Introduction
Musical Instruments
Bards
Minstrels
Troubadours

  
Introduction

usic has always meant alot to the Celts, and throughout time musicians, especially harpers, were honoured members of Celtic society. Both Wales and Ireland have harps as one of their national symbols. Wales is called "The Land of Song", Ireland is called "The Harper's Land". As with alot of customs and attitudes in Celtic countries, the Christian viewpoint is often a pale reflection of a stronger, older belief, lying not too far beneath the surface. The Celtic attitude to music is no exception.

To understand how the ancient Celts saw music, one first has to wipe completely from one's mind any present day ideas of either the strict, theoretical, classical world, or indeed its easy going, natural, folk opposite. That is not to say that the Celts had no "music of the folk", indeed minstrels, or "crossain", held a definite, albeit low, place in society. But what we are concerned with here is the music played by both the bards of the priesthood and by some other harpers - the only musicians to enjoy Freeman status. This music was kept entirely separate from the wine halls and feast and was called by the Gaels "Fonn" - a word which means both melody; music and land; Earth. Its poetic meaning is "True Music". It is also sometimes called "Fonnsheen" - the music of the Sidhe or Faerie Folk.

True music, in its undistilled form, is all around us. When poets speak of the music of the wind, or "Ceol na mara", the song of the sea, they are remembering with their words an ancient truth, that the music of the Otherworld lives in every sound that fills this Greenworld, from the breeze that sighs down from the wooded hills to the wild rush of aimless force and emotion that flies up from the stormy sea. Each part of the day, each season of the year carries on its breath an unborn song, waiting to be plucked from the Otherworld and given its first form by the human ear that perceives its internal rhythm and rhyme.

As with all of the arts, music has its Gods and Goddesses, who were the first to perform these functions. One of the oldest Gaelic Gods, The Dagda, plays each of the seasons into being with his harp. The name of his harp, or in some legends, his harper, is Uaithne, which means pillar or post, but again it has a poetic meaning - internal rhyme. He is the Green Man whose ecstatic dance is the bard's intoxication and madness - the lust of the heart and mind that culminates in the birth of song. When the Dagda's wife Boann was in labour he played three magical strains on Uaithne to help her in her birthing. He played Goltraighe, the weeping strain, for the pain she was suffering. He played Geantraighe, the laughter strain, for the joy of the new life she brought forth. Then he played the exhausted mother to sleep with Suantraighe, the sleeping strain.

Here, do we not have the "internal rhyme" of the cycle of seasons at play? For as the green and grey months rotate, their axis is constant - the eternal pain and joy of the Mother continually bringing forth new life and resting in the darkness of winter.

For the Gael, it is impossible to think about True Music without remembering the "True World" - the Greenworld, for each one is an expression of the other. The Goddess Brighid is the patroness of music, for Brighid of the Mantle of Green is also Brighid of the Harp. The Goddess who is in charge of music in the Land of Promise, one of the Otherworldly realms, is called Uaine, which literally means Green. Many harpers in legend have been taught their art by the Green Harper, another name for the Dagda. Brighid is his daughter - the Eternal Muse. His son is Oengus, the epitome of Desire and Longing...together, they are creation.

The very word inspiration means "to breathe in". And it is on the green wind of the world that inspiration is carried. It is the breath of the Goddess in all her moods - and how differently from day to day that breeze can stir and sound the strings of a harp...How many secrets She whispers to open hearts.

The Celts have always been aware of the marriage between words and music. To a bard, his harp continues to speak when his words fail him. When accompanying a poem or legend, the harp expresses worlds beyond human comprehension, but not beyond human feeling. Words create images, bring ideas into being. Music leaves things unsaid, like a human gesture that can enhance, or belie, what speech implies. Words require both feeling and intellect. Music in its true definition is the pure expression of emotion, answering to that of which it is sensitive.

