Bard

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Bard

In Celtic society, a bard was a professional poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry....
, paid by a monarch to praise the sovereign's activities.

The term acquired generic meanings of an epic author/singer/narrator (comparable with the terms in other cultures: minstrel
Minstrel

A minstrel was a Middle Ages European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories about distant places or about real or imaginary historical events....
, skald
Skald

The skald was a member of a group of poets, whose courtly poetry is associated with the courts of Scandinavian and Icelandic leaders during the Viking age, who composed and performed renditions of aspects of what we now characterise as Old Norse poetry ....
, rhapsode
Rhapsode

A rhapsode or, in modern usage, rhapsodist, refers to a classical Greece professional performer of epic poetry in the fifth and fourth centuries BC ....
, udgatar, griot
Griot

A griot or jeli is a West African poet, praise singer, and wandering musician, considered a repository of oral history. As such, they are sometimes also called bards....
, ashik
Ashik

File:Tanci-musica_.JPGFile:Ashiq2.jpgFile:Ashiq3.jpgAn Ashik is a mystic troubadour or traveling bard, in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia , and Iran who sings and plays the saz, a form of lute....
, ozan, dengbej) or any poets, especially famous ones.

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Bard'

Start a new discussion about 'Bard'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

In Celtic society, a bard was a professional poet

Poet

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English people poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist....
is known as The Bard.

Etymology

The word is a loanword

Loanword

A loanword is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept whereby it is the Meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself....
from descendant languages of Proto-Celtic

Proto-Celtic language

The Proto-Celtic language, also called Common Celtic, is the putative ancestor of all the known Celtic languages. Its lexis can be confidently reconstructed on the basis of the comparative method of historical linguistics....
*bardos, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European

Proto-Indo-European language

The Proto-Indo-European language is the unattested, linguistic reconstruction common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans....
*g^wrh₂-dh₁-ó-, from the root *g^werh₂ "to raise the voice; praise". The first recorded example in English is in 1449 from the Scottish Gaelic language into Lowland Scots

Scots language

Scots or Lowland Scots refers to the Germanic Variety derived from Middle English spoken in parts of Lowland Scotland, Northern Ireland and the border areas of the Republic of Ireland....
, denoting an itinerant

Itinerant

An itinerant is a person who travels from place to place with no fixed home.Types of itinerants:*Russian art movement Peredvizhniki is often translated as Itinerants...
musician, usually with a contemptuous connotation. The word subsequently entered the English language

English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
via Scottish English

Scottish English

Scottish English refers to the Variety of English language spoken in Scotland. It may or may not include Scots language depending on the observer....
.

Secondly, in medieval Gaelic

Gaels

The Gaels are an ethno-linguistic group which originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to Scotland and the Isle of Man. They are speakers of the Goidelic languages languages ? Irish language, Scottish Gaelic and Manx language....
and Welsh

Wales

native_name = Cymru|conventional_long_name = Wales|common_name = Wales|image_flag = Flag of Wales 2.svg|national_motto = ...
society, a bard (Scottish and Irish

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic languages of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people....
Gaelic) or bardd (Welsh

Welsh language

Welsh ]], is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, in England by some along the Welsh Marches and in the Welsh settlement in Argentina in the Chubut Valley in Argentina Patagonia....
) was a professional poet, employed to compose eulogies

Eulogy

A eulogy is a Speech or writing in praise of a person or thing, especially one recently deceased or retired. The word is derived from the Greek word e?????a , meaning praise ....
for his lord

Lord

Lord is a title with various meanings. It can denote a Prince#Prince_as_a_generic_word_for_ruler or a Examples of feudalism . The title today is mostly used in connection with the peerage of the United Kingdom or its predecessor countries, although some users of the title do not themselves hold peerages, and use it 'Courtesy titles in the U...
(see planxty

Planxty

Planxty is an Ireland folk music band formed in the 1970s, consisting, in its original configuration, of Christy Moore , D?nal Lunny , Andy Irvine , and Liam O'Flynn ....
). If the employer failed to pay the proper amount, the bard would then compose a satire

Satire

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
an societies, the same function was fulfilled by skald

Skald

The skald was a member of a group of poets, whose courtly poetry is associated with the courts of Scandinavian and Icelandic leaders during the Viking age, who composed and performed renditions of aspects of what we now characterise as Old Norse poetry ....
s, rhapsode

Rhapsode

A rhapsode or, in modern usage, rhapsodist, refers to a classical Greece professional performer of epic poetry in the fifth and fourth centuries BC ....
s, minstrel

Minstrel

A minstrel was a Middle Ages European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories about distant places or about real or imaginary historical events....
s and scop
Scop

A was an Old English language poet, the Anglo-Saxons counterpart of the Old Norse '.As far as we can tell from what has been preserved, the art of the scop was directed mostly towards epic poetry; the surviving verse in Old English consists of the epic Beowulf, religious verse in epic formats such as the Dream of the Rood, h...
s, among others.

