r BARD. 



he was to receive a double portion of the largesse or gratuity. If he 

 usked any gift or favour of the prince, he was to be fined by singing an 

 ode or poem ; if of a nobleman, three ; if of a common person, he was 

 to sing till he was weary, or fell asleep. Any slight injury perpetrated 

 on the royal bard was to be compensated by a fine of six cows and a 

 hundred and twenty pence ; his murder at a hundred and twenty-six 

 cows. The marriage-fine of his daughter was estimated at a hundred 

 and twenty pence. Her nuptial present was thirty shillings, and her 

 dower three pounds. (See the ' Leges Wallicte,' edited by Wotton, fol. 

 Lond. 1730, lib. i. cap. 19, pp. 35, 36, 37.) 



The Pencerdd 6 'triad was another domestic bard of the higher order, 

 who frequented the courts of the Welsh princes, though he was not a 

 regular officer of the household. His privileges are described in the 

 ' Leges Wallicse," lib. i. cap. xlv. pp. 68, 69. See also Pennant's ' Tour 

 in Wales,' ut supra, p. 462. 



Pennant says, " The bards of Wales were supposed to be endowed 

 with powers equal to inspiration. They were the oral historians of all 

 past transactions, public and private. They related the great events 

 of the state ; and, like the Scalds of the northern nations, retained 

 the memory of numberless transactions, which otherwise would have 

 perished in oblivion. They were likewise thoroughly acquainted with 

 the works of the three primary bards, namely Myrddyn ap Morfryn, 

 Myrddyn Emrys, and Taliesin ben Beirdd. But they had another 

 talent, which probably endeared them more than all the rest to the 

 Welsh nobility, that of being most ticcomplished genealogists, and flat- 

 tering their vanity in singing the deeds of an ancestry derived from the 

 most distant period." 



The Welsh bards were reformed and regulated by Gryffyth ap 

 Conan, king or prince of Wales, in the year 1078. (Warton, ' Hist. 

 Eng. Poet.' dissert, ut supra.) 



Pennant gives a minute account of the Eisteddfods, or sessions of 

 the bards and minstrels, which were held in Wales for many centuries : 

 one was held at the town of Caerwys ; another at Aberfraw in Angle- 

 sea, for the bards of that island and the neighbouring county ; and a 

 third at Mathraval, for those of the land of Powis. The reason that 

 these places were thus distinguished was because the two last were the 

 residence of princes ; and Caerwys, on account of the royal palace that 

 stood below the town, the residence of Llewelyn ap Gryffydd. 



At these eisteddfods, which Pennant terms the British Olympics, 

 none but bards of merit were suffered to rehearse their pieces, and 

 minstrels of skill to perform. These went through a long probation : 

 judges were appointed to decide on their respective abilities ; and suit- 

 able degrees were conferred, and permissions granted for exercising 

 their talents in the manner already described. In the earlier period, 

 the judges were appointed by commissions from the Welsh princes; 

 and after the conquest of Wales, by the kings of England, notwith- 

 standing that Edward I., according to constant but extremely doubtful 

 tradition, exercised great cruelty over the bards of his time ; yet 

 future princes thought fit to revive an institution so likely to appease 

 an well as to soften the manners of a fierce people. The crown had 

 the power of nominating the judges, who decided not only on the 

 merit but the subject of the poems, and as our modern lord chamber- 

 lains used to do, were certain of licensing only those which were agree- 

 able to the English court. 



A commission for holding an eisteddfod at Caerwys, in 1568, was, 

 in Pennant's time, in the possession of Sir Roger Mostyn, together with 

 the silver harp, which had from time immemorial been in the gift of 

 his ancestors, to bestow on the chief of the faculty. This badge of 

 honour was about five or six inches long, and furnished with strings 

 equal to the number of the Muses. The commission, of which Pen- 

 nant has given the form (as well as an engraving of the harp), is the 

 last which was granted. It was dated 23d Oct. 9 Eliz. In conse- 

 quence, an eisteddfod was held on the 26th May following, when 

 various persons received degrees, some as chief bards of vocal song, 

 others as primary, secondary, or probationary students; and many 

 more as bards, students, and teachers of instrumental song xipon the 

 harp and crwth. Players on crwths with three strings, taborers, and 

 pipers, were reckoned among the ignoble performers ; they were not 

 allowed to sit down, and had only a penny for their pains. The 

 degrees consisted of four in the poetical, and five in the musical 

 faculty. For the full details relating to them the reader is referred to 

 Pennant, ut supra, pp. 467-474. The laws of Gryffyth ap Conan recog- 

 nise the distribution of the classes. 



" No public festivity," says Pennant, " great feast, or wedding could 

 be duly solemnised without the presence of the bards and minstrels. 

 A glorious emulation arose among them ; and prizes were bestowed on 

 the most worthy. In 1176 the Lord Rhys, prince of South Wales, 

 made a great feast at Christmas, on account of finishing his new castle 

 at Aberteifi, of which he proclaimed notice through all Britain a year 

 and a day before : great was the resort of strangers, who were nobly 

 entertained, so that none departed unsatisfied. Among deeds of arms, 

 and variety of spectacles, Rhys invited all the bards of Wales, and 

 provided chairs for them, which were placed in his hall, where they sat 

 and disputed, and sang, to show their skill in their respective faculties; 

 after which he bestowed great rewards and rich gifts on the victors. 

 The bards of North Wales won the prizes ; but the minstrels of Rhys's 

 household excelled in their faculty. On this occasion the Brawdwr 

 Llye, or judge of the court, an officer fifth in rank, declared aloud the 

 ARTS AND SCI. DIV. VOL. I. 



BARD. 