In the Gaelic system, words belong primarily to the intellect. Music belongs to the realms of "naturalness", of instinctive awareness that need not be explained. This idea is reflected in ancient cultures all over the world. In India, words and chant are equated with Earth and Heaven respectively. In China, "Music is of the order of Heaven. Li (right behaviour) is of the order of Earth. Music was made manifest in the genesis of all things and Li has its abode in their completion...to understand music is to be at the secret source of Li."

Thus all native cultures have the same belief. Words have the power to create and symbolize the manifest world. Music brings us into harmony with the non-manifest. The harp, a sacred instrument all over the world has always been called "the bridge between Heaven and Earth."

If one views this idea in terms of a Christian philosophy, placing Heaven above Earth, it may seem that I am placing music above words in importance. But that would be akin to saying that the soul is superior to flesh, whereas the fundamental belief of every native religion is that flesh is spirit made manifest.

In almost all the legends the approach of a being from the Otherworld is heralded by beautiful music - for when the veil between the worlds is lifted all natural sights and sounds are revealed in their true form. It is always people whose hearts are true enough to pass through the veil who are invited by the Faerie Queen to enter into her pure world of Truth. Musicians are often counted in this number, for if they can hear the Fonnsheen in the song of the Earth, then they are but one step away from the land that is sometimes called "Cridhe na Ceol" - the heart of song.

To the Gael, the music of the city is not "True Music". Nor is the music borne out of the exchange of ideas between musicians - unless they experience together the same flow from the Otherworld, which must be rare, for it is usually a solitary experience as each man hears with the same ear, but understands with a different heart.

The "Music of the Folk" is important - for it expresses the hopes and dreams of a people sharing the same space on Earth and in time. But the music of the Otherworld sings a different song - for it expresses the harmony of the Cosmos and the cyclic pulse from the great heart of the Mother of Eternity.

For hundreds of years poetry and storytelling have been the great popular means of artistic expression of the Gaelic race, and their music has served as a vehicle for the transmission of their poetry. Many of the Gaelic airs are of great beauty, and some are certainly very old. The traditional songs of the Hebrides are never accompanied, nor are they sung in parts. Many different versions will be known throughout the islands.

There are many different types of songs in existence. We have, for example, the ballad, sometimes recalling the exploits of the Fianna, dealing with the wars between the Norse and the Gael. We also have the O\ran Mo\r, or 'great song', usually dealing with a great person or an important event. There are songs about hunting, sailing, laments, love songs, lullabies, fairy songs and the Puirt a' Beul, the Mouth Music which is good for dancing to.

There are also many songs that deal with the daily round of work of the people, such as rowing, churning, spinning (o\rain sni\omhaidh), milking songs (o\rain bhleoghainn) and perhaps the most famous, waulking songs (o\rain luadhaidh).

The o\rain luadhaidh are most interesting for they are quite unique to the Western Isles. When tweed or blanket cloth is taken from the loom it must be shrunk, this is the process known as "waulking the cloth". The cloth is placed on a long table and soaked in hot urine. An even number of women sit at the table and the cloth is passed around 'sunwise' with a kneading motion. One woman, usually the eldest, sits at the head of the table to lead the singing. The soloist sings the lines that tell the tale, and the first line of the chorus, the other women singing the other two. The choruses are usually meaningless but they must be sung correctly. The chorus is called the fonn or 'ground' and this is the means by which individual waulking songs may be identified.

In order to make the songs last longer, for the length of the work, one line is usually sung twice (for example, the last line of one verse becomes the first line of the next). Owing to the mnemonic intricacies of the chorus, waulking songs were not normally sung solo.

  

Musical Instruments of the Celts

An important form of expression in any culture is its music, each culture having its own independent style. This cultural expression is enhanced through the instruments it is played on. In our Celtic culture, the main instruments were and are the BODHRAN (drum), the FEADAN (whistle) the CLARSACH (harp) and the PIOB (bagpipes). All of these instruments still have the power to stir ancestral memory in people of today.

