THE BARD

What is a bard?

1 a : a tribal poet-singer skilled in composing and reciting verses on heroes and their deeds; b : a composer, singer, or declaimer of epic or heroic verse
2 : POET
-Webster's Online Dictionary

What makes any performer a bard?

Bards throughout history have had one quality in common: they have been the repository for, and the source of, cultural memory for their tribe. In addition they are musicians, storytellers, and the source for local news. They are race-memory. They are a ritual grounding force. They greet new life with song, as depicted in Morgan Llewelyn's novel Bard, and they challenge old ideas with irony, as lived out in the poetry of Alanis Morrissette and Bob Dylan.

If one is to link a performer to the bardic tradition, one must examine the common threads in their music, and gague the impact each has had on their culture. Jack Hardy, Joan Baez, Joe Bethancourt, Phil Ochs, James O'Brien, Chris and Meredith Thompson, to name a few, each bring a weight of history and a love of music to their work: recorded and live musical performance. Their lyrics challenge, applaud, and revile the status quo in language both mythical and political. These are performers who inform my music. Look into the words and music that affects you the most. As Joseph Campbell advised, "look at the total work of an artist you love; follow his or her artistic process over time, and you will connect to the divine."

We have to look into our own musical and poetical works for that connection. In the Society for Creative Anachronism there are quite a few of us who call ourselves "bards". There are as many interpretations of the title: troubador, skald, harper, sangster, rhymer, minstrel, etc. Some of us are musicians, some musician-poets, but others strive to be somewhat more. Aspiring bards have a purpose beyond entertainment: to decant our history into the present, and to reflect the present back on ourselves and our community, the better to understand both. It is a service. That is our dream, and our responsibility.

THE CELTIC BARD: EARLY FIRST MILLENNIUM

Research in bardic studies is hobbled by the bardic practice itself. Oral history and ancient bards' legendary skills at memorization virtually ensured that once the succession of bards died out, none of their history remained. Of the Celtic bards, specifically the variety found in what is now Great Britain, we have a few surviving accounts in the writings of notable Greeks and Romans.

Hecataeus of Miletus, writer and geographer of the 5th century BC, wrote:

"In this island [Hyperborea, now believed to be the island of Great Britain] there is a magnificent grove of Apollo and a remarkable temple, of a round form, adorned with many consecrated gifts. There is a city sacred to the same god, most of the inhabitants of which are harpers, who continually play upon their harps in the temple and sing hymns to the god, extolling his actions."

Strabo, the Greek geographer who lived in Rome and Alexandria, traveled widely in the first century B.C. He wrote:

"...among the whole of them three classes more especially are held in distinguished veneration, the Bards, the Ovates, and the Druids. The Bards are chanters and poets. The Ovates are . . . physiologists. The Druids, in addition to physiology, practice ethic philosophy. ... These and others say that souls are immortal, and that the world is so too; yet that ultimately fire and water will prevail."

Diodorus Siculus in 44 B.C. wrote, describing Druidism:

"And there are among...(The Gauls)...composers of verses, whom they call Bards; these singing to instruments similar to a lyre, applaud some, while they vituperate others."

According to Hecataeus, Strabo, and Siculus, a bard:

• Sings "hymns to the god, extolling his actions"
• Is a chanter and poet
• Sings to instruments similar to a lyre
• Applauds some, vituperates others

Unfortunately we have to rely on conquerors' abstracts to learn more about these ancients. Of later bards there is considerably more evidence.

�2002 Myra Hope Bobbitt. This is not an official SCA web site. Any opinions &c expressed in the text of these pages are mine alone. Please drop me a line if you're interested in further discussion.