An extract from the demo of "The White Stag." Richard wrote the words and the melody, and the finished version will feature on the new recording "Kingdom Animalia" by Gwion.

Extract from "The White Stag" Demo for "Kingdom Animalia"

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An extract from the demo of "Shapeshifter." Talisesin wrote the words, Richard wrote the melody, and the finished version will feature on the new recording "Kingdom Animalia" by Gwion. Kingdom Animalia is being funded by a Kickstarter campaign ~ to be part of the funding process, please visit:

www.kickstarter.com/projects/gwion/…ingdom-animalia

Extract from the "Shapeshifter" demo for "Kingdom Animalia"

Extract from the DEMO of "An Bradán Feasa - The Salmon Of Knowledge" KINGDOM ANIMALIA

Bear Dance - Drum Track

Composed and recorded in one take on the Winter Solstice 2019. We don't get much snow in Arizona, but I used to live in Wales and the east coast of the United States where they get plenty.

This is a Solstice gift for you and a celebration of winter.

It's dedicated to my Anam Cara Sorcha Sinclair and our grandma kitty Olwyn Price.

First Snow

Taliesin was the greatest of the Welsh poets, and his name means "radiant brow." 

Taliesin began life as Gwion Bach, a servant to Ceridwen, the wife of a nobleman Tegid Foel, in the days when King Arthur ruled. She was a magician who had three arts she learned: enchantment, magic, and divination. Ceridwen had a beautiful daughter and an ugly son named Morfran, which means "Great Crow", whose appearance no magic could cure. Later he became known as Afagddu, which means "Utter Darkness". Ceridwen felt in order for him to gain respect and acceptance from noblemen he had to have great qualities to compensate for his ugly looks, so she sought to give him the gift of wisdom and knowledge. Through her arts she found a way of giving her son these special qualities, so she found special herbs from the earth in order to do this Inspiration (Awen), which had to be constantly stirred and cooked for a year and a day in a cauldron.

A blind man, named Morda was assigned by Ceridwen to stir the cauldron, while Gwion Bach, a young lad, stoked the fire underneath it. The first three drops of liquid from this cauldron would endow "inspiration, wisdom and the spirit of prophecy" (The Tale of Gwion Bach), and the rest was a fatal poison. After all Ceridwen's hard work she sat down, and accidentally fell asleep. While she was asleep the three drops sprang from the cauldron and Gwion Bach shoved Morfran out of the way so he could get the three drops. Instantly, he gained wisdom. Knowing from his wisdom that Ceridwen would be very angry once she found out what happened that he ran away.

All too soon he heard her fury and the sound of her pursuit. He turned himself into a hare on the land and she became a greyhound. He turned himself into a fish and jumped into a river: she then turned into an otter. He turned into a bird in the air, and in response she became a hawk.

Exhausted, Ceridwen managed to force him into a barn, where he turned into a single grain of corn and she became a tufted black hen and ate him. She became pregnant because of this. She resolved to kill the child, knowing it was Gwion, but when he was born he was so beautiful that she couldn't.

Gwion

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