![The Bard](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/The_Bard.jpg)
In Celtic cultures, a bard is a professional
story teller, verse-maker, music composer,
oral historian
Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people wh ...
and
genealogist
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kins ...
, employed by a patron (such as a
monarch
A monarch is a head of stateWebster's II New College DictionarMonarch Houghton Mifflin. Boston. 2001. p. 707. for life or until abdication, and therefore the head of state of a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest authority and power i ...
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
A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. It originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist entertainer ...
or author (especially a famous one). For example,
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
and
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...
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
itinerant
An itinerant is a person who travels habitually. Itinerant may refer to:
*"Travellers" or itinerant groups in Europe
* Itinerant preacher, also known as itinerant minister
*Travelling salespeople, see door-to-door, hawker, and peddler
*Travelli ...
musician; nonetheless it was later romanticised by Sir
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy ...
(1771–1832).
Etymology
The English term ''bard'' is a
loan word
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because the ...
from the
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages ( usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edwar ...
:
Gaulish
Gaulish was an ancient Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switze ...
: ''bardo-'' ('bard, poet'), mga, bard and ('bard, poet'), wlm, bardd ('singer, poet'),
Middle Breton
Breton (, ; or in Morbihan) is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family spoken in Brittany, part of modern-day France. It is the only Celtic language still widely in use on the European mainland, albeit as a member of t ...
: ''barz'' ('minstrel'),
Old Cornish
Cornish (Standard Written Form: or ) , is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family. It is a revived language, having become extinct as a living community language in Cornwall at the end of the 18th century. However, k ...
: ('jester'). The ancient Gaulish *''bardos'' is attested as (
sing.) in Latin and as (
plur.) in Ancient Greek. It also appears as a
stem in ''bardo-cucullus'' ('bard's hood'), ''bardo-magus'' ('field of the bard'), ''barditus'' (a song to fire soldiers), and in ''bardala'' ('
crested lark
The crested lark (''Galerida cristata'') is a species of lark widespread across Eurasia and northern Africa. It is a non-migratory bird, but can occasionally be found as a vagrant in Great Britain.
Taxonomy and systematics
The crested lark was ...
', a singing bird).
All of these terms come from the
Proto-Celtic
Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages, and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but has been partly reconstructed through the comparative method. Proto-Celti ...
noun ('poet-singer, minstrel'), itself derived, with regular Celtic
sound shift > , from the
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...
compound
Compound may refer to:
Architecture and built environments
* Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall
** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struc ...
''
'', which literally means 'praise-maker'. It is
cognate with
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
: ('calls, praise'), la, grātus ('grateful, pleasant, delightful'), lt, gìrti ('praise'), and
Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
: ('raise voice').
History
In the words of the
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a co ...
, 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."
In medieval
Gaelic and
Welsh society, a ''bard'' (
Scottish and Irish Gaelic) or ''bardd'' (
Welsh) was a professional poet, employed to compose
elegies
An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...
for his
lord
Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are ...
. If the employer failed to pay the proper amount, the bard would then compose a satire (c.f. ''
fili'', ''
fáith''). In other Indo-European societies, the same function was fulfilled by
skalds,
rhapsode
A rhapsode ( el, ῥαψῳδός, "rhapsōidos") or, in modern usage, rhapsodist, refers to a classical Greek professional performer of epic poetry in the fifth and fourth centuries BC (and perhaps earlier). Rhapsodes notably performed the epic ...
s,
minstrel
A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. It originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist entertainer ...
s and ''
scop
A (
or ) was a poet as represented in Old English poetry. The scop is the Old English counterpart of the Old Norse ', with the important difference that "skald" was applied to historical persons, and scop is used, for the most part, to designa ...
s'', among others. A hereditary caste of professional poets in
Proto-Indo-European society
Proto-Indo-European society is the reconstructed culture of Proto-Indo-Europeans, the ancient speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, ancestor of all modern Indo-European languages.
Scientific approaches
Many of the modern ideas in this ...
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 or ) 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
metre
The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its prefi ...
,
rhyme and other formulaic poetic devices.
Regions
Ireland
In medieval Ireland, bards were one of two distinct groups of poets, the other being the ''
fili''. According to the
Early Irish law
Early Irish law, historically referred to as (English: Freeman-ism) or (English: Law of Freemen), also called Brehon law, comprised the statutes which governed everyday life in Early Medieval Ireland. They were partially eclipsed by the Norm ...
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 between ''filid'' (pl. of ''fili'') and bards was a creation of Christian Ireland, and that the ''filid'' were more associated with the church.
[Breatnach, Liam. '' Uraicecht na Ríar'', ca. p. 98] By the Early Modern Period, these names came to be used interchangeably.