Bodhran

The first of these, the Irish drum, the bodhran, is the oldest form of musical instrument, its equivalent being found all over the world. The Bodhran was traditionally made in the following way: A circular hoop was made out of the wood of the ash tree and an animal skin, usually of deer, calf or goat, which had been soaked in a stream for nine days, was stretched over the hoop and secured firmly around the edge of it. In some cases a crosspiece was inserted at the back to hold it with. The Bodhran is played either with the hand or a beater. Most Irish players are also greatly skilled at playing what is called "the bones", these are played held in the hand, in a very similar manner to the castanets, and as the name suggests were at one time made from bone, usually from the rib cage of a pig. Nowadays, like the beater, they are made from wood.

Some of the Bodhrans that are played are of an extremely large size. These are war drums, and could explain how the sound of the drum played at a fast speed arouses such strong feelings within us. The Bodhran can also create many other feelings within us, such as the strange trance like and Otherworldly effect that can be created by skilled players, bringing almost into reach long forgotten memories of the past. In many parts of the world one of the first tasks of the shaman was to make his own drum from the raw materials that were in the area where he lived, so that the drum would be linked to the ancestry of the land just as his people were.
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The Feadan

The second instrument is the whistle, Feadan, which was originally made from the wood of the alder, the centre of it being extremely soft and easy to hollow out. The tin whistle of today is a longer lasting version of the wooden feadan. The feadan gives that distinctive sound to Irish and Scottish music, making it recognisable anywhere. The jigs and reels soon have everyone tapping their feet and going with the music. The feadan, too, has that other side to it. It can sound so hauntingly beautiful, crying out for the listener to follow...The selkies or seals are extremely fond of the sound of the feadan and its haunting melodies, so much so that they will surface and come out of the water onto the rocks to listen to it being played.
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The Clarsach

The Celtic harp needs no introduction, such is its popularity. There is no mistaking how people's faces light up with pleasure at seeing this beautiful instrument, even today it still holds a magical quality for us. The soundboxes of the ancient clarsachs were hollowed out of solid pieces of wood, mainly oak or willow, and were strung with whatever animal gut that was available. Twisted horsehair was also used. Nowadays the clarsach can be strung with metal, nylon or the original gut strings, each giving a different sound to the instrument. Harpers were one of the members of the establishment of the Highland Chiefs.

Many of the ancient harpers and bards decorated their clarsachs with precious jewels, silver and gold, one of the reasons for this was his clarsach could not be taken from him in payment for debts he owed, as it was considered the tool of his trade. The old law still stands today. The clarsach was seen by many as a gift from the Gods, giving it an inseparable link with the Otherworld. This was strengthened by the bards themselves who, through their legends, could carry people on fantastic Otherworld journeys to the lands of Promise. No one can deny the effect the clarsach has on our emotions, there is no instrument that can compare in sound to its melodious song that can lift and carry us to lands of beauty, sadness and sorrow like a bird hopping from branch to branch.
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Piob

There is much speculation on the origins of the bagpipe in Scotland. However, this is largely futile as it would appear to be an ancient instrument everywhere, and there is no way of knowing if it is indeed indigenous or not. Certainly we know from sculptural evidence that the pipes were in use in Scotland from the 12th century onwards. Some people believe that the Firbolgs, the Men of the Bags, were the first to use bagpipes made from pigs' bladders in ancient Ireland and Scotland.

The first pipes probably only had one drone, the second being added around 1500. The two drone Highland Pipes were the traditional war pipes of the clans. The traditional music of the bagpipes is known as "Piobaireachd", or Ceol Mor (big music), the classical pipe music. Ceol Beag (little music) was the music of the people, the popular or folk music. The scale of the pipes is completely unique to itself, making the instrument difficult to accept by other musicians, who will declare the pipes to be out of tune! However, the pipes were never intended to be played in harmony; it is a solo instrument. Due to the different intervals of tones and semitones, the pipes can take a while to get accustomed to. It does seem that most people either passionately love the pipes or passionately hate them! Either way, there is no denying the strong emotive feelings they seem to evoke in us.

