[Bards] skald persona

SBarrett barrett1 at cox.net
Sun Aug 29 11:15:55 PDT 2010


Wow - now that is a message deeply in need of an editor. Look at all those 
typos and dropped words.
Sheesh.
Sorry, gang.

~Finnacan

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "SBarrett" <barrett1 at cox.net>
To: "Ansteorran Bardic list" <bards at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 29, 2010 1:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Bards] skald persona


> To be fair, this gentle has stated an interest in storytelling, not 
> poetics. While some stories were recorded with verse, and while most poems 
> told a tale, the two art forms are distinctly different.
>
> There are a couple of options here for Saxon and early English 
> storytellers.
> The first I have have only one reference for, as the field of storytelling 
> is not as well documented as others. It is the Joculator, a professional 
> storyteller who was hired for his services.
> The book "Writing Aloud" which studies storytelling in the Later Middle 
> Ages of England, does make some reference to earlier times, and tells of a 
> aboot who hired a Joculator to entertain a visiting Bishop with a 
> particular story, one of the local tales of history a Joculator was 
> expected to be familiar with.
>
> The other option is a Gleeman. The Gleeman was the common entertainer. 
> They traveled and sang bawdy songs or sad ballads, told stories, some 
> juggled, some could compose the more basic forms of verse and a few likely 
> had acrobatic skills. They performed for coin and lodging, and generally 
> followed markets or settled into larger communities for holidays.
>
> A final option is to be a scholar and chronicler. A large amount of good 
> storytelling material was recorded by historians, monks, chroniclers and 
> academics. They would write reams of stories in a attempt to be thorough. 
> They wrote vivid descriptions of severe weather, battles, crimes in the 
> community, reported miracles, hauntings and monsters, visions and natural 
> distasters.
> They were the early journalists, composing sentences like "In the north of 
> the country, beyond the market road is a wooded hill. The people of this 
> region call the Amons Rise, and will not travel this hill as they have 
> deemed it cursed. Seventeen years ago a local man, a miller by trade, went 
> to the summit looking for wood..."
>
> So there are few things to consider.
> I would point out that you could be Saxon leatherworker, warrior, weaver, 
> baker, tailor or farmer and still have a good reputation as a storyteller 
> in your community, especially in smaller villages that saw few visitors.
>
> ~Finnacan
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 





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