The 'Starbrow' Archetype: Taliesin, Smith, and Tolkien's Faery Tradition

I want to talk about an interesting motif that I find to be quite under-explored in Tolkienological circles. It is a rather peculiar recurring archetype, somewhat like that of the ‘Elf-Friend’, which appears to have at least partial provenance in a primary-world mythic tradition with which Tolkien was acutely familiar (albeit with complicated feelings). It has been popping up much more than usual lately — enough that it’s starting to feel like somewhat of a synchronicity — so I felt compelled to get some thoughts out on paper (screen?).

In this post, I will be talking about the archetype of the ‘Starbrow’ and its resonances with the Welsh mythic tradition, namely the story of Taliesin.

The Story of Taliesin

There are four books which comprise the core of the medieval Welsh literary tradition, codified between the 13th-15th centuries but certainly based on much earlier oral traditions: these are The Black Book of Carmarthen, The Red Book of Hergest, The White Book of Rhydderch, and The Book of Taliesin. It is well established that the Red Book of Hergest served as an inspiration for the ‘Red Book of Westmarch’, and indeed Tolkien was well familiar with the contents of this important Welsh collection —which includes, among other things, the tales of the Mabinogion.

But I want to turn to the last book, The Book of Taliesin, and its namesake bard. Taliesin is one of the most infamous names in the Welsh literary canon, originally (probably) belonging to a historical 6th-century bard associated with the courts of several early Welsh kings, including Urien Rheged of the Old North (Yr Hen Ogledd). But over the years, many Welsh bards composed poetry under the name of Taliesin, leading to the development of a kind of ‘Taliesin tradition’. Particularly under English occupation, this unique ‘Taliesin voice’ became a powerful vehicle for the reaffirmation and codification of Welsh culture and identity.

Over time, the historical Taliesin himself became deeply entwined with myth, evolving into a legendary Myrddin/Merlin-esque figure of both prophetic wisdom and supernatural power. His mythic origin story, found in texts like Hanes Taliesin (The Tale of Taliesin, 16th c.), exists in many forms, but it can be summarised for our present purposes as follows:

Once upon a time there was a great woman named Ceridwen, who lived by Lake Bala with her husband Lord Tegid. They had two children: a beautiful daughter named Creirwy, and a hideous son named Morfran. Wishing to bestow great wisdom upon her son (since he was lacking in beauty), Ceridwen sought the aid of the great alchemists (pheryllt) of Dinas Affaraon, who taught her their secret recipe for brewing the ambrosia of Awen (the ‘flowing spirit’ of inspiration). Following their instructions, Ceridwen begins to gather the necessary substances: an array of special herbs and plants, water from Lake Bala, and an iron cauldron in which she must brew the substances for a year and a day.

While collecting the ingredients, she stumbles upon a blind man named Morda and a young servant boy, Gwion Bach (literally ‘Little Innocent [one]’). She contracts them to tend to her cauldron for the duration of the process, since it would demand constant attention while the brew is being prepared. But she warns them not to ingest any of the elixir, since it is only the first three drops that carry the power of Awen (and this was reserved for her son) while the remainder of the liquid would become toxic.

On the final day of the brew’s preparation, Ceridwen and her son join Morda and Gwion at the cauldron, but they fall asleep just before the preparation is complete. With the fire dying, Gwion puts a final log onto the fire, which causes the cauldron to sputter, and three drops of ambrosia spring out and land on Gwion’s hand — without thinking, he sucks them off. With the all-important first three drops now distributed, the brew immediately becomes toxic, breaking the cauldron that held it and poisoning the ground and nearby lake.

Ceridwen wakes up in a rage and lunges at Gwion, desiring to kill him for stealing her son’s precious elixir. But imbued with the magical power of Awen, Gwion transforms himself into a hare and escapes. But Ceridwen was no ordinary woman (some considered her a witch, others still a goddess). So with her own power she transformed herself into a greyhound and ran after Gwion in his hare-form. Gwion then lept into the lake and transformed himself into a salmon, but Ceridwen turned herself into an otter and continued her pursuit. So Gwion transformed himself into a small bird and tried to fly away, but Ceridwen became a mighty hawk and chased him through the air. Finally, Gwion turned himself into a single grain in a field, thinking that he had finally escaped Ceridwen’s wrath. But the great sorceress became a black and red hen, and swallowed him whole.

