The painting was intended as a tentative sketch - Andrew was experimenting with painting figures on a smaller scale (he had always painted them in lifesize before). At the time, he was reading J. A. MacCulloch's Celtic and Scandinavian Religions, and his head was filled with stories about Dagda's bottomless cauldron, and Ceridwen's cauldron of inspiration, and Odin's mead of poetry. That reading was a follow-up to his re-reading of an old childhood favourite graphic novel, Slaine the Horned God. The scene resulting from his musings does not show any of those mythological motifs specifically - it has its own story - but as he put it together he was struggling to find a title for it.

'That's easy,' I told him. 'You can just call it the Cauldron of Poetry.' It came to my mind straight away because I knew it from elsewhere - this title was given to an early medieval Irish poem about various types of wisdom which allow one to become a poet.

The poem actually talks about three cauldrons: one containing the knowledge of the language, its melody and grammar; another containing all the knowledge of things beside the art of poetry; and the third one being the power of poetry itself, inspired by joys and sorrows.

The lady in the painting is Badb, one of the aspects of the Mórrígan. Who the guy is, we're not sure (though we have our theories of course). We do know that he came to Badb to seek knowledge. What is she showing him in her magical cauldron? Is it wisdom or tricks? The past or the future? Joy or sorrow? We don't know that either. It's up to you to decide.

Dr Judyta Szacillo-Haslett