ANST - Observations on the terms "Celt" and "Bard"
Jennifer Carlson
JCarlson at firstchurchtulsa.org
Wed Feb 17 14:46:53 PST 1999
If I may point out two things (some of you are well aware of this already):
There is no such thing as "the Celtic language" - Celtic describes a number
of peoples with a shared language GROUP, not a shared language. Welsh,
Irish Gaelic, and Breton are a few "Celtic" languages that are very
different, just as Spanish, Romanian, Italian and French are all "Romance"
languages and yet very different.
Saying you are a Celt is like saying you are an American Indian. North or
South America? Inuit group? Muscogehan group? Eskimos and Cherokees don't
have much in common, except they come from the same continent and are both
classified as Native Americans. Like "Native American," Celtic is not a
nationality. Celtic is not a language. The "Celts" are not a monolithic
group with a universal culture. The Celts who invaded Greece would not
recognize the Celts of Spain as brothers, and the Celts of Ireland would
not see the Celts of Wales as being the same people as themselves.
End of that rant.
The term "Bard" is really only appropriate for Celtic cultures. If you are
Scandanavian, you are a scop or a skald, not a bard. If you're French or
Spanish or Italian or German, you are a minnesinger or a minstrel or a
troubadour, but not a bard. Only a few cultures imparted a lofty status on
their poets and musicians. In many cultures, singers and musicians are at
the bottom of the social heap.
Add to this that the entire concept of treating artists as some sort of
spiritually advanced creature is post-period. A medieval artist or
musician who displayed what we call "the artistic temperament" would find
himself unemployed. Save for noblemen and noblewomen and monastics who
composed poetry and music, and those few cultures that trained and prized a
social class of poets, entertainers were itenerant contract laborers. Like
any other contract laborer, they would have to please their clients if they
wanted to get paid.
In short, the life of a professional musician, storyteller, singer, or poet
in the middle ages was very likely not a bed of roses.
And, you know what? Knowing that they were struggling to keep body and
soul together, were often vilified by society, and still developed their
art forms and produced such a large body of work as has survived, makes
them all the more inspiring to me than someone raised up to the social
status of "Bard" from childhood - that's the equivalent of a good prep
school and Ivy League education, with a spot in Uncle George's big firm
after graduation, and a guarantee of being part of the social set for life.
Talana the Violet
Northkeep
Proudly Irish - a daughter of the best one of the Celtic peoples!
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