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
Syllabic may refer to:
*Syllable, a unit of speech sound, considered the building block of words
**Syllabic consonant, a consonant that forms the nucleus of a syllable
*Syllabary, writing system using symbols for syllables
*Abugida, writing system ...
and used
assonance
Assonance is a resemblance in the sounds of words/syllables either between their vowels (e.g., ''meat, bean'') or between their consonants (e.g., ''keep, cape''). However, assonance between consonants is generally called ''consonance'' in America ...
,
half rhyme and
alliteration
Alliteration is the conspicuous repetition of initial consonant sounds of nearby words in a phrase, often used as a literary device. A familiar example is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". Alliteration is used poetically in various ...
, 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, , could raise boils on the face of its target.
![Beowulf - Beardna](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Beowulf_-_Beardna.jpg)
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 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
The Tuath(a) Dé Danann (, meaning "the folk of the goddess Danu"), also known by the earlier name Tuath Dé ("tribe of the gods"), are a supernatural race in Irish mythology. Many of them are thought to represent deities of pre-Christian Gae ...
(Peoples of Goddess Danu), also called Danonians. They became the ''
aos sí
' (; older form: ) is the Irish name for a supernatural race in Celtic mythology – spelled ''sìth'' by the Scots, but pronounced the same – comparable to fairies or elves. They are said to descend from either fallen angels or the ...
'' (folk of the mound), comparable to Norse ''
alfr
An elf () is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic mythology and folklore. Elves appear especially in Norse mythology, North Germanic mythology. They are subsequently mentioned in Snorri Sturluson's Icelandic Prose Edda. He dis ...
'' 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.
Scotland
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 the
Hebrides
The Hebrides (; gd, Innse Gall, ; non, Suðreyjar, "southern isles") are an archipelago off the west coast of the Scottish mainland. The islands fall into two main groups, based on their proximity to the mainland: the Inner and Outer Hebr ...
, 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 the
Lords of the Isles as poets, lawyers, and physicians.
With the fall of the Lordship of the Isles in the 15th century, the family was chiefly employed by the
chiefs of the
MacDonalds 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.
The last of the family to practise classical Gaelic poetry was Domhnall MacMhuirich, who lived on
South Uist
South Uist ( gd, Uibhist a Deas, ; sco, Sooth Uist) is the second-largest island of the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. At the 2011 census, it had a usually resident population of 1,754: a decrease of 64 since 2001. The island, in common with the ...
in the 18th century.
In
Gaelic-speaking areas, a village bard or village poet ( gd, bàrd-baile) is a local poet who composes works in a traditional style relating to that community. Notable village bards include
Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna and .
Wales
A number of bards in
Welsh mythology
Welsh mythology (Welsh: ''Mytholeg Cymru'') consists of both folk traditions developed in Wales, and traditions developed by the Celtic Britons elsewhere before the end of the first millennium. As in most of the predominantly oral societies Celti ...
have been preserved in
medieval Welsh literature
Medieval Welsh literature is the literature written in the Welsh language during the Middle Ages. This includes material starting from the 5th century AD, when Welsh was in the process of becoming distinct from Common Brittonic, and continuing to ...
such as the
Red Book of Hergest
The ''Red Book of Hergest'' ( cy, Llyfr Coch Hergest, Oxford, Jesus College, MS 111) is a large vellum manuscript written shortly after 1382, which ranks as one of the most important medieval manuscripts written in the Welsh language. It preser ...
, the
White Book of Rhydderch
The White Book of Rhydderch (Welsh: ''Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch'', National Library of Wales, Peniarth MS 4-5) is one of the most notable and celebrated surviving manuscripts in Welsh. Mostly written in southwest Wales in the middle of the 14th century ...
, the
Book of Aneirin
The Book of Aneirin ( cy, Llyfr Aneirin) is a late 13th century Welsh manuscript containing Old and Middle Welsh poetry attributed to the late 6th century Northern Brythonic poet, Aneirin, who is believed to have lived in present-day Scotland.
Th ...
and the
Book of Taliesin. The bards
Aneirin
Aneirin , Aneurin or Neirin was an early Medieval Brythonic war poet. He is believed to have been a bard or court poet in one of the Cumbric kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd, probably that of Gododdin at Edinburgh, in modern Scotland. From the 17th c ...
and
Taliesin
Taliesin ( , ; 6th century AD) was an early Brittonic poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the '' Book of Taliesin''. Taliesin was a renowned bard who is believed to have sung at the courts ...
may be legendary reflections of historical bards active in the 6th and 7th centuries. Very little historical information about
Dark Age Welsh court tradition survives, but the Middle Welsh material came to be the nucleus of the
Matter of Britain
The Matter of Britain is the body of medieval literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and Brittany and the legendary kings and heroes associated with it, particularly King Arthur. It was one of the three great Wester ...
and
Arthurian legend
The Matter of Britain is the body of medieval literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and Brittany and the legendary kings and heroes associated with it, particularly King Arthur. It was one of the three great Wester ...
