The bardd Taliesin was late in arriving at Ehangwen. As usual he was accompanied by a train of gosgorddluoedd, lesser beirdd, young derwyddon and the smattering of adoring followers that always trailed after him wherever he went. Servants scrambled to set an entire table for the star-browed poet and his entourage, adjacent to the regal platform on which Artoros and his knights were ensconced. Taliesin settled at the head of the table and lazily scanned the hall with a jaded pair of startingly sky blue eyes. Women blushed, whispered behind their hands to each other, giggled, and at least one of them swooned. Some of the men stood up, either in honour of the bardd or to better view his trend-setting apparel and accessories. Taliesin picked at a slab of roast pheasant and stifled a yawn.

"Politics and piggery, as usual," he mumbled to his chief bodyguard, "but from the look of Artoros, there's something afoot - or ahead!"

The bodyguard frowned while puzzling over these words. Sometimes Taliesin's most offhanded remarks were full of prophecies and omens. Other times he was simply commenting on the weather. One never knew.

This time Taliesin's observation was dead-on. In mid-conversation with a smiling, nodding prince, Artoros suddenly leaped up onto a table. In a blink, he was waving a half-eaten ham in the air. Another blink and he was brandishing a richly gemmed cross. And raving about banishing pagan gods and uniting Britain with the Christ as overlord, himself as the emissary of the new age. Before the ringing of his voice had faded, his most loyal knight, Bors, was trumpeting allegiance.

A mist swept over Taliesin. He, too, felt overwhelmingly compelled to go with Artoros, even as a vision of destruction and ruin played out before his lightning-seared gape. When the bardd rose from his seat, everyone turned expectantly to hear what he would say.

The words poured out of him as effortlessly as vomit while he stood helpless in the thrall of a poetic trance.

"I saw the best minds of my generation groped by greed, gorged with boar, clothed in black feathers
marching themselves through ransacked villages at midnight looking for a severed head;
Angel-footed idiots questing for the ancient road to imaginary holy bowls and cruciform crucibles...

What raven of iron and crossbows pecked open their skulls and glutted itself on their Awen?
Boloch! Boloch! Hunllef! Boloch! Boloch the heartless! Mindless Boloch! Boloch the final judger of men!
Boloch! Boloch! Mwyfwy! Hidia befo! Mwybyth!

Artoros! I'm with you in Camelot
where you're madder than I am
I'm with you in Camelot
where you instigate a food fight
I'm with you in Camelot
where you dance with a ham-let
I'm with you in Camelot
where you throw down the hero's haunch
I'm with you in Camelot
where we wake up to a new battle
I'm with you in Camelot
where if ever I could leave you it couldn't be in summer
I'm with you in Camelot
where the rain may never fall till after sundown
I'm with you in Camelot
where the story never ends

Tyllog! Tyllog! Tyllog! Tyllog! Tyllog! Tyllog! Tyllog! Tyllog! Tyllog!
The sky is tyllog! The earth is tyllog! The sea is tyllog!
Everything is tyllog! We are the hollow men!
Tyllog the king and tyllog the ham!
Tyllog the head and tyllog the land!
Tyllog the royal feasting hall and tyllog the jewelled cross!
Tyllog the bloody clash of battle and tyllog the warrior's sacred sword!
Tyllog the lambs and tyllog the lions!
Tyllog the eternal glimmer-glass of udiad.
Mwybyth! Mwybyth!"

Having howled out his song, Taliesin collapsed face first into his scarcely nibbled platter of pheasant. Accustomed to such fits of frenzy, his gosgorddluoedd calmly carried him from the hall to a quiet place where he might regain his senses. Half of his entourage trailed after him in dazed adoration, half remained to bask in the afterglow and revel in the fine food and ale.


gosgorddluoedd = bodyguards (?)
beirdd = bards
derwyddon = druids
boloch = destruction
hunllef = nightmare
mwyfwy = more and more
hidia befo! = never mind
mwybyth! = nevermore
ham-let = a half-eaten boar
tyllog = holey, porous (not to be confused with "holy")
udiad = howl