It only remains to say to anyone that decides to listen to these ancient musical instruments and their traditional music that they would be opening themselves to the spirit of our people, which remains strong and pure in the music and can link us once again to our origins and our land.
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Am Feadan - The Flute

Music played a large part in Celtic tradition. The flute is a very ancient instrument which was widespread in its evolution through many ancient cultures, its evocative ethereal tone was greatly favoured in early Gaelic music. Today it still is a major instrument in Scottish and Irish folk music...

The feadan is the oldest instrument in the world (the only thing older is of course the drum!). In its most ancient and basic form it was probably no more than a hollow stick with perhaps two or three holes in it and end blown (like a recorder or penny whistle). As to the country of origin, this is lost in the mists of time. Almost every country in the world can claim to have some variation of the flute, from Japan with their hichiriki, or the enchanting shakuhachi; to New Guinea with their six foot monsters which are again end blown. Then there are the bushmen's flutes of Africa, made out of Ostrich quills and of course the Irish penny whistles.

Of all the sounds capable of being made by a person, the sound of the flute is the purest (I may of course be biased here!). The simple clarity of its music sets a standard that other instruments strive to achieve (more bias!). To my mind the only other instrument capable of invoking a range of feelings from utter despair to great happiness and excitement is the harp.

Playing the flute helps me tune in on all three levels, where I can truly begin to know myself, and this is I hope the first step to personal enlightenment. Naturally the more time you can give to the endeavour of learning any musical instrument the bigger will be the rewards. However, as I have found out, this does not always make you very popular with friends or family!

The aim of a musician is usually to kindle some kind of emotion out of his or her audience so a certain amount of expression or "colour" is necessary. This can only come with time and practise.

The Celts were very keen on their arts and were great craftsmen. Music was very important to them, on a basic level just for something good to listen to at a gathering, or on a higher level, intellectually they appreciated good music whether their own or a neighbours. And of course, spiritually, music and Otherworld musicians were often capable of luring unsuspecting, unprepared humans to the Otherworld! So beware...
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Piob - The Bagpipes

Let us first look at a brief history of the pipes which is one of the oldest instruments in existence. One of the earliest sets of pipes were to be found in Panapolis in Egypt and dated back to 1500 B.C.E. The only older instruments to be found within a Celtic context are the Bodhran (drum), clarsach (harp) and feadan (whistle or flute), the latter being perhaps a forerunner to the pipes.

The actual country of origin of the pipes is not known, its popularity being so widespread all over the world. This was probably due to the Roman empire and its many conquests, for the Roman infantry was known to have pipers within its ranks.Indeed, the pipes were apparently one of the emperor Nero's favourite instruments.

However, there is also the possibility that the pipes were invented independently in each country and so it may be that the instrument was not brought into Alba from the outside. It is true to say that all of the Celtic countries have some history of the pipes as a musical instrument and it may be that, during their travels, the Celtic peoples came across an area where the pipes were already played and adopted the instrument from there.

After the collapse of the Roman empire the pipes remained a popular instrument in Europe for over a thousand years. During this time, the form and shape of the pipes changed as it evolved, resulting in those which are to be found today. The foremost of these is the Highland war pipes and the less well known Chamber pipes and Northumbrian pipes. Like the Irish Uillean pipes, both the Chamber pipes and the Northumbrian pipes use bellows to fill the air bag rather than using the mouth through a blow pipe as in the Highland and Galician pipes. The pipes which use bellows have a more mellow sound best suited to playing indoors as opposed to the much louder Highland war pipes used in places such as the battlefield of Culloden for instance. Indeed, the war pipes are in use today by Scottish Military Battalions who still have pipers in their regiments.

There was a time when the loud Highland pipers became unpopular. Medieval era was the main time when most Europeans started to prefer being indoors where loud musical instruments were not really suitable. This is when the pipes lost out to the harp and other more gentle sounding instruments.

