Where do stories start?

Looking back along my life, I can see several times and places where the seeds were sown that ultimately merged into Storyteller. One of the earliest was planted by my grandfather, who used to tell us bedtime stories: an old man telling about things that happened when he was a boy. Not the great elaborate tales that Gwernin tells, but stories nontheless. That is a seed with very deep roots indeed.

Another seed was planted on an October day when I was fourteen, when my high school Latin teacher brought in a book to show us, a book which had recently won a Carnegie award. It was about a young man in Roman Britain – at the end of Roman Britain – a time and place which was new and exotic to me. The book was The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff. I read it, and went on to read – and re-read down the years - everything else I could find by her. Most of her books are for young adults or children, but the best are good stories suitable for any age. One of the last she wrote – she died in 1992 – was The Shining Company, set in 6th century Britain, and one of its central characters is the poet Aneirin, who appears in my books as the young bard Neirin (the original form of his name). He looks different in my version, and his background and life story are different, but down at the core he is much the same person - as he has to be, to write the great poem Y Gododdin by which we know him, 1400 years later.

There were other seeds, of course, and maybe I’ll blog about them another day. But for now, I’m back to packing.

-GRG

Guernen Sang It

In Tuesday's post I mentioned that the riddle I was printing was from my poetry collection called Guernen Sang Again: Pryderi's Pigs and Other Poems. This is the second of the two poetry books I have available on Lulu.com; the first is titled Guernen Sang It: King Arthur's Raid on Hell and Other Poems. So what's the logic behind these titles? What is this "Guernen Sang It" business?

The idea comes from the early Welsh poem (or collection of poems) called Y Gododdin. This poem is attributed to someone called Aneirin, who is supposed to have been famous as a bard or poet in 6th century Britain. The only surviving copy of his work is a manuscript called Llyfr Aneinin - the book of Aneirin - which currently resides in the National Library of Wales at Aberystwth. And at the beginning of the manuscript someone has written, "Hon yw y Gododdin - Aneirin ei cant" - "This is the Gododdin - Aneirin sang it." So when I collected my poems for publication - poems mostly written in and for the SCA - I followed my medieval exemplar in the title.

And the "Guernen" part? Not hard - my official name in the SCA is Guernen Cimarguid. But that is a story for another day.

(Answer to Tuesday's riddle - "poetry")

Mead: drink and metaphor

Mead is a word that occurs frequently in Welsh poetry, and not just in the context of drinking. One of the earliest fermented beverages for which we have evidence – traces have been found in Bronze Age grave goods – making basic mead requires only honey, water, yeast, and a little time. Strength and sweetness depend on the proportions of the ingredients, and meads can vary from champagne-dry to dessert-wine sweet. In the early Middle Ages it was probably drunk as soon as it clarified, and there are many references to glas medd – “green” or fresh mead. The locus classicus for this sort of mention is the long poem – or collection of poems – called Y Gododdin, possibly composed in the second half of the 6th century, and attributed to Aneirin. And that brings us to the second part of my title.

The mead-feast that a king provided for his retinue was not just a drinking party. It also was a bonding ritual, and symbolized the compact between them. The king provided maintenance – food, drink, weapons, and housing – for his warriors, and they on their part followed him and fought his battles. To pay for your mead – talu medd – meant to fight, if need be to the death, for your lord. To paraphrase Aneirin, “they drank mead, sweet, yellow, ensnaring … though sweet was its taste, its bitterness was long.” For the warriors of Y Gododdin, the price of their mead was considerably more than a hangover – but that is a different post.

Poets, Storytellers, and Bards … What’s the Difference?

Seems simple, right? Poets write poetry, storytellers tell stories, and bards … what do bards do?

In the early Middle Ages, they probably did both of these and more. The Welsh bards, for example, were primarily professional praise poets (the modern Welsh word bardd still means “poet”), but they were also specialists in genealogy, history, mythology, and other traditional “lore” – areas with no well-defined boundaries in those days! In the Mabinogion, Gwydion the magician, while disguised as a bard, entertains Pryderi’s court with “pleasant tales and storytelling,” and the text also says that “he, Gwydion, was the best teller of tales in the world.” Other sources suggest that the bard might serve as a magician or a prophet as well, and the early poets Taliesin and Aneirin were later represented as both (Myrddin / Merlin is a special case, and a different post).

The Welsh laws have references to three grades of bard, and we can assume that the required qualifications increased as you went up. In the Mabinogion example, Pryderi first asked that one of the “young men” traveling with Gwydion, presumed to be his students, should tell a tale, but Gwydion demurred for his own purposes, explaining that it was their custom, the first night after arriving at a court, for the “chief bard” to perform. The Irish situation was considerably more complicated, with a two-fold division into filid (poets) and bardagh (bards), and seven (or more) grades defined in each group. The chief distinctions between the two were that the poet’s position was hereditary and his status due to extensive training as well as ability, while the lower-ranking bard’s position was due to natural ability only.

All clear, then? For those wanting to go farther into the subject, I recommend Law of Hywel Dda, by Dafydd Jenkins, and A Guide to Early Irish Law, by Fergus Kelly. (See also the sidebar link to my Amazon lists, specifically the Early Welsh Bards list.)