InCeltic cultures, abard is anoral repository and professionalstory teller, verse-maker, music composer,oral historian andgenealogist, employed by a patron (such as amonarch 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 themodern period, the term has loosened to mean a genericminstrel or author (especially a famous one). For example,William Shakespeare andRabindranath Tagore are respectively known as "the Bard of Avon" (often simply "the Bard") and "the Bard of Bengal".[1][2] In 16th-century Scotland, it turned into a derogatory term for anitinerant musician; nonetheless it was later romanticised by SirWalter Scott (1771–1832).[1]
In the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent, the title Gayen or Gain used as a surname by members of the Bengali Kayastha caste was given to bards in medieval times.[3][4]
The English termbard is aloan word from theCeltic languages:Gaulish:bardo- ('bard, poet'),Middle Irish:bard andScottish Gaelic:bàrd ('bard, poet'),Middle Welsh:bardd ('singer, poet'),Middle Breton:barz ('minstrel'),Old Cornish:barth ('jester').[5][6] The ancient Gaulish *bardos is attested asbardus (sing.) in Latin and asbárdoi (plur.) in Ancient Greek. It also appears as astem in thecompound wordsbardo-cucullus ('bard's hood'),bardo-magus ('field of the bard'),barditus (a song to fire soldiers), and inbardala ('crested lark', a singing bird).[5]
All of these terms come from theProto-Celtic noun*bardos ('poet-singer, minstrel'), itself derived, with regular Celticsound shift*gʷ >*b, from theProto-Indo-Europeancompound*gʷrH-dʰh₁-o-s, which literally means 'praise-maker'.[5][7][6] It iscognate withSanskrit:gṛṇā́ti ('calls, praise'),Latin:grātus ('grateful, pleasant, delightful'),Lithuanian:gìrti ('praise'), andArmenian:kardam ('raise voice').[5][6]
In the words of theOxford English Dictionary, the bards were an "ancient Celtic order of minstrel-poets, whose primary function appears to have been to compose and sing (usually to the harp) verses celebrating the achievements of chiefs and warriors, and who committed to verse historical and traditional facts, religious precepts, laws, genealogies, etc."[1]
In medievalGaelic andWelsh society, abard (Scottish and Irish Gaelic) orbardd (Welsh) was a professional poet, employed to composeelegies for hislord. If the employer failed to pay the proper amount, the bard would then compose asatire (c.f.fili,fáith). In other Indo-European societies, the same function was fulfilled byskalds,rhapsodes,minstrels andscops, among others. A hereditary caste of professional poets inProto-Indo-European society has been reconstructed by comparison of the position of poets in medieval Ireland and in ancient India in particular.[8]
Bards (who are not the same as the Irishfilidh orfili) 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 amongCeltic 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 ofmetre,rhyme and other formulaic poetic devices.[citation needed]
In medieval Ireland, bards were one of two distinct groups of poets, the other being thefili. According to theEarly Irish law text on status,Uraicecht Becc, bards were a lesser class of poets, not eligible for higher poetic roles as described above. However, it has also been argued that the distinction betweenfilid (pl. offili) and bards was a creation of Christian Ireland, and that thefilid were more associated with the church.[9][10] By the Early Modern Period, these names came to be used interchangeably.[11]
Irish bards formed a professional hereditarycaste of highly trained, learned poets. The bards were steeped in the history and traditions ofclan and country, as well as in the technical requirements of a verse technique that wassyllabic and usedassonance,half rhyme andalliteration, among other conventions. As officials of the court of king or chieftain, they performed a number of official roles. They werechroniclers andsatirists whose job it was to praise their employers and damn those who crossed them.[12] It was believed that a well-aimed bardic satire,glam dicenn, could raise boils on the face of its target.
The 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 theTudor Reconquest.[13]
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 theBook of Invasions, in a story about the Irish colony ofTuatha Dé Danann (Tribe of Goddess Danu), also called Danonians. They became theaos sí (folk of the mound), comparable to Norsealfr and Britishfairy. 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 wasAmergin Glúingel, a bard, druid and judge for theMilesians.[citation needed]
The best-known group of bards in Scotland were the members of the MacMhuirich family, who flourished from the 15th to the 18th centuries. The family was centred in theHebrides, and claimed descent from a 13th-century Irish bard who, according to legend, was exiled to Scotland. The family was at first chiefly employed by theLords of the Isles as poets, lawyers, and physicians.[14] With the fall of the Lordship of the Isles in the 15th century, the family was chiefly employed by thechiefs of theMacDonalds of Clanranald. Members of the family were also recorded as musicians in the early 16th century, and as clergymen possibly as early as the early 15th century.[15] The last of the family to practise classical Gaelic poetry was Domhnall MacMhuirich, who lived onSouth Uist in the 18th century.[14]
InGaelic-speaking areas, avillage bard orvillage poet (Scottish Gaelic:bàrd-baile) is a local poet who composes works in a traditional style relating to that community. Notable village bards includeDòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna andDòmhnall Ruadh Phàislig [gd].[16]
A number of bards inWelsh mythology have been preserved inmedieval Welsh literature such as theRed Book of Hergest, theWhite Book of Rhydderch, theBook of Aneirin and theBook of Taliesin. The bardsAneirin andTaliesin may be legendary reflections of historical bards active in the 6th and 7th centuries. Very little historical information aboutDark Age Welsh court tradition survives, but the Middle Welsh material came to be the nucleus of theMatter of Britain andArthurian legend as they developed from the 13th century. The (Welsh) Laws of Hywel Dda, originally compiled around 900, identify a bard as a member of a king's household. His duties, when the bodyguard were sharing outbooty, included the singing of thesovereignty of Britain—possibly why the genealogies of the British high kings survived into the written historical record.
A large number of Welsh bards wereblind people.[17]
The royal form of bardic tradition ceased in the 13th century, when the 1282Edwardian conquest permanently ended the rule of the Welsh princes. The legendary suicide ofThe Last Bard (c. 1283), was commemorated in the poemThe Bards of Wales by theHungarian poetJános 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 poetsDafydd ap Gwilym andIolo Goch. Also the tradition of regularly assembling bards at aneisteddfod never lapsed and was strengthened by formation of theGorsedd byIolo Morganwg in 1792.
Wales in the twentieth century is a leading Celtic upholder of the bardic tradition. The annualNational Eisteddfod of Wales (Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru) (which was first held in 1880) is held in which bards are chaired (seeCategory:Chaired bards) and crowned (seeCategory:Crowned bards). TheUrdd National Eisteddfod is also held annually. And many schools hold their own annualeisteddfodau which emulate bardic traditions.[18]
Several published research studies into the Welsh bardic tradition have been published. They include Williams (1850),[19] Parry-Williams (1947),[20] Morgan (1983)[21] and Jones (1986).[22] Doubtless research studies have also been published in the current century.
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From its frequent use in romanticism, 'The Bard' became attached as a title to various poets
From its Romanticist usage, the notion of the bard as a minstrel with qualities of a priest, magician or seer also entered thefantasy genre in the 1960s to 1980s, for example as the 'Bard' class inDungeons & Dragons andPathfinder,Bard byKeith Taylor (1981),Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish byMorgan Llywelyn (1984), in video games in fantasy settings such asThe Bard's Tale (1985), and in modern literature and TV likeThe Witcher books byAndrzej Sapkowski (1986–2013) show byLauren Schmidt Hissrich (2019).
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 asbardcore.
In 2023Google released itsAIchatbotBard.[23]
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