Everything about Bards totally explained
» For other meanings of the word, see Bard (disambiguation).
A
bard was one of a caste of poets and scholars of medieval and early modern
Ireland,
Scotland,
Wales and
Cornwall.
The term acquired generic meanings of an epic author/singer/narrator (compare with the terms in other cultures:
minstrel,
skald,
rhapsode,
udgatar,
griot) or any poets, especially famous ones. For example,
William Shakespeare is known as The Bard.
Etymology
The word is a
loanword from descendant languages of
Proto-Celtic *bardos, ultimately from
Proto-Indo-European *gwerh2:
"to raise the voice; praise". The first recorded example is in
1449 from the
Scottish Gaelic language into
Lowland Scots, denoting an
itinerant musician, usually with a contemptuous connotation. The word subsequently entered the
English language via
Scottish English.
Secondly, in medieval
Gaelic and
Welsh society, a
bard (
Scottish and
Irish Gaelic) or
bardd (
Welsh) was a professional poet, employed to compose
eulogies for his
lord (see
planxty). If the employer failed to pay the proper amount, the bard would then compose a
satire. (c. f.
fili,
fáith). In other
European societies, the same function was fulfilled by
skalds,
rhapsodes,
minstrels and
scops, among others.
Bards or
filid were those who sang the songs recalling the tribal warriors' deeds of bravery as well as the genealogies and family histories of the ruling strata among
Celtic societies. The pre-Christian Celtic peoples recorded no written histories; however, Celtic peoples did maintain an intricate oral history committed to memory and transmitted by bards and filid. Bards facilitated the memorization of such materials by the use of
poetic meter and rhyme.
During the era of
Romanticism, when knowledge of
Celtic culture was overlaid by
legends and
fictions, the word was reintroduced into the West Germanic languages, this time directly into the English language, in the sense of 'lyric poet', idealised by writers such as the
Scottish romantic novelist Sir Walter Scott. The word was taken from
Latin bardus,
Greek bardos, in turn loanwords from the
Gaulish language, describing a class of
Celtic priest (c. f.
druid,
vates). From this romantic use came the
epitheton The Bard applied to
William Shakespeare and
Robert Burns.
Irish bards
Irish bards formed a professional hereditary
caste of highly trained, learned poets. The bards were steeped in the history and traditions of
clan and country, as well as in the technical requirements of a verse technique that was
syllabic and used
assonance,
half rhyme and
alliteration, among other conventions. As officials of the court of king or chieftain, they performed a number of official roles. They were
chroniclers and
satirists whose job it was to praise their employers and damn those who crossed them. It was believed that a well-aimed bardic satire,
glam dicenn, could raise boils on the face of its target.
However, it should also be noted that in medieval Ireland Bards were one of two distinct groups of poets, the other being the
fili. According to the
Early Irish law text on poets,
Uraicecht Becc, bards were a lesser class of poets. Allegedly they didn't have either sufficient training or lineage qualifications. As should they were said to not be eligible for higher poetic roles as described above. However, it has also been argued that the distinction between
filid (pl. of
fili) and bards was a creation of Christian Ireland, and that the
filid are were more associated with the church. However, in Gaelic portions of Ireland after the Norman Conquest the Bards became the main carriers of poetic tradition.
The bardic schools were extinct by the mid 17th century in Ireland and by the early 18th century in Scotland.
Revival
In 18th and 19th century Romanticism, 'The Bard' became attached as a title to various poets,
In modern Wales the
Gorsedd of Bards (
Welsh:
Gorsedd y Beirdd) is a society whose honorary membership is extended to those who have done great things for Wales.
In the
20th Century, the word lost much of its original connotation of
Celtic revivalism or Romanticism, and could refer to any professional poet or singer, sometimes in a mildly
ironic tone. In the
Soviet Union, singers who were outside the establishment were called
bards from the
1960s.
The 1960s also saw the birth of the
Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), an international organization dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe. As the medieval bard was the repository of histories, stories, legends, songs of his/her people, SCAdian bards seek to recreate this profession in modern times by emulating those performance arts within the framework of the SCA. Many SCAdian bards do painstaking research and perform pieces in a historically accurate style, others take those songs/stories and
parody them with comic intent, while others create original works in a medieval style.
Bards make up one of the three grades of the
Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, a
Neo-druidic order based in
England.
Examples of bards
Notable bards of Britain
Taliesin, a 6th century Welsh bard who wrote the Book of Taliesin.
Aneirin, a late 6th century Brythonic poet who wrote the Book of Aneirin.
Dafydd ap Gwilym, a 14th century Welsh poet, generally regarded as the greatest Welsh poet of all time.
Iolo Morganwg, an 18th century Welsh rogue and bard, famous for his forgeries and lies.
Iolo Goch a 14th century Welsh poet and bard, famous for several surviving works, especially 'The Labourer'.
Fictional bards of Britain
Kevin the bard from Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon
Several characters in the Bardic Voices Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey
Fflewddur Fflam in the Prydain series, written by Lloyd AlexanderFurther Information
Get more info on 'Bards'.
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