[Bards] Found SOME Prose Evidence

barrett1 at cox.net barrett1 at cox.net
Thu May 3 07:33:52 PDT 2007


Okay, I put a fair amount of work into finding this, so I'll repost it again from yesterday in case you missed it.

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 


---- Ken Theriot <kentheriot at ravenboymusic.com> wrote: 
> Roswitha, in the 10th century, composed AND performed plays TO THE PUBLIC in
> prose.  This is theatricals, and still NOT stories.  But it's a start.
> 
>  
> 
> Kenneth
> 
>  
> 




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