However, during this time of unpopularity, there was a particular nation with whom the pipes remained popular and for them it became their national instrument. This was in the Highlands of Scotland where the older ways of life were more or less retained. With the majority of activities still taking place outside, the louder volume of the pipes was more fully appreciated. This enthusiasm for the pipes by the Scots is such that even today whenever the pipes are mentioned one automatically thinks of Scotland.

If you mention bagpipes and Scotland in the same breath another name springs to mind - the MacCrimmons of Skye. They were hereditary pipers to the clan MacLeod and their contribution to the piping world in many ways helped to develop the evolution of the instrument itself, particularly with regard to the refinement of the music of the pipes.

The big music of the pipes, known as piobaireachd, was developed to an amazing standard by this family, and some of their masterpieces seem immortal. One of the finest is called Cumha na Cloinne or the Lament for the children, composed by Padraig Mor MacCrimmon who lived in the 17th century. Padraig Mor had eight fine sons but one day a foreign ship dropped anchor in Dunvegan with a deadly fever aboard her. This fever spread far and wide over the land of the MacLeods and Padraig Mor lost all of his sons but one in the epidemic. Under the stress of emotion he composed that timeless piobaireachd for his beloved family suddenly lost.

There are many different types of piobaireachd which puts paid to the myth that they are all laments. There are marches, satires, gatherings, rowing tunes (to keep rowers of a galley together) or even battle pieces to celebrate famous victories or incite warriors who are about to engage in conflict.

However, within each piece of piobaireachd there is a common set of stages that must be played for it to be classed as piobaireachd. The first stage is based upon a theme called the Urlar, this stage sets the basis or 'air' of the tune. It is a slow melody which is ornamented by gracenotes. The next stage is known as Siubhal, its function being to transform the melody of the Urlar into a regular rhythmic figure. It is upon this that the third stage, the Taorluath, with its intricate notational patterns can be imposed. This in turn leads to the final and most complex section, the Crunluath, which places on top of the Taorluath an additional three notes to every bar of the music. The difference is almost indiscernible to the non piping ear, yet it adds embellishment to the classical music of the pipes.

The most beautiful pieces of Ceol Mor or Big Music have been preserved by a man called Donald MacDonald, a native of Glen Hinisdale in Skye. In 1805 he published what could be the earliest collection of Ceol Mor in existence. Then in 1839 Angus McKay published his more extensive collection of classical pipe music. In 1900 the late Major General Thompson brought out a small book called Ceol Mor which in its time was called the piping Bible. It is due to these now very rare books that the finest pipe music has been preserved to this day.

To be an accomplished piper was quite a feat or at least having learned from the Boreraig College on the isle of Skye was a major achievement. You had to know by memory at least one hundred and ninety five testing compositions before you were held to have honourably finished the course which normally lasted seven years. The pupils of MacCrimmon were sent to practise in a place known as the pipers hollow - Slochd nam Piobairean - with the view of the Cuillin hills as inspiration.

The history of the pipes is steeped in legend and tradition. It is said that the MacCrimmons were so skilled with the pipes because they had with them a fairy chanter made of pure silver. Its name was Soumsair Airgiod na Mna Sithe - the silver chanter of the fairy woman. This chanter was given to Iain MacOg in a place called the pipers cave. This cave - Uamh nan Piobairean - is where all the great MacCrimmons retired to compose. When they wished to create an outstanding composition they made a vow that they would eat no food until the piobaireachd was completed.

One night when MacCrimmon was fasting in his cave, there appeared the spirit of his ancestor. The spirit piper played him a wonderful tune. In the morning he found he could imperfectly remember the tune. The second night his ancestor appeared again and played the tune to him. This time the human listener received the tune more clearly and on the third night MacCrimmon could remember the tune perfectly. It should be noted that fasting was a common way to achieve an altered state of consciousness. The tune MacCrimmon had learnt he named MacCrimmon's sweetheart, perhaps recognising the source of his inspiration. There was no doubt that MacCrimmon's fasting and meditation had paid off.

