Product Code Database
In Celtic cultures, a bard is an oral repository and professional Storytelling, verse-maker, music composer, oral tradition and genealogy, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.
With the decline of a living bardic tradition in the modern period, the term has loosened to mean a generic minstrel or author (especially a famous one). For example, William Shakespeare and Rabindranath Tagore are respectively known as "the Bard of Avon" (often simply "the Bard") and "the Bard of Bengal".Oxford Dictionary of English, s.v. bard, n.1. In 16th-century Scotland, it turned into a derogatory term for an musician; nonetheless it was later romanticised by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832).
All of these terms come from the Proto-Celtic noun ('poet-singer, minstrel'), itself derived, with regular Celtic sound shift *gʷ > *b, from the Proto-Indo-European compound gʷrH-dʰh₁-o-s, which literally means 'praise-maker'. It is cognate with Sanskrit: ('calls, praise'), ('grateful, pleasant, delightful'), ('praise'), and Armenian: ('raise voice').
In medieval Gaels and Wales society, a bard (Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic) or bardd (Welsh language) was a professional poet, employed to compose Elegy for his lord. If the employer failed to pay the proper amount, the bard would then compose a satire (cf. fili, fáith). In other Indo-European societies, the same function was fulfilled by , , and , among others. A hereditary caste of professional poets in Proto-Indo-European society has been reconstructed by comparison of the position of poets in medieval Ireland and in ancient India in particular.
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 societies. The pre-Christian Celtic people 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 metre, rhyme and other formulaic poetic devices.
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 verse 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 and Satire 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.
thumb|left|230px|'Beardna', a loanword of Celtic origin bardic system lasted until the mid-17th century in Ireland and the early 18th century in Scotland. In Ireland, their fortunes had always been linked to the Gaelic aristocracy, which declined along with them during the Tudor Reconquest.
The early history of the bards can be known only indirectly through mythological stories. The first mention of the bardic profession in Ireland is found in the Book of Invasions, in a story about the Irish colony of Tuatha Dé Danann (Tribe of Goddess Danu), also called Danonians. They became the aos sí (folk of the mound), comparable to Norse alfr and British fairy. During the tenth year of the reign of the last Belgic monarch, the people of the colony of Tuatha Dé Danann, as the Irish called it, invaded and settled in Ireland. They were divided into three tribes—the tribe of Tuatha who were the nobility, the tribe of De who were the priests (those devoted to serving God or De) and the tribe of Danann, who were the bards. This account of the Tuatha Dé Danann must be considered legendary; however the story was an integral part of the oral history of Irish bards themselves. One of the most notable bards in Irish mythology was Amergin Glúingel, a bard, druid and judge for the Milesians.
In Gaelic-speaking areas, a village bard or village poet () is a local poet who composes works in a traditional style relating to that community. Notable village bards include Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna and .
A large number of Welsh bards were blind people.
The royal form of bardic tradition ceased in the 13th century, when the 1282 Edwardian conquest permanently ended the rule of the Welsh princes. The legendary suicide of The Last Bard (c. 1283), was commemorated in the poem The Bards of Wales by the Hungarian poet János Arany in 1857, as a way of encoded resistance to the suppressive politics of his own time. However, the poetic and musical traditions were continued throughout the Middle Ages, e.g., by noted 14th-century poets Dafydd ap Gwilym and Iolo Goch. Also the tradition of regularly assembling bards at an eisteddfod never lapsed and was strengthened by formation of the Gorsedd by Iolo Morganwg in 1792.
Wales in the twentieth century is a leading Celtic upholder of the bardic tradition. The annual National Eisteddfod of Wales (Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru) (which was first held in 1880) is held in which bards are chaired (see Chaired bards) and crowned (see Crowned bards). The Urdd National Eisteddfod is also held annually. And many schools hold their own annual eisteddfodau which emulate bardic traditions.An example is the eisteddfod that was held at St Julian's School, Newport on 19 March 2013. See
. Accessed 20 June 2013
Several published research studies into the Welsh bardic tradition have been published. They include Williams (1850), Parry-Williams (1947), Morgan (1983) and Jones (1986). Doubtless research studies have also been published in the current century.
As of 2020, an online trend to cover modern songs using medieval style musical instruments and composition, including rewriting the lyrics in a medieval style, is known as bardcore.
In 2023 Google released its AI chatbot Bard.
|
|