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 out booty, included the singing of the sovereignty of Britain—possibly why the genealogies of the British high kings survived into the written historical record.
The royal form of bardic tradition ceased in the 13th century, when the 1282
Edwardian conquest
The conquest of Wales by Edward I took place between 1277 and 1283. It is sometimes referred to as the Edwardian Conquest of Wales,Examples of historians using the term include Professor J. E. Lloyd, regarded as the founder of the modern academi ...
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
''The Bards of Wales'' ( hu, A walesi bárdok) is a ballad by the Hungarians, Hungarian poet János Arany, written in 1857. Alongside the Toldi trilogy, it is one of his best known works, published anonymously to evade censorship.
Background
Ara ...
'' by the
Hungarian poet
János Arany
János Arany (; archaic English: John Arany; 2 March 1817 – 22 October 1882) was a Hungarian poet, writer, translator and journalist. He is often said to be the "Shakespeare of ballads" – he wrote more than 102 ballads that have been transl ...
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
Dafydd ap Gwilym ( 1315/1320 – 1350/1370) is regarded as one of the leading Welsh poets and amongst the great poets of Europe in the Middle Ages.
Life
R. Geraint Gruffydd suggests 1315- 1350 as the poet's dates; others place him a little ...
and
Iolo Goch
Iolo Goch (c. 1320 – c. 1398) (meaning ''Iolo the Red'' in English) was a medieval Welsh bard who composed poems addressed to Owain Glyndŵr, among others.
Lineage
Iolo was the son of Ithel Goch ap Cynwrig ap Iorwerth Ddu ap Cynwrig Ddew ...
. The tradition of regularly assembling bards at an
eisteddfod
In Welsh culture, an ''eisteddfod'' is an institution and festival with several ranked competitions, including in poetry and music.
The term ''eisteddfod'', which is formed from the Welsh morphemes: , meaning 'sit', and , meaning 'be', means, ac ...
never lapsed, and was strengthened by formation of the
Gorsedd by
Iolo Morganwg
Edward Williams, better known by his bardic name Iolo Morganwg (; 10 March 1747 – 18 December 1826), was a Welsh antiquarian, poet and collector.Jones, Mary (2004)"Edward Williams/Iolo Morganwg/Iolo Morgannwg" From ''Jones' Celtic Encyclop ...
in 1792, establishing Wales as the major Celtic upholder of bardic tradition in the 21st century. Many regular ''eisteddfodau'' are held in Wales, including the
National Eisteddfod of Wales (), which was instituted in 1861 and has been held annually since 1880. Many Welsh schools conduct their own annual versions at which bardic traditions are emulated.
[e.g.]
Our Eisteddfod
at St Julian's School, Newport, 19 March 2013. Accessed 20 June 2013
Literature
![Songs of Innocence and of Experience, copy Y, 1825, object 54, The Voice of the Ancient Bard (Metropolitan Museum of Art)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Songs_of_Innocence_and_of_Experience%2C_copy_Y%2C_1825%2C_object_54%2C_The_Voice_of_the_Ancient_Bard_%28Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art%29.jpg)
From its frequent use in Romanticism, 'The Bard' became attached as a title to various poets,
* 'The Bard of Armagh' is
Martin Hearty
* 'The Bard of Avon,' 'The Immortal Bard' or (in England) simply 'The Bard' is
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
* 'The Bard of Ayrshire' (or in Scotland, simply 'The Bard') is
Robert Burns
Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...
* 'The Bard of Bengal' is
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...
* 'The Bard of Olney' is
William Cowper
William Cowper ( ; 26 November 1731 – 25 April 1800) was an English poet and Anglican hymnwriter. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th-century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and sce ...
* 'The Bard of Rydal Mount' is
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication '' Lyrical Ballads'' (1798).
Wordsworth's ' ...
* 'The Bard of Salford' is
John Cooper Clarke
John Cooper Clarke (born 25 January 1949) is an English performance poet, who first became famous as a " punk poet" in the late 1970s. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he released several albums. Around this time, he performed on stage with se ...
* 'The Bard of Twickenham' is
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...
* Australian
bush poets such as
Henry Lawson
Henry Archibald Hertzberg Lawson (17 June 1867 – 2 September 1922) was an Australian writer and bush poet. Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial perio ...
and
Banjo Paterson
Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, (17 February 18645 February 1941) was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author. He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural and outback areas, including the ...
are referred to as 'bush bards'
*
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
,
Jim MacCool and the band
Blind Guardian
Blind Guardian is a German power metal band formed in 1984 in Krefeld, West Germany. They are often credited as one of the seminal and most influential bands in the power metal and speed metal subgenres.[fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...]
genre in the 1960s to 1980s, for example as the '
Bard' class in
Dungeons & Dragons
''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TS ...
and
Pathfinder
Pathfinder may refer to:
Businesses
* Pathfinder Energy Services, a division of Smith International
* Pathfinder Press, a publisher of socialist literature
Computing and information science
* Path Finder, a Macintosh file browser
* Pathfinder ( ...