Another snippet of tradition tells that pipers usually had a gille or servant to look after their pipes. The reason for this being that when the piper came to the end of his piobaireachd he would throw the pipes disdainfully away, generally over his shoulder, to show in his mind that the music lay in the soul and the fingers of the piper rather than in the pipes themselves. The servant had to catch the pipes and lay them down with more care than the piper himself would. However, if the piper felt that the pipes had let him down, earnest though his playing may have been, he would end his piobaireachd with a skirl of derision to show his displeasure at the pipes. It would seem that the pipes only had an essence of their own when something went wrong!

   
Bards

Introduction.

The word Bard is used in English and other Indo-Euopean languages chiefly to denote a Celtic poet (and musician). Musicians and poets comparable to the Celtic Bard have also been found in other cultures. Bards have greatly influenced the musical and general histories of their peoples, among the Celts they were mainly responsible for the development of secular music.

The Bard was a repository of histories, stories, legends, songs and poetry of his people. Wherever the bard travelled, he was honoured and given certain diplomatic impunity. Before the invention of the printing press, books and scribes were very costly, and recently news travelled very slowly and inaccurately. The bard, due to his education in oral tradition, could be relied upon to know the latest news from his court, whether crops had failed to the south, or which roads were safe to travel. For some villages and towns, the bard was the only reliable source of information.

The above is a very rough outline of bards and their history. Below, is a more detailed explanation of the evolution of the Bard in different Celtic Cultures:

Bards in Medieval &
Post Medieval Wales and Cornwall

Throughout the British Isles local kings, princes and chieftains maintained bards, bestowing gitfs upon them for their services. The bards played the harp, and sang elegies and eulogies on famous men, composed proverbs, and recited sagas. Monasteries also occasionally maintained bards as historians and genealogists. The high esteem in which the bard was held is evident in the early legal codes of both Ireland and Wales. The Laws of Hywel Dda (Howel the Good), distinguish two classes of bard: the bardd teulu, who was a permanent official of the king's household, and the pencerdd ('chief of song'), or head of the bardic fraternity in the district. These classes of resident and itinerant bards, also found in Ireland and Scotland, are similar to classes found amongst other Indo-European ethnic groups, e.g. in Anglo-Saxon England the classes of scop and gleeman. These classes, like the Scandinavian skald and other poet-musicians of early nations, have sometimes been termed 'bards' in English literature.

During the 12th and 13h centuries in Wales, bards no longer came to be appointed to the King's household; and their position changed greatly after the ending of native rule. They become more numerous, and just as in France some of the nobility became troubadours and trouveres, so some Welsh princes became bards. (The poetic forms of the troubadours and trouveres influenced those of the 14th Century Welsh bards.)

The bards were highly organised into various grades, and were required to serve a long apprenticeship, and to acquire much skill and learning before they were allowed to serve professionally.

The bards had always encouraged their peoples in the face of hardship, but under the growing influence of the English monarchs their incitements to liberty came to be regarded as incitements to rebellion. In consequence, numerous laws were enacted to put them down. Laws represented the bards as degenerate, and a royal proclamation known as the Commission of the Caerwys Eisteddfod, issued by Elizabeth I, complained of 'vargraunt and idle persons naming theim selfes mynstrelles Rithmers and Barthes'. In Cornwall, 'bard' came to mean 'mimic' and 'buffoon'; and in other Celtic areas 'bard' in English writings often carried a pejorative meaning. Nevertheless, in all the Celtic countries the household bard continued in function - and often in name - until quite recent times: harpists were still active in some large houses up to the 19th Century.

The poet-musician of early times had, however, virtually vanished. Although poetry and music long remained undivided, a partial separation between them occurred at an early period (varying from country to country) and even in the Middle Ages musical and poetical bards were to some extent recognized as seperate classes.