803 



victor, and received from the bard for his fee a mighty drinking-horn, 

 made of the horn of an ox, a golden ring, and the cushion on which he 

 sat in his chair of dignity." (Pennant, ut supra, p. 475.) 



Since the days of Queen Elizabeth, as has been already said, no 

 royal commission has been issued for holding an eisteddfod ; but indi- 

 vidual and collective exertions have not been wanting of later years, 

 not only for the revival of the bardic profession, but for the general 

 cultivation and encouragement of Welsh literature. The Gwyneddigion 

 Society was established for this purpose in 1770, and the Cambrian 

 Society in 1818. Annual meetings have also been held for the reci- 

 tation and reward of prize-poems and performances upon the harp ; 

 and another society, since formed, immediately under royal patronage, 

 called The Cymmoridion, or Metropolitan Cambrian Institution. 



The Irish carry the history of their bards to the earliest date of the 

 supposed Milesian invasion. The details of that history, in a diffuse 

 form, are given in Walker's ' Memoirs of the Irish Bards,' 4to. Lond. 

 1786. 



These bards were of three classes : 1. The 0/lam/iain Redan, or 

 Filldhc, were poets who turned the tenets of religion into verse ; they 

 animated the troops before and during an engagement, and raised the 

 war-song. 2. The lireitkcamliain (Brehons), or legislative bards, who 

 promulgated the laws in a kind of recitative, or monotonous chant, 

 seated in the open air. 3. The Scanachaidhe were antiquaries, gene- 

 alogists, and historians; they recorded remarkable events, and pre- 

 served the genealogies of their patrons in a kind of uupoetical stanza. 

 Each province and chief had a Seanacha. Besides these three orders 

 of bards, there was another of an inferior kind, composing the Clean- 

 >ntni"l>. Cnilairifjlt, Cttttairirf/t, Timnpaitach, and Cuilleaunach, all of 

 whom took their several names from the instruments on which they 

 professedly played. The head of this order was entitled Ollamlt-JKeceo/. 

 The profession of these, as well as that of the higher classes of the 

 bards, was hereditary. 



Warton says, we are informed by the Irish historians that St. Patrick, 

 when he converted Ireland to the Christian faith, destroyed three 

 hundred volumes of the songs of the Irish bards. Such was their 

 dignity in this country, that they were permitted to wear a robe of the 

 same colour with that of the royal family. They were constantly 

 summoned to a triennial festival, and the most approved songs deli- 

 vered at this assembly were ordered to be preserved in the custody of 

 the king's historian or antiquary. Many of these compositions are 

 referred to by Keating as the foundation of his ' History of Ireland.' 

 Ample estates were appropriated to them, that they might live in a 

 condition of independence and ease. The possession was hereditary ; 

 but when a bard died, his estate devolved not to his eldest son, but to 

 such of his family as discovered the most distinguished talents for 

 poetry and music. Every principal bard retained thirty of inferior 

 note as his attendants, and a bard of the secondary class was followed 

 by a retinue of fifteen. They seem to have been at their height in the 

 year 558. (Keating's ' History of Ireland,' pp. 127, 132, 370, 380, and 

 preface, p. xxiii ; Warton, ' Hist. Engl. Poet.' vol. i., Dissert, i. p. 46, 

 note '.) 



According to Warton, the songs of the Irish bards are by some 

 conceived to be strongly marked with the traces of Scaldic imagination, 

 and these traces are believed still to survive among a species of poetical 

 historians, whom they call tale-tellers, supposed to be the descendants 

 of the original Irish bards. A writer of equal elegance and veracity 

 relates, that a " gentleman of the north of Ireland has told me of his 

 own experience, that in his wolf-huntings there, when he used to be 

 abroad in the mountains three or four days together, and lay very ill 

 a-nights, so as he could not well sleep, they would bring him one of 

 these tale-tellers, that when he lay down would begin a story of a king, 

 or a giant, a dwarf and a damsel." (Sir William Temple's ' Miscellanea, 

 Part II., on Poetry.') Warton also says (' Dissertation,' i.), " we have 

 already seen that the Scandinavian Scalds were well known in Ireland, 

 and there is sufficient evidence to prove that the Welsh bards were 

 early connected with the Irish. Even so late as the llth century, the 

 practice continued among the Welsh bards of receiving instructions in 

 the bardic profession from Ireland." When Gryffyth ap Conan, king 

 of Wales, reformed and regulated the Welsh bards in 1078, Powell 

 acquaints us, that he " brought over with him from Ireland divers 

 cunning musicians into Wales, who devised, in a manner, all the 

 instrumental music now there used, as appeareth as well by the books 

 written of the same, as also by the names of the tunes and measures 

 used among them to this day." (' Hist, of Cambr.' edit. 1584, p. 191.) 



The harp said to have belonged to Brien Boiromh, king of Ireland, 

 who fell in the hour of victory against the Danes on the plain of 

 Cloutarf near Dublin, in 1014, is preserved, as a relic of bardism, in the 

 Museum of Trinity College, Dublin, to which it was presented by the 

 Right Honourable William Conyngham, in 1782. 



Spenser (' View of the State of Ireland ') gives no favourable idea of 

 the Irish bards of his time. He speaks of them as " so far from 

 instructing young men in moral discipline, that they themselves do 

 more deserve to be sharply disciplined ; for they seldom use to choose 

 unto themselves the doings of good men for the arguments of their 

 poems." , He continues, " For a young mind cannot rest ; if he be not 

 still busied in some goodness, he will find himself such business as 

 shall soon busy all about him. In which, if he shall find any to praise 

 him, and to give him encouragement, as those Bards and Rhymers do 



3 M 



