We are creating a DOUBLE BILL of bilingual (Welsh / English) puppetry and storytelling that will be available for rural touring, theatres, school and community venues in 2016.
'Cauldron of Ceridwen' was first made for the North Wales event 'Take pArt' in 2015 in a short and intensive research and development. We are currently working on remaking the show so that it will be ready for touring in the summer.
The Cauldron of Ceridwen promises to be an exciting piece of puppetry by PuppetSoup based upon the ancient Welsh tale of Taliesin, from the Mabinogi, the welsh book of fairy tales. The Story...
Ceridwen lives in a magical land with her very stupid, very lazy son and their sad and terribly oppressed slave boy.
Ceridwen gets fed up with her son’s silly ways and casts a magic spell to make a potion in her cauldron to make him brave, clever and wise.
After one year and a day, the potion is ready, but the very stupid son refuses the potion and runs away.
The slave boy accidentally gets the first three magical drops of the potion and becomes brave, clever and wise. He realises Ceridwen will be very angry so he turns himself into a hare and runs away.
He is chased by Ceridwen who transforms herself into a greyhound dog. Next he becomes a fish, swimming away in a stream. Ceridwen chases him faster and faster now in the form of an otter. Splashing out of the water, the slave boy flies in to the air as a small bird who is chased by Ceridwen who turns into a hawk to follow him again.
In a last desperate bid to hide he sees a giant pile of grain and transforms himself into a single grain to be sure he can’t be found.
Ceridwen however is clever, wise and angry and becomes a chicken to eat up all the grain.
Some time later, Ceridwen realises that she is with child and eventually gives birth to a beautiful baby boy. Furious and determined to get rid of the boy, but captivated by his beauty, Ceridwen can’t bring herself to kill the child and instead casts him away in a leather bag into the river.
He is found by a fisherman up the stream, who marvels at his beauty and is astonished when the baby speaks to him.
The baby is Taliesin, the first bard and singer of magical stories and the most celebrated poet in Welsh history.
Join us on this stunning visual adventure in 2016.
We look forward to announcing tour dates very soon.... !