Bards (who are not the same as the Irish 'Filidh' or 'Fili') 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 Celt

Celt

Celts , is a modern term used to describe any of the European peoples who spoke, or speak, a Celtic languages. The term is also used in a wider sense to describe the Modern Celts of those peoples, notably those who participate in a Celtic culture....
ic 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

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literature art in which language is used for its aesthetics and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning ....
meter and rhyme.

During the era of Romanticism

Romanticism

Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution....
, when knowledge of Celtic culture

Celtic culture

Culture of Celtic Europe and Modern Celts*Celtic art**Insular art*Celtic music*Gaelic culture**Culture of Ireland**Culture of Scotland**Culture of the Isle of Man...
was overlaid by legend

Legend

A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude ....
s and fiction

Fiction

Fiction is an imaginative form of narrative, one of the four basic rhetorical modes. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingo, fingere, finxi, fictum, "to form, create", works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events....
s, 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

Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
romantic novelist

Romanticism

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
bardus, Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
bardos, in turn loanwords from the Gaulish language

Gaulish language

The Gaulish language is the Celtic language that was spoken in Gaul before the Vulgar Latin of the late Roman Empire became dominant in Roman Gaul....
, describing a class of Celtic priest

Priest

A priest or priestess is a person having the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities....
(see druid

Druid

A druid was a member of the priestly and learned class in the ancient Celts societies of Western Europe, Great Britain and Ireland. They were suppressed by the Ancient Rome and disappeared from the written record by the second century CE....
, vates

Vates

The earliest Latin writers used vates to denote "prophets" and soothsayers in general; the word fell into disuse in Latin until it was revived by Virgil ....
). From this romantic use came the epitheton The Bard applied to William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English people poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist....
and Robert Burns

Robert Burns

Robert Burns was a poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language, although much of his writing is also in English and a 'light' Scots dialect, accessible to an audience beyond Scotland....
.

Irish bards

Irish bards formed a professional hereditary caste

Caste

Castes are hereditary systems of wikt:occupation, endogamy, culture, social class, and political power, the assignment of individuals to places in the social hierarchy is determined by social group and culture....
of highly trained, learned poets. The bards were steeped in the history and traditions of clan

Clan

A clan is a group of people united by kinship and descent, which is defined by actual or perceived descent from a common ancestor. Even if actual lineage patterns are unknown, clan members may nonetheless recognize a founding member or apical ancestor....
and country, as well as in the technical requirements of a verse technique that was syllabic

Syllabic verse

Syllabic verse is a poetic form having a fixed number of syllables per line or stanza regardless of the number of stresses that are present. It is common in languages that are syllable-timed language such as Japanese or modern French language or Finnish language, as opposed to accentual verse, which is common in stress-timed languages such as...
and used assonance

Assonance

Assonance is repetition of vowel to create internal rhyme within phrases or sentences, and together with alliteration and Literary consonance serves as one of the building blocks of Poetry....
, half rhyme

Half rhyme

Half rhyme, sometimes called slant, sprung, near rhyme, oblique rhyme, off rhyme or imperfect rhyme is consonance on the final consonants of the words involved....
and alliteration

Alliteration

Alliteration is the repeated occurrence of a consonant sound at the beginning of several words in the same phrase. Consonance is the repetition of the same consonant sound anywhere in a string of words, not just the initial sound as is in alliteration....
, among other conventions. As officials of the court of king or chieftain, they performed a number of official roles. They were chronicle

Chronicle

Generally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronology order. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the chronicler....
rs and satirists

Satire

Satire is often strictly defined as a literary genre; although, in practice, it is also found in the graphic arts and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, ideally with the intent to bring about improv...
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
Fili

A fili was a member of an elite Social class of Irish poetry in Ireland, up into the Renaissance, when the Irish class system was dismantled....
. According to the Early Irish law text on poets, Uraicecht Becc, bards were a lesser class of poets. Allegedly they did not 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,

'The Bard of Avon' (or in England, simply 'The Bard') is William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English people poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist....
'The Bard of Ayrshire' (or in Scotland, simply 'The Bard') is Robert Burns
Robert Burns

Robert Burns was a poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language, although much of his writing is also in English and a 'light' Scots dialect, accessible to an audience beyond Scotland....
'The Bard of Olney' is William Cowper
William Cowper

William Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside....
'The Bard of Rydal Mount' is William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was a major England Romantic poetry poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
'The Bard of Twickenham' is Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope is generally regarded as the greatest England poet of the eighteenth century, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer....
'The Bard of Armagh' is Patrick_Donnelly
Patrick Donnelly

Patrick Donnelly was an Irish Roman Catholic Bishop who was also known as The Bard of Armagh. He was born in Desertcreaght, Cookstown, County Tyrone in 1650 and died in 1716....

