Bard

In medieval Gaelic and British culture, a bard was a professional poet/story teller and music composer, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.

Originally a specific class of poet, contrasting with another class known as fili in Ireland and Highland Scotland, with the decline of living bardic tradition in the modern period the term "bard" acquired generic meanings of an epic author/singer/narrator, comparable with the terms in other cultures (azmari, minstrel, gayen, skald, scop, rhapsode, udgatar, griot, ashik) or any poets, especially famous ones. For example, William Shakespeare and Rabindranth Tagore are known as "the Bard of Avon" and "the Bard of Bengal" respectively.

Etymology and origin

The word is a Celtic loan word from Scottish Gaelic bàrd, Irish bard, Welsh bardd. In Scotland in the 16th century it was a derogatory term for an itinerant musician, but was later romanticised by Sir Walter Scott.