ANST - bards/parasites question

[Decker, Terry D.]

> On 9 Feb 99, at 11:23, Decker, Terry D. wrote:
> 
> > You are also confusing bards and minstrels.  ... In Irish culture, a
> > travelling bard was treated as an honored guest.  ...  A minstrel was a
> > travelling entertainer of no import other than the hospitality due any
> > traveller and his ability to entertain. 
> 
> how far they had fallen by the later periods ... i find these social
> changes 
> quite interesting in the ways they reflect the changes in society over
> time.  
> 
> needless to say, i've always preferred focusing on these earlier times
> where  
> things are closer to the understandings of my heart and soul about how
> things 
> *should* be.  this "late period" stuff is just way too "modern" for this 
> barbarian boyo ...
> 
> 'wolf
> 
There were travelling entertainers even in those early times, they just
weren't bards.  The point is, as you have stated elsewhere, that the bard
was integral to the social fabric of Irish society.  Even in the later
periods, bards were respected; there were just fewer of them.  The idea that
a bard was just an entertainer is something dreamed up by the heathens from
across the Irish Sea to denigrate Irish culture.

Bear
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