his cloak. He took up his reins and leaped up into the saddle, pulling furs over him, then held out his hands for the child, which had ceased crying and now snuggled quietly asleep in its fur bed. Ermid passed it up to him and quickly regained his own mount, and the three started back down the trail to the caer. Elphin was careful to let his horse amble gently along, lest he disturb the sleeping child.

By the time Elphin and his companions reached the caer, the snow had stopped and the clouds had thinned so that the sun could be seen as a ghostly white disk floating behind a gauzy gray curtain. A few clan members saw them return and ran to call others to see how Elphin had fared at the weir. Since there were no sacks of salmon hanging from the cantles of their saddles, most of those who followed the horses to Gwyddno’s house assumed that Elphin’s luck had held true, which is to say that he failed.

The seal fur bundle that Elphin cradled in his arms intrigued them, however. “What have you there, Elphin?” they called as he rode among the squat houses of the caer.

“You will see soon enough,” he answered and kept riding.

“I see no salmon,” they whispered to one another. “His evil luck has done for him again.”

Elphin heard their whispers but did not acknowledge them. He passed through the inner palisade of wooden stakes and came to his father’s house. Gwyddno and Medhir, Elphin’s mother, came out to watch their son’s approach. The two weir wardens dismounted and stood a little way off, subdued. Haf-gan, the druid, leaned on his staff, head cocked to the side, one eye asquint- as if trying to ascertain a fine alteration in Elphin’s appearance.

“Well, Elphin, how have you fared?” asked Gwyddno. He peered sadly at the horses and at the empty sacks behind their saddles. “Was the spirit of the weir against you, son?”

“Come close and see how I have fared.” Elphin spoke in a loud voice so that all those gathered around could hear.

He extended his arms and showed his bundle. Gwyddno reached for it, but Elphin did not hand it to him. Instead, he lifted the edge of the sealskin and pulled it back so everyone could see. As he did so the sun burst through the thin cloud cover. Bright white light showered down upon him, illuminating the infant in his hands.

“Behold! Taliesin of the radiant brow!” cried Hafgan, for the infant’s face shone with a bright light as it caught the rays of the sun.

Medhir rushed forward to take the babe; Elphin handed it to her gently and dismounted. “Yes, I have fetched a child from the weir!” he said. “Let him be called Taliesin.”

The people were silent. At first they merely stared in wonder at the fair child with the shining face. Then someone muttered from the crowd, “Woe, woe! Who has heard of such a thing? Surely it bodes ill for the clan.”

Everyone heard what was said, and soon all were decrying Elphin’s catch and making the sign against evil behind their backs. Elphin heard their rnutterings and shouted angrily, “It makes no difference what I do! Whether I had brought back three salmon or three hundred you would find some fault and say I was cursed!” He took the child from his mother and held it aloft. “In the day of trouble this child shall be of more service to me than three hundred salmon!”

The child awakened and began crying hungrily. Elphin looked at it helplessly. Medhir came close and took the infant, cradling it against her breast. “Anyone can see this child is no water spirit,” she said. “He cried as lustily as any babe might who needs his mother’s milk.”

Elphin turned away sadly. He had no wife, and surely none of the women in the clan would agree to raise the child. Without a mother, Taliesin would die. What they say is true, he thought, I am unlucky. He remembered all the times he had ignored the talk of his kinsmen against him, pretending that it did not matter, and he hung his head.

“Elphin, cease your lament,” said a voice behind him. He turned to see Hafgan watching him. “Never in Gwyddno’s weir was there such good fortune as this day.” The druid came to stand before the babe and raised his oaken staff high in the air. “Though small you are, Taliesin, and weak in your leather coracle, yet there is virtue in your tongue. A bard you will be, a maker with words, renowned as no other from the beginning of the world.”

The people looked to one another in amazement. Hafgan turned and lowered his staff and tapped it three times on the ground. He stretched out his hand and pointed at those gathered there. “You have heard my words; now keep them in your hearts and remember. Henceforth, let no one say that Elphin is unlucky, for he shall become the most fortunate of men.”

Medhir took the babe into Gwyddno’s house and prepared some goat milk. She warmed the milk in a clay bowl by the fire, then fed the child by dipping the tip of a soft cloth in the milk and giving it to the baby to suck. Gwyddno and Elphin watched and when the infant Taliesin was satisfied, he fell asleep again. Medhir wrapped him in his gray seal fur and lay him down on a bed of clean straw.

“He will sleep now,” said Medhir, “but goat’s milk will not keep him for long. It is a mother’s milk he will be needing, and that soon.”

Elphin held out his hands helplessly. “If I knew the woman, I would bring her here in an instant.”

Gwyddno rubbed his hand over his chin. “Mother or wet nurse, I think it matters little to the babe.”

Medhir brightened at the thought. “I have a kinswoman at Diganhwy, named Eithne-the babe has me bewitted or I would have remembered before now. It is her daughter, I am thinking, whose own dear babe came stillborn this forenight past. We could send for her to nurse the child.”

“What of her husband?” wondered Elphin.

“She has none. That is, she was barter wife to a man named Nuin for the child to be his heir. They were never married, and as the child was born dead there was the end of it. Nuin paid her mother as he had promised so there would be no words between them.”

“I will send for the girl,” declared Gwyddno. “Perhaps she will come.”

“Let me go myself,” replied Elphin, looking at the sleeping child. “And I will leave at once.”

“Her name is Rhonwyn,” Medhir told him. “Greet her in my name when you meet and remember me to her mother.”

“And,” his father added, “tell her Gwyddno Garanhir will give her two head of cattle and four pigs if she will consent to nurse the child.”

Elphin left his father’s house, saddled a red mare for Rhonwyn and, taking up his reins, climbed into the saddle once more and rode north for Diganhwy, leading the mare.