[Bards] Prose Tales

barrett1 at cox.net barrett1 at cox.net
Wed May 2 08:02:50 PDT 2007


I think I found something.

Let me clarify my position on this before I offer it for your approval.
When the bards of Ireland are described in the Tain as agreeing that they can only tell parts of the Tain, that tells me Irish bards used prose.
The Welsh word Mabinogion means "Apprentice bard" and the Mabinogi is a predominately prose piece, like the Tain.
The Norse Sagas are have some verse, but likewise, they are mostly prose, and the skalds, with all their hardcore poetry, are described as performing the Sagas as well, in numerous sources. I'm quite cozy with Prose as a vocal form...

But - Kenneth had a specific goal in mind. He (and his wife) are searching for a prose piece known to be used by professional entertainers in period.

Kenneth, this may be what you're looking for. 

"D. Gwenallt Jones (gol.), Yr Areithiau Pros (1934). A selection of the `Prose Orations', which are here described as exercises in declamation composed for the use of apprentice bards. They consist of short anecdotes, lists of things liked and disliked, imaginary dreams and speeches. They have come down in numerous manuscript copies, none of which is earlier than the sixteenth century, though their contents suggest that those which contain echoes of the Mabinogi and other medieval tales, have developed out of considerably older materials. They were probably evolved gradually by the bards over a long antecedent period. The two first examples here given have phrases culled from `Culhwch and Olwen', while `Araith Iolo Goch' is obviously a parody of that tale. The Areithiau have been fathered on the names of earlier poets, especially poets of the fourteenth century - Dafydd ap Gwilym, Iolo Goch, Gruffudd ab Adda, Llywelyn Goch ap Meurig Hen. "

~Finnacan



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