Today the term 'bard' in Wales means the victor at an eisteddfod, whether in poetry or music. Although the bardic rites and customs of the modern Welsh eisteddfod and the Cornish gorseth, cannot claim historical continuity with those of the Medieval bards, there is still some similarity between the modern and medieval customs.

Bards in Medieval &
Post Medieval Ireland and Scotland

In medieval society in Ireland and Scotland, professional men of learning were organized into a caste system, under various descriptions: draio (the Gaelic equivalent of 'druid'), fili, later file (poet-seer), breitheamh ('brehon', or lawgiver) and seanchaidh (historian-antiquarian). These terms possibly denoted various offices or duties of the highest orders in the professional hierarchy.

The bard occupied a lower position. Until the Norman Conquest, the filidh (plural of fili) specialized in a form of poetry which drew on the high learning, historical and mythological, of the Gaels, which was called seanchas; and the filid appear to have maintained some vertiges of pagan religion. The bard however, according to 10th Century Irish tradition, had an honour-price only half that of a fili, and could claim nothing on the grounds of his status as a man of learning.

Both the filidh and baird (plural of bard) were divided into classes by the jurists. The two main classes, soerbaird (honoured bards) and doerbaird (base bards), were each subdivided into eigth further grades. It would seem likely that a general distinction was observed between bards of good family, or of special genius, and others less respected, but the precision of the grades may have been little more than theoretical.

The original function of the bard was to compose eulogy, his craft, bairdne (bardic verse) contrasting with the filidecht (sanchas poetry) of the fili. With the social changes after the Norman invasion of Ireland however, patronage for the filidh disappeared, since there was no longer any audience for the ancient high learning; but bardic praise-poetry continued to exist where Gaelic kings or petty rulers succeeded in saving some part of their ancient lordships from the general ruin. Before this time (late 12th Century), filidh had occasionally composed panegyric (praise-poetry), but after this time it appeared to have become their primary function.

From about 1200 to 1650, these composers used a highly elaborate and subtle metric system and a standard language (classical Gaelic). Poets were taught in schools, and it is believed that the period of training was seven years. Much of the poetry survives from Ireland to Scotland (classical Gaelic was common to the two countries); it comprises not only panegyric but also religious, love and Ossianic verse. It is known in English as 'bardic' verse, although its composers called themselves filidh, not baird; they knew that the word bard had connotations of low rank. To the present day, the Irish word for 'poet' is file (plural fili; and the file is said to still possess the power of wounding, or even killing, through satire.

The bard was mentioned within the surviving poetry above in Ireland and Scotland in the 17th Century, but in a subordinate role. He was assigned various roles, such as a kind of literary retainer, or to recite poetry, or to take charge of musical accompaniment.

The highly literate tradition of classical Gaelic 'bardic poetry', cultivated by the fili, ceased in Ireland in the 17th century; in Scotland it persisted to the mid-18th century. However, there are fewer survivals of it in Scotland, at least from the 16th Century.

With the social changes that followed the introduction of the feudal system to Scotland, during which the court language changed from Gaelic to Norman-French and later to Scots the classical tradition began to disappear, but the status of the panegyrist bard improved, although not in an identical manner in every location. The Scots Gaelic term for a poet is bard to the present day, and by the 17th century, Scottish bardic poetry was dominated not by the stric measures of classical Gaelic but by vernacular Scots Gaelic. Unlike their classical counterparts, the vernacular poets were mostly illiterate until the 18th Century, although some earlier bards who recited for poets may have been partially literate. Literacy has, however, been unusual or largely irrelevant until the 20th century, for vernacular Gaelic verse has developed an oral tradition. Some of there vernacular bards had patrons, some did not, but Gaelic makers of verse have always enjoed both honour and a kind of diplomatic immunity. The essential structure of this poetry derives from panegyric, although its subject matter is very varied. Since th 20th century revival of Scots Gaelic literature, contemporary literary poets may be distinguished from the semi-literate or illiterate 'bards' of the Gaelic-speaking areas of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. The latter continue to bring traditional attitudes to bear upon topical events at local or national level, with praise, rebuke, humour, etc; they also compose more personal poetry such as love-poetry or elegy, and there is a continuing output of religious verse. Like the vast bulk of traditional Gaelic poetry, these compositions are all designed for singing or chanting, and the melodies are drawn from the still considerable mass or orally transmitted song.

