A manuscript in the hand of 18th century literary forgerer Iolo Morganwg claimed he was the son of Saint Henwg of Llanhennock but this is contrary to every other fact and tradition.

The cairn has no proven connection with the historical Taliesin, a 6th-century poet esteemed by the poets of medieval Wales as the founder of the Welsh poetic tradition whose surviving work includes praise poems to the rulers of the early Welsh kingdom of Powys and Rheged, in the Hen Ogledd (modern northern England/southern Scotland).

He became a figure of legend in medieval Wales and his association with Elffin ap Gwyddno, son of the king of the fabled Cantre'r Gwaelod, off the coast of Ceredigion, may account for the monument's name.

The village was established in the 1820s, when a number of houses were built on former common land that had been sold to fund the drainage of Cors Fochno.

Prior to the building in the 1820s there were only a few scattered houses along the turnpike road, and the settlement was known as 'Tafarn Fach' (Small Tavern) - the story locally was that the new name was chosen as a more respectable one, given the religious sensibilities of the time.