Back in her human form, Ceridwen found that something strange had happened. Rather than digesting Gwion, she found that she had been impregnated by the grain, and was now carrying little Gwion in her womb. She proceeded to carry him for nine months, after which she planned to kill him once and for all, but after his birth she saw that he was so radiant and beautiful that she couldn’t bring himself to finish the job. So she sewed him up in a leather sack and threw him out to sea, where he floated for another nine months, journeying between worlds, before eventually being discovered by a man named Elffin.

When Elffin opened the sack, he was amazed to find the babe within, and was taken aback by his radiant beauty, praising in particular his ‘shining brow’. For this reason, he called him Taliesin (‘radiant brow’).

Elffin and his wife raised the boy in their home, where he became proficient in all the bardic arts by the age of 17. Elffin travelled to the court of King Maelgwn to tell him of his miraculous adoptive son, proclaiming him the greatest bard in the land. This, of course, did not sit well with the king and his court, so he threw Elffin in prison for his gumption. But young Taliesin, with his clarity of vision, perceived that Elffin was in trouble and travelled to the court to prove his bardic prowess. There he successfully enchanted the king’s court with magic words and summoned a great storm, causing the king to repent and agree to release Elffin from imprisonment. In the end, the court proclaimed that Taliesin was, indeed, the greatest of all bards.

There is much to say about this story, which is believed by modern Druids to encapsulate the spiritual path: in it we can find discourse on the transition from youth to maturity, and through to death and rebirth; there are multiple examples of alchemical processes of transformation, both overt and symbolic; and of course there is the powerful theme of union with the divine. Awen, a key component of the story, is regarded by many to be at the very core of Druidry, representing the spiritual inspiration which the seeker engages in his quest for illumination. It is Gwion’s rather hard-won initiation into the magic of Awen that sets him upon his own path of transformation to become the ‘Radiant Brow’, and it is a sustained experience of Awen that facilitated his proficiency and legacy as a poet.

The name Taliesin is of particular interest in the topic at hand — derived from the Welsh words tâl (‘brow’) and iesin (‘shining/radiant’). This is assuredly a symbolic name, referencing the luminous clarity of Taliesin’s wisdom — presumably not dissimilar to the ‘third eye’ motif found in many Eastern traditions. Interestingly, we can also find a handful of rather specific correlates to this motif in Tolkien’s corpus.

Tolkien’s ‘Starbrows’

One clear example of this motif in Tolkien’s Legendarium would be Eärendil the Mariner, the very first character to emerge in Tolkien’s mythology. In the Silmarillion materials, Eärendil journeys from Middle-earth to Valinor, the ‘otherworldly’ land of the gods in the uttermost west, to petition them to assist the humans and elves in their struggle against Morgoth. As he sails to the Undying Lands, he famously wears a silmaril upon his brow, which later becomes identified with Venus’s appearance as the Evening Star. Eärendil is, thus, the first ‘star-brow’ archetype in the Legendarium.

But the most (arguably) interesting example comes not from the Legendarium proper, but rather from Tolkien’s final short story, Smith of Wootton Major, in which the titular character, Smith, ingests a magical silver star in his youth which, upon maturation, fixes itself to his forehead and acts as a shining ‘passport’ for the land of Faery. While not wholly invisible, the star goes unnoticed by most of his acquaintances (save for his family), but is highly visible to the inhabitants of Faery, who refer to him as ‘Starbrow’.

What do these ‘star-brow’ figures have in common with each other, and further with our Taliesin? I would argue a great deal. Eärendil and Smith are both travellers who manage to breach the proverbial ‘veil’ between the ordinary world and the enchanted realm of Faery. While Eärendil does so in order to fulfil a perilous quest, Smith’s journeys to Faery are largely a consequence of fate. Like Eärendil and Smith, Taliesin is a journeyer between worlds — both literally during his nine months on the sea as an infant, and figuratively in his prowess as an inspired bard. Instilled with the inspirited potency of Awen, Taliesin is able to transcend the conventional limitations of ordinary reality to see the future, summon storms, and weave enchantments with his poetic skill. He appears, as it were, to have ‘touched the other side’ — and used his bardic position to help others catch a taste of its wonders.

Smith is considered by many to be one of Tolkien’s most autobiographical works, written in the final years of his life as a retrospective of his own ‘adventures’ with Faery. It is a decidedly sombre and melancholic tale, even if it falls short of tragedy. Smith is understandably reluctant to relinquish his passport to Faery, but ends up coming to terms with the fact that his ‘gift’ was a temporary loan and not ‘his’ to keep. Inspiration can be fickle, and while one may wish to turn in on and off as one wishes, the reality is that every precious stroke of inspiration could be the last. This seems to have weighed heavy on Tolkien’s mind in his final years of life.

The ‘starbrow’ archetype is, in Tolkien’s mythology, a figure who bridges the perceptual gap between the ordinary world and the ‘otherworld’ — between the Great Lands and Faery — in order to commune with the non-human ‘others’ that inhabit that strange land. Smith interacts with more than just elves in his journeys through Faery. He also, notably, communes with a Birch tree, who offers him refuge during a brief tempest that he inadvertently instigates (before advising him to leave Faery entirely). Whether this is a function of Faery’s otherworldliness, a skill conferred upon him by his star, or a combination of the two is unclear. But in any case, a ‘starbrow’ figure is one who crosses thresholds — a traveller who ventures into the Perilous Realm despite the dangers that may lurk there.

In Tolkien’s ‘Smith of Wootton Major Essay’ (one of my personal favourite writings from him), Tolkien notes that the ‘otherworld’ in this tale — as per his usual predilections — is not an Orphic ‘underworld’. Smith does not venture into the depths of the Earth to enter into some supernatural other-than-human domain. Rather it is the forest that serves as the gateway to the other: “the regions still immune from human activities, not yet dominated by them (dominated! not conquered!)” (Smith, 116). He notes that, “At certain points at or just within the Forest borders a human person may come across these contiguous points and there enter F[aery] time and space — if fitted to do so or permitted to do so […] Going deep or far into Faery from such points represents a passing further and further away from a familiar or anthropocentric world” (116). Thus, the Starbrow traveller is one who, having been inducted through the experience of enchantment, is permitted access to alternative ways of being in, and looking at, the world.

To return briefly to the ‘third eye’ motif: out of an abundance of caution, I would stop short of suggesting that similarities with Eastern traditions is a direct consequence of cultural diffusion, though it is not entirely impossible that this is the case. There are indeed artistic representations of deities with a ‘third eye’ (or at the very least a pronounced bump in the middle of the forehead) which made their way across Afro-Eurasia via the Silk Roads. Some, like the famous Helgö Buddha statue, travelled all the way from the Swat Valley to Sweden sometime around the 8th-9th century CE.

Naturally, the exchange of art is somewhat distinct from the exchange of religious or cultural ideas. While both may certainly travel together, the exchange of objects like statues and paintings often allows for artistic motifs to be untethered from their native cultural underpinnings so they can be repackaged in a new cultural context. It is likely that the inhabitants of Helgö had no idea who was depicted in their statue — perhaps they knew it to be some foreign god from the distant East, but it is equally possible that they associated him with one of their own cultural figures, or that they came up with an entirely new character to associate with the image. Certainly motifs like the lotus seat, the third eye, the cranial protuberance, and the hand gestures would have been understood quite differently in this new cultural context.

While Sweden remains relatively far from Britain (though not as far as Pakistan!), this was certainly not the only example of Eastern art making its way to the far reaches of Northern and Western Europe. Could this be an origin of the ‘radiant brow’ motif in the story of Taliesin? Perhaps — though this is certainly no more than mere speculation. But in any case, consideration of the spiritual significance of the ‘third eye’ in Buddhist and Hindu traditions may help in making sense of our ‘Starbrow’/‘Radiant Brow’ motif. In Buddhism, the appearance of a third eye (whether literal or symbolic, sometimes marked by a slight protuberance) indicates a capacity for spiritual vision — whether an experience of non-duality or simply an ability to ‘see’ beyond the limits of conventional reality. While notions of having one’s third eye ‘opened’ are somewhat exaggerated in Western mysticism (itself an example of the repackaging of a spiritual motif in a new cultural context), it is certainly the case that a third eye represents a special kind of spiritual insight or wisdom which enables its possessor to ‘look’ deeply, beyond the mundane and into the profound.

The Númenórean Starbrow Legacy

There is another notable instance of the ‘Starbrow’ motif in Tolkien’s work which warrants discussion, and that is in the story of Erendis, and the (partially related) Elendilmir(s) of the Dúnedain.

Erendis (SA 771-985) was the wife of Tal-Aldarion, the sixth King of Númenor. In the story of Aldarion and Erendis in Unfinished Tales, we are told that her husband gifted her a diamond from Middle-earth, which she wore in a silver fillet on her forehead. For this reason she was given the Quenya name Tar-Elestirnë, literally meaning ‘Queen Starbrow’. This, we are told, began a tradition among the rulers of Númenor to begin wearing, in lieu of a crown, a white gem on their forehead as a symbol of their rulership.

This tradition continued long after the Akallabêth in the Kingdom of Arnor, where rulers wore a star-like gem called the Elendilmir in like fashion. This cannot have been Erendis’s gem, as we are elsewhere told that the original Elendilmir belonged to Silmariën (SA 521-?). But much like her diamond, it was worn on the forehead as a symbol of royalty. Isildur wore the original Elendilmir after taking up his kingship in Arnor, but it was lost after his death for thousands of years. It is notable that the gem is specifically mentioned in the account of his death in ‘The Disaster of the Gladden Fields’: when he put on the One Ring after being assailed by orcs along the Anduin, he became invisible indeed, but “the Elendilmir of the West could not be quenched, and suddenly it blazed forth red and wrathful as a burning star” (Unfinished Tales, 292-93). Later, after losing the Ring in the river and returning to the shore, “he loomed up, a monstrous shadow of fear, with a piercing eye like a star”, and was shot and killed (293-94).

After the original Elendilmir (which was evidently of Elvish origin) was lost, a replica was made for Isildur’s son Valandil, which was worn by every king and chieftain in the North Kingdom even up to Aragorn’s time. But after the fall of Isengard, it was discovered that Saruman had somehow recovered the original Elendilmir, and this was returned to Aragorn (now King Elessar) and bound upon his brow by Arwen. It is notable that, in Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings, the author reports that, in SR 1436, King Elessar “gives the Star of the Dúnedain to Master Samwise” on a visit to The Shire (LOTR, 1133). Christopher Tolkien doubted that this was the great Elendilmir itself (UT, 303), though he doesn’t address the possibility that it was the replica made for Valandil which Aragorn had long possessed.

In the history of the Elendilmir(s) and the gem of ‘Starbrow’ Erendis, some interesting motifs emerge, namely the gradual transformation of the ‘Starbrow’ archetype from an authentic expression of enchantment to a strictly ceremonial symbol of temporal power. In this transition, something essential is lost. And as is often the case in Tolkien’s corpus, this loss is neatly illustrated through the loss of light (for more on this, see Verlyn Flieger’s Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World (1983, 2002)). In this case, the shift from a magical, self-illuminating elvish Elendilmir to an ordinary gemstone seems to reflect a kind of ossification and ‘dulling’ of the Starbrow motif. The symbols of enchantment may remain, but the authentic experience is lost. The gemstone born by Valandil and the rulers of Arnor were not genuine ‘Stars of Faery’ like Smith’s. Instead, they were mere symbols of a fading kinship which was becoming increasingly dimmed in the growing twilight of the Dúnedain.

What was once a living sign of spiritual illumination became, over time, a hereditary emblem of power, worn more out of tradition than transformative experience. It would seem that this process began even in Númenor. Even as the kings and queens wore star-like gems on their heads, their ancestral kinship with the Eldar slowly gave way to disenchantment, envy, malice, and a lust for domination. Inspiration cannot be forced, and merely donning the token symbols of enchantment is not enough to ensure its presence.

