ANST - Observations on the terms "Celt" and "Bard"

[Jennifer Carlson]

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!


============================================================================
Go to http://lists.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.