[Bards] Prose Tales

[Jay Rudin]

Aesop's fables are in prose, and he was known as a story-teller (but he's a 
slave).  In an Egyptian myth the princess claims that he told her the 
stories.

The Decameron is a Renaissance Italian story of people telling prose stories 
to each other.  This is not equivalent to a bard performing in court, but it 
is equivalent to a bardic circle.

Similarly, the Canterbury Tales tell the story of pilgrims telling each 
other stories on the road.  While Chaucer's description of the pilgrimage 
and the tales they told is in verse, there is no implication that the 
pilgrims were all versifiers.  The idea that the Miller, or the Reeve, could 
invent a tale in verse boggles the mind.

Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin