The next day, when Elphin went to look, there was nothing in the weir but a leathern bag upon a pole of the weir.  Then said the weir-ward unto Elphin, “All thy ill-luck aforetime was nothing to this; and now thou hast destroyed the virtues of the weir, which always yielded the value of an hundred pounds every May eve; and to-night there is nothing but this leathern skin within it.”  “How now,” said Elphin, “there may be therein the value of a hundred pounds.”  Well! they took up the leathern bag, and he who opened it saw the forehead of an infant, the fairest that ever was seen; and he said, “Behold a radiant brow?” (In the Welsh language, taliesin.) “Taliesin be he called,” said Elphin.  And he lifted the bag in his arms, and, lamenting his bad luck, placed the boy sorrowfully behind him.  And he made his horse amble gently, that before had been trotting, and he carried him as softly as if he had been sitting in the easiest chair in the world.  And presently the boy made a Consolation, and praise to Elphin; and the Consolation was as you may here see: 

   “Fair Elphin, cease to lament! 
    Never in Gwyddno’s weir
    Was there such good luck as this night. 
    Being sad will not avail;
    Better to trust in God than to forbode ill;
    Weak and small as I am,
    On the foaming beach of the ocean,
    In the day of trouble I shall be
    Of more service to thee than three hundred salmon.”

This was the first poem that Taliesin ever sung, being to console Elphin in his grief for that the produce of the weir was lost, and what was worse, that all the world would consider that it was through his fault and ill-luck.  Then Elphin asked him what he was, whether man or spirit.  And he sung thus: 

   “I have been formed a comely person;
    Although I am but little, I am highly gifted;
    Into a dark leathern bag I was thrown,
    And on a boundless sea I was sent adrift. 
    From seas and from mountains
    God brings wealth to the fortunate man.”

Then came Elphin to the house of Gwyddno, his father, and Taliesin with him.  Gwyddno asked him if he had had a good haul at the weir, and he told him that he had got that which was better than fish.  “What was that?” said Gwyddno.  “A bard,” said Elphin.  Then said Gwyddno, “Alas! what will he profit thee?” And Taliesin himself replied and said, “He will profit him more than the weir ever profited thee.”  Asked Gwyddno, “Art thou able to speak, and thou so little?” And Taliesin answered him, “I am better able to speak than thou to question me.”  “Let me hear what thou canst say,” quoth Gwyddno.  Then Taliesin sang: 

   “Three times have I been born, I know by meditation;
   All the sciences of the world are collected in my breast,
   For I know what has been, and what hereafter will occur.”