, ''Bard'' by
Keith Taylor (1981), ''
Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish'' by
Morgan Llywelyn
Morgan Llywelyn (born December 3, 1937) is an American-Irish historical interpretation author of historical and mythological fiction and historical non-fiction. Her interpretation of mythology and history has received several awards and has ...
(1984), in video games in fantasy settings such as ''
The Bard's Tale
''The Bard's Tale'' is a fantasy role-playing video game franchise created by Michael Cranford and developed by Brian Fargo's Interplay Productions (1985–1992) and inXile Entertainment (2004–present).
The initial title of the series was '' ...
'' (1985), and in modern literature and TV like
The Witcher
''The Witcher'' ( pl, Wiedźmin ) is a series of six fantasy novels and 15 short stories written by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. The series revolves around the eponymous "witcher", Geralt of Rivia. In Sapkowski's works, "witchers" are be ...
books by
Andrzej Sapkowski
Andrzej Sapkowski (; born 21 June 1948) is a Polish fantasy writer, essayist, translator and a trained economist. He is best known for his six-volume series of books '' The Witcher'', which revolves around the eponymous "witcher," a monster-hun ...
(1986–2013) show by
Lauren 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 as
bardcore
Bardcore or tavernwave is a musical microgenre that became popular in 2020, consisting of medieval-inspired remakes of popular songs.
History
Before the term Bardcore was widely known, in December 2017 a medieval version of "Toxicity" by ...
.
See also
*
Aois-dàna
*
Bard (Dungeons & Dragons)
The bard is a standard playable character class in many editions of the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' fantasy role-playing game. The bard class is versatile, capable of combat and of magic ( divine magic in earlier editions, arcane magic in later ed ...
*
Bard (League of Legends)
*
Bard (Soviet Union)
The term bard ( rus, бард, p=bart) 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, similarly to folk sin ...
*
Bhāts
*
Cacofonix
*
Charan (India)
*
Contention of the bards
*
Druid
*
Fili
*
Gorsedd
*
Gorseth Kernow
Gorsedh Kernow (Cornish Gorsedd) is a non-political Cornish organisation, based in Cornwall, United Kingdom, which exists to maintain the national Celtic spirit of Cornwall. It is based on the Welsh-based Gorsedd, which was founded by Iolo Morg ...
(Cornwall)
*
Griot
A griot (; ; Manding: jali or jeli (in N'Ko: , ''djeli'' or ''djéli'' in French spelling); Serer: kevel or kewel / okawul; Wolof: gewel) is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician.
The griot is a repos ...
*
Poet as legislator
*
Skald
A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: , later ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry, the other being Eddic poetry, which is anonymous. Skaldic poems were traditionally ...
* ''
The Bards of Wales
''The Bards of Wales'' ( hu, A walesi bárdok) is a ballad by the Hungarians, Hungarian poet János Arany, written in 1857. Alongside the Toldi trilogy, it is one of his best known works, published anonymously to evade censorship.
Background
Ara ...
''
*
The Bard's Tale (1985 video game)
''The Bard's Tale'' is a fantasy role-playing video game designed and programmed by Michael Cranford for the Apple II. It was produced by Interplay Productions in 1985 and distributed by Electronic Arts. The game was ported to the Commodore 64, ...
*
Vates
In modern English, the nouns vates () and ovate (, ), are used as technical terms for ancient Celtic bards, prophets and philosophers. The terms correspond to a Proto-Celtic word which can be reconstructed as *''wātis''.Bernhard Maier, ''Dictio ...
*
Welsh bardic music
Until the 17th century a bard would compose a poem knowing it was going to be sung. Poetry was called music of the tongue and string music was called music of the string ("Cerdd Dant
' (, or ') is the art of vocal improvisation over a given melo ...
References
Citations
Bibliography
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Further reading
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Walker, Joseph C., ''Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards''. New York: Garland, 1971.
External links
Irish Bardic PoetryCorpus of Electronic Texts, University College Cork.
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{{Authority control
Occupations in music
Celtic culture
History of Wales
Irish literature
Scottish literature
Welsh literature
Welsh folk music
Welsh poets
Welsh poetry refers to poetry of the Welsh people or nation. This includes poetry written in Welsh, poetry written in English by Welsh or Wales based poets, poetry written in Wales in other languages or poetry by Welsh poets around the world.
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Medieval Ireland
Culture of medieval Scotland
Cornish culture
Romanticism
Eisteddfod
Medieval performers
Poets