In modern Wales the Gorsedd

Gorsedd

A gorsedd plural gorseddau, is a community of bards. The word means "throne" in Welsh language. It is occasionally spelled gorseth , or Goursez in Brittany...
of Bards (Welsh: Gorsedd y Beirdd) is a society whose honorary membership is extended to those who have done great things for Wales.

Bards make up one of the three grades of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids

Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids

The Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids or OBOD is a neo-druidry organisation based in England. It has grown to become a dynamic druid organisation, with members in all parts of the world....
, a Neo-druidic

Neo-druidism

Neo-druidism or neo-druidry is a form of modern spirituality or religion that generally promotes harmony and worship of nature, and respect for all beings, including the environment....
order based in England

England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
.

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

Irony

Irony is a Literary technique or rhetorical device, in which there is an wiktionary:incongruous or wiktionary:discordance between what one says or does and what one means or what is generally understood....
tone. In the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
, singers who were outside the establishment were called bard

Bard (Soviet Union)

The term bard came to be used in the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, and continues to be used in Russia today, to refer to singer-songwriters who wrote songs outside the Soviet establishment....
s from the 1960s.

The 1960s also saw the birth of the Society for Creative Anachronism

Society for Creative Anachronism

The Society for Creative Anachronism , is a historical reenactment and living history group founded in 1966, which endeavors to promote the study and recreation of mainly pre-17th century Western European cultures and their histories....
(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.

Examples of bards

Notable bards of Britain

Taliesin
Taliesin

Taliesin , , was a Brythonic languages poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin....
, a 6th century Welsh bard who wrote the Book of Taliesin
Book of Taliesin

The Book of Taliesin is one of the most famous Wales manuscripts. It dates from the first half of the fourteenth century though many of the poems are thought to be much older....
.
Aneirin
Aneirin

Aneirin or Neirin was a late 6th century Brythonic poet. He is believed to have been a bard or 'court poet' in one of the Cumbric kingdoms of the Old North or Hen Ogledd, probably that of Gododdin at Edinburgh, in modern Scotland....
, a late 6th century Brythonic poet who wrote the Book of Aneirin
Book of Aneirin

The Book of Aneirin is a late 13th century Wales manuscript containing Old Welsh language and Middle Welsh language poetry attributed to the late 6th century Northern Brythonic poet, Aneirin....
.
Dafydd ap Gwilym
Dafydd ap Gwilym

Dafydd ap Gwilym , is generally regarded as the greatest Welsh language poet of all time and amongst the great poets of Europe in the Middle Ages....
, a 14th century Welsh poet, generally regarded as the greatest Welsh poet of all time.
Iolo Morganwg
Iolo Morganwg

Iolo Morganwg...
, an 18th century Welsh rogue and bard, famous for his forgeries and lies.
Iolo Goch
Iolo Goch

Iolo Goch , , was a medieval Welsh people poet or bard who composed poems addressed to Owain Glyndwr, among others....
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
The Mists of Avalon

The Mists of Avalon is a 1982 novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley, in which she relates the King Arthur from the perspective of the female characters....
Several characters in the Bardic Voices Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey
Mercedes Lackey

Mercedes "Misty" Lackey is a prolific United States author of Fantasy literature. Many of her novels and trilogies are interlinked and set in the world of Velgarth, mostly in and around the country of Velgarth#Valdemar....
Fflewddur Fflam in the Prydain
Prydain

Prydain is the modern Welsh language name for Great Britain....
series, written by Lloyd Alexander
Lloyd Alexander

Lloyd Chudley Alexander was a widely-influential United States author of more than forty books, mostly fantasy novels for children and adolescents, as well as several adult books....
Beedle the Bard from JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and The Tales of Beedle the Bard
The Tales of Beedle the Bard

The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a book of children's stories by United Kingdom author J. K. Rowling. It purports to be the storybook of the same name mentioned in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the last book of the Harry Potter series....
Simply "The Bard", or Dragon Tongue, from The Sea of Trolls
The Sea of Trolls

The Sea of Trolls is the first volume of a fantasy trilogy by Newbery Honor winning author Nancy Farmer . The second part is The Land of the Silver Apples , and the final volume, The Islands of the Blessed, will be published in 2009....
series.
Lir Regan, daughter of "the Dagda" who led the Earth Worshippers in G. MacDonald Wallis' novel Legend of Lost Earth.

External links

Corpus of Electronic Texts, University College Cork.

Bard

Etymology

Irish bards

Revival

Examples of bards

Notable bards of Britain

Fictional bards of Britain

See also

External links