Were there any Non-Celtic bards?

In short, yes. The term bard has sometimes been extended to refer to epic singers of non-Celtic peoples, such as the aoidoi of the Homeric epics and the bards of Eastern and Western Central Asia. Singing long narrative poems of the great heroes of the past, these epic singers were also poets, composers, instrumentalists, and story-tellers. The many sided nature of their role goes back to a past when their function were in some ways comparable to those of the old Celtic bards.

 What about modern day bards?

Singers, musicians, storytellers, poets - anyone whose art is more than mere entertainment. Whose performance captures your imagination, making you forget you are being performed to, that has that touch of magic you can't quite describe. They are the true modern day bards.

  
Minstrels

A Minstrel was a professional entertainer of any kind, from the 12th century to the 17th. A juggler, acrobat, story-teller, etc. or more specifically, a professional secular musician, usually an instrumentalist. The heyday of minstrelsy was chiefly within the period c1250-c1500.

While the organization of musical life and therefore the social status of the minstrel differed from one region to another, it is clear that some secular musicians of the later Middle Ages were completely outside the predominant social structure; along with entertainers and other professions, they had no fixed abode and owed allegiance to no civil or ecclesiastical authority.

With the Romantic reawakening of interest in the culture of the Middle Ages, 'minstrel' became frequent in the special sense of wandering poet-musician, and to this day the word evokes the image of the itinerant singer accompanying himself on a plucked string instrument before an audience of knights and their ladies - a real enough phenomenon but only one among many in the range of medieval secular music.

One traditional role that has fascinated scholarship since the 18th century is that of the bard or epic poet-singer. He is usually supposed to have recited his lengthy tales to simple melodic formulae cooresponding in their articulation and repititions to the half-lines, lines and couplets of epic or narrative verse; he is also thought to have supported his song with an instrument such as the harp or fiddle.

  
Troubadours

Troubadours and Trouveres were lyric poets or poet-musicians of France in the 12th and 13th centuries. It is customary to describe as troubadours those poets who worked in the south of France and wrote in Provencal, the langue d'oc, whereas the trouveres worked in the north of France and wrote in French, the langue d'oil.

The first centre of troubadour song seems to have been Poitiers, but the main area extended from the Atlantic coast south of Bordeaux in the west, to the Alps bordering on Italy in the east. There were also 'schools' of troubadours in northern Italy itself and in Catalonia. Their influence, ofcourse, spread much more widely. In the Bibliographie of Pillet and Carstens, 460 troubadours are named; about 2600 of their poems survive, with melodies for rougly one in ten.

The romantic idea of the troubadour current in the 19th century is slowly fading before a more careful and realisitc appraisal built up by scholars over the years. Far from being a carefree vagabond 'warbling his native woodnotes wild', the troubadour was a characteristically serious, well-educated, and highly sophisticated verse-technician. Guillaume IX of Aquitaine, generally described as 'the first of the troubadours' was a duke, and his granddaughter, Eleanor of Aquitain, married first King Louis VII of France, and soon afterwards Henry of Anjou, later Henry II of England.

The art of the troubadours was one in which music and poetry were combined in the service of the courtly ideal, the ideal of fin'amours (refined love). Their repertories of poetry were very self- conscious, and the discussion of technique played an important part in the poems themselves. For sheer virtuosity, the poets surpass all other lyric poets of the Middle Ages, with the possible exception of Dante.  

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