Brief Introduction

In Medieval and Gaelic civilization, a bard was a professional poet, paid by a monarch, a tribe leader of an aristocratic family, to recount what happened in the country. That's why the word "BARD" means on the same time narrator, author and singer.

Bards had a very important place in the Gaelic society: in fact, the pre-Christian Celtic peoples recorded no written stories. At this period, stories and traditions were transmitted between each generation orally, and bards were considered as the keeper of the country/tribe memory.

According to the "Big House" tradition, bards travelled all around Ireland, welcomed by aristocratic families. Their poems was most of time realized to honor the hosts, which gave them dinner and accommodation. These poems were always accompany with a harp player. In some cases, the bard could be the player, but poet and harpist was two different professions.

These poems and songs in their honor were kept by the families, but unfortunately today we don't have the music which was joined with these poems, and we currently have just the texts. It's difficult to imagine how were these songs, because the melody had nearly the same importance than the words.

The famous bard Cacofonix, one of the inevitable character of the little village of "Asterix the Gaul".