Tolkien the Starbrow Bard

For Tolkien, the Starbrow motif was clearly more than a mere literary symbol. As Smith was, in many ways, an analogue for Tolkien’s own experience with Faery, it seems that he perceived himself as being somehow possessed of a proverbial ‘Faery Star’ of his own. And much like Smith, he was evidently anxious about the potential of losing his ‘passport’ before his work was complete. In the years before his death, he became increasingly concerned with completing his magnum opus — The Silmarillion — and even in his final month of life he was as busy as ever ironing out the finer points of his tales (including Galadriel’s early history). It does not seem that the winds of inspiration ever wholly left him, even though his lifespan was nearing its end.

I have often thought about Tolkien’s lived experience of mythopoeia. As I discuss in my paper on ‘Tolkien the Tertön’ (forthcoming in published form, but available as a presentation here), it seems clear that Tolkien’s experience of myth-writing was largely akin to that of revelatory bards found in mythic and spiritual traditions across the world. By his own account, he felt that the stories were moving through him, rather than coming from him as an inventor. He felt as if he was ‘discovering’ them, rather than constructing them outright. Here the distinction between subjective experience and objective fact is, of course, important — I am not suggesting that he truly was revealing some kind of hidden history of the world, but the fact remains that there was likely a part of him (possibly a rather large one) that actively questioned this fact. He necessarily would not have known for certain ‘where’ his stories came from. His rational mind surely told him that they came from his imagination, while his gut may have continued to suggest otherwise. Settling on a definitive explanatory framework — even in his own head — would have necessarily been a matter of guesswork, conditioned in large part by his own cultural context, his personal beliefs, and the beliefs of his community.

This must be a very common experience for revelatory bards, given that most tend to rely on their inherited cultural paradigms to ‘explain’ their gifts. In Tibetan Buddhism, tertöns or ‘treasure revealers’ credit the mythic patriarch Padmasambhava with their sub-creations, while for Abrahamic prophets they might come directly from Yahweh. For others still, revelatory materials might come from ancestors, past incarnations, spirit guides, or perhaps even from extraterrestrial beings. It’s perfectly possible that none of them are correct, but it would be overly cynical to suggest that every figure who claims such experiences is purely a charlatan. It’s likely that they are making ‘educated’ guesses about the origins of an experience that, even for them, is truly extra-ordinary and inexplicable.

In the Welsh tradition, this kind of mysterious inspiration is known as Awen. In Ireland, it is known as Imbas. The Welsh term was first recorded in writing in Nennius’s Historia Brittonum (a 9th century Latin text based on the earlier writings of the Welsh monk Gildas), but references to it can be found throughout the Welsh literary corpus, where it is described as a kind of spiritual and/or artistic inspiration which seems to ‘flow’ through a gifted bard like Taliesin. Indeed it can literally be glossed as ‘flowing spirit’. It is widely accepted that the notion of Awen predates the arrival of Christianity (probably by quite a lot), but even in the Christian era we have Christian writers like Llywarch ap Llywelyn making statements like, “The Lord God will give me the sweet Awen, as from the cauldron of Ceridwen.” This continuum of inspiration, importantly, offered bards the cognitive and creative space to stretch the boundaries of their received faith tradition — affording a sense of cultural value to ideas and stories which, while not necessarily religiously sanctioned, were nevertheless important.

In Taliesin’s case, a mere taste of Awen led little Gwion Bach to transform into the ‘Radiant Brow’. In Smith, a similar transformation occurred when young Smith Smithson ate a Faery Star and became ‘Starbrow’ the otherworldly traveller. For Eärendil, the star upon his own brow (a timely gift from his Elvish bride) allowed him to sail to the land of the gods to save the world he loved from certain ruin. And for our own ‘Starbrow’ Tolkien, the flowing spirit of Awen led him to ‘discover’ one of the greatest bodies of mythic literature ever devised in our mortal lands.

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Tolkien Editions Referenced:

• The Lord of the Rings - single volume de luxe edition, ninth impression (George Allen & Unwin, 1984)

• Smith of Wootton Major - extended edition, ed. Verlyn Flieger (HarperCollins, 2005)

• Unfinished Tales - illustrated hardback (HarperCollins, 2020)

For more on Taliesin, see Gwilym Morus-Baird’s Taliesin Origins: Exploring the Myth of the Greatest Celtic Bard (Celtic Source, 2023).