Who The Hell Was Taliessin ?

A few people have asked me who’ll figure in “The Twilight of the Celts” book series when they are eventually released (after the final Merlin Book is published).  All I’m allowed to say at this stage is that the series tells us what happens to the Celtic peoples after the death of King Arthur, and that the characters in the novel are the heirs of King Arthur, ably led by a Welsh hero called Taliessin.

The response is always the same.

Who exactly is Taliessin ??

Some of the historical sources describe two Taliessins.

The first of these was Taliessin Pen Beird.  He was a reputed shape shifter, the greatest poet of his time and a Master of Music.  In many of the ancient sources of the Arthurian legends he is variously the son Merlin and Nimue but in others his mother is Ceridwen, the Celtic goddess who was the champion of her people.

In other sources, Taliessin is described as a special patriot and symbol of Welsh resistance to the invaders who attacked Cymru from the North and the East.

The reason for the discrepancies between these two men (if there were two) is because of minor time differences in the records.  It must be remembered that most histories were maintained by hand in monasteries by monks and most of their records have been destroyed over time.

After all this time, it is difficult to differentiate between them if there are in fact two Taliessins but I’d like to believe that the man was such a great inspiration to the Celtic peoples that he should in fact be one and the same person.

Taliessin was Alfred Lord Tennyson’s idea of King Arthur’s singer and fool in The Idylls of the King, but I couldn’t make Taliessin into such a ‘nothing’ character.  For me, he will always be the offspring of Merlin and Nimue, and as extraordinary as such a child would have been.

For MK Hume, it is “Two for the price of one”.

Meanwhile, I ‘m charging through my special project and I’m rather excited by it.  Of course, I spend a lot of time working on it because I have to get back to my Arthurian work, but my editor is over the moon about this one.  I’m doing it for me!!!!  And, if my publishers should allow it to see the light of day, I hope you will all like it.

It’s twisted; amoral and yet moral; it’s violent and yet psychologically satisfying at the same time.