How you became a Bard
The earliest records we have of the education of the Bards come from Ireland in the early Middle Ages. Since Ireland is the area where "Celticism" lasted the longest, because the island was never invaded by the Romans, we can assume (or hope as an author) that this form of education was common throughout the Celtic area before that.
Bards were the lowest rank among the consecrated ranks, the highest being the Druid. In between there were the Filidh, the seers. It seems that these three divisions shared the first years of their training, which would mean that every Druid was also a Bard. Perhaps, however, priorities were set from the very beginning, or it was determined at the outset who aimed at which goal.
In any case, the education was strict and precisely regulated. But at the end of the education, the Bards held a position that can be compared to today's rock stars.
A Bard of the highest rank in the early Middle Ages could claim a retinue of up to 30 people (all of whom had to be provided for during his "performances") and even a lowly Bard was given at least one calf for his services.
According to the "Crith Gablach" (8th century), there were seven levels of Bards, each of which was further divided into the two branches of "free" and "unfree" Bards.
In order to be considered a Bard at all, it required an education of (at least) seven years. Of course, playing the lyre was part of the program, but learning songs and stories was even more important.
In the first year, a Bard student had to learn 50 oghams (an ogham is an "alphabet of understanding", still known to us today from the early medieval script Ogham, where each character is assigned to a tree - but there were quite a lot of oghams for different categories), basic "grammar" and 20 stories. In year two: 50 Oghams, 6 lessons of natural philosophy, introductory poems, another 20-30 stories, grammar. Year three: 50 Oghams, 6 lessons of moral philosophy, given poems, grammar, another 40 poems or stories. Year four: the law of privilege, another 20 poems, another 50 stories, year five: Grammar, another 60 stories. Year six: The Secret Language of Poets, another 40 poems, another 70-80 stories. Year seven: Miscellaneous, the laws of Barding.
Nothing is known about the lengths of poems and stories here, but we can assume, if we look at the Irish legends, that they were not short. They loved their words ...
As I said, these are data from the early Middle Ages.
Filidh and Druids then went further in their training and learned "obscure words", "spells" (curses, spells ...), ancestor invocation and others.
The verse forms, which a Bard was allowed to use according to his level, were also strictly prescribed and it was forbidden to use verse forms of higher ranks (just like you have to unlock locked items in a computer game first ...).
And these verse forms were - at least for our ear! -rather special!
For example the ancient Irish verse form Rannaicheacht Mhor Gairit.
It is always written in any number of four-line stanzas.
The first line consists of three syllables, the lines 2-4 of seven syllables each (very unusual for us).
The rhyme scheme seems simple at first, a-a-b-a, but the b of the third line is supposed to be the second syllable of a two-syllable word and rhymes with the 3rd syllable of the 4th line. In addition, each line must contain an alliteration ...
Expressed as a rhyming image:
xxa
xxxxxxa
xxxxx(xb)
xxbxxxa
As an example, here is the first stanza of the modern poem Puppy Poop by Lawrencealot from the website www.poetscollective.org:
(hyphenated and alliterations underlined for understanding the verse form).
Dog-gy doo
is mom-speak for piles of poo
Dad deems it be done out-side
Dig-ni-fied dogs take that view.
Or this variant, also a Rainnacheacht Mhor form, where the first and last words of the poem are the same and there are internal rhymes:
BC x x b x ac
x x x a x x bc
x b x x ac
x x a x x BC
I praise the simplicity of our hexameters and pentameters in couple and cross rhyme! (and even those are hardly taught in schools anymore).
But honestly - I would rather have struggled with such rhyme forms in school than with math ... probability, compound interest and integral have remained much more mysterious to me than such verses, which are a wonderful challenge.
Which is why I became an author and not a math teacher ...
