Carreg tair Groes (the Stone of the Three Crosses). The azure or sky-blue cowl that distinguished the Bard continued to be worn by the priest, and was afterwards adopted by the monks, the Capuchins have it now. Several terins were borrowed from the Bardic to express ideas in the Christian theology: thus, "nevoedd," which originally meant the delightful renovations of eternity, was made to stand for "heaven." "Uffern," the state of reprobation in the doctrine of transmigration, and "oerwern," the seat of the lowest existence, were both under the Christian system used for "hell;" and "cythraul," the principle of destruction, signified "the devil."* Between Bardism and Christianity these most amicable relations continued undisturbed to the beginning of the fifth century, when an unsuccessful attempt to merge the Gospel in Bardism, and give the home-born a decided preponderance over the foreign faith, changed the face of things. To one gifted man belongs the glory or the shame. On the 13th of November, 354, was born St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo, the great champion of orthodoxy; and on the same day, in the same year, his equally able but less fortunate antagonist was ushered into the world, Morgan, or Pelagius, a euphonious translation of the Welsh name, which means "sea-born." As I shall have to speak of Pelagius again in connexion with the Church in Wales, I shall only say here, that he advanced as a cardinal principle the Bardic dogma, "that in the state of humanity good and evil are so equally balanced that liberty takes place, and the will is free; whence a man becomes accountable for his actions, having a power of attaching himself either to the good or evil, as he may or may not subject his propensities to the control of reason and unsophisticated nature."+ By this theory Pelagius interpreted the Gospel. He taught in the celebrated monastery of Bangor-Iscoed, in which he had been trained, and soon formed a school of admirers, in which were numbered the best-informed and most influential of the clergy, who were already attached to the principles of Bardism. Pelagius went abroad about 400, and never returned. His school, however, kept up its numbers and its authority, and about † Ibid. p. 101, note. * Williams's Cymry, p. 174. twenty years, more or less, after Pelagius had left the country, very determined efforts were made to remodel the Church, and force her tenets into entire accordance with the doctrines of Bardism. A great crisis brings out the inherent defects of a system: so it proved with Bardism, which had ever been an exclusive, aristocratic religion, ruling wisely and teaching sublime maxims, but ruling by fear more than love, and listened to with respect rather than conciliating affection. The Gospel, the patrimony of the poor, is comprehensive and popular; no wonder, then, that the body of the nation had cordially embraced it, and regarded with alarm and repugnance the (as they considered) insidious attempts to corrupt its simplicity. In their distress they sent and besought the assistance of the Gallican Church, who, in 429, in answer to their earnest and repeated supplications, despatched two of her most learned and zealous bishops, Germanus and Lupus. The Christian side conquered, and the defeated party experienced sore humiliation. * Ordination, hitherto restricted to the three degrees of Bardism, was thrown open, and about the same time a prince, named Beli, propounded certain articles to which the Bards were required to subscribe, as an indispensable condition to employment in Church or State. These articles, we may fairly infer, turned on the points at issue between Christianity and Bardism, and confirmed the dicta of the former. The greater number of the Bardic party conformed, though, being convinced against their will, it is not unlikely but that they kept their own opinion still. A section stood firm. The non-juring Bards complimented their compliant brethren with the epithets Bardd-Beli (Beli's Bards), and Over-Veirdd (Sham Bards), from which we may conclude that the two were not on the most friendly footing. Following the bent of their aristocratic tendencies, the conforming Bards became the court clergy, preserving under royal protection their ancient rank and privileges. From the laws of Howell Da, or Howell the Good, we find that the Domestic Bard appears the eighth in a list of twenty-four officers of state in regular attendance on the sovereign. There is another high Bardic functionary men * Williams's Cymry, p. 175. tioned, the Chief of Song. "He ought to have his land free, and his seat is next to the judge of the palace. He ought to commence singing in praise of God, and then in praise of the king who owns the court, or of another. No one ought to solicit a favour but the Chief of Song; and in dividing it with his companions, two shares belong to him. He claims twenty-four pence from every minstrel at the close of his instructions. He ought to sleep with the heir-apparent: his protection is from the time he begins to sing in the palace until he finishes his last song. The fine for insulting him is six cows and one hundred and twenty silver pennies. His value is one hundred and twenty-six cows.' "'* The Chief of Song was a title borne generally by a musician who had obtained a chair of precedency, he was one of the extraordinary officers of the court. After the Chief of Song, "the Domestic Bard is entitled to sing three songs also. If the queen desire a song, let the Domestic Bard go and sing to her as many songs as she desires, but that lowly, that he may not disturb the mirth in the hall. He is entitled to a buck or an ox from the booty which the family may obtain from a neighbouring kingdom, after the king has chosen his third. He must also sing the Monarchy of Britain (the ancient National Anthem) while they share the booty. He claims a chess-board made of the horn of a sea-fish from the king, and a ring from the queen. His lodging is with the master of the household. In singing with other Bards, he is entitled to the shares of two men. The fine for insulting him is six cows, and one hundred and twenty silver pennies. His price is one hundred and twenty-six cows. He ought to have his land free, and his horse in readiness."+ In the castles of the chieftains there were Domestic Bards enjoying, relatively speaking, similar privileges; and the middle classes, if we may use the expression, had their Bards too: an inferior order, separated from their more elevated brethren by a strong line of demarcation, which when transgressed on either side, great was the jealousy and discontent. The Family Bard was called Teuluwr-his principal duty was the preservation of the genealogy of his patron. The inferior order bore the * Probert's Ancient Welsh Laws, p. 123. appellation of Clerwr. As a single family could not support them, they procured their maintenance by going from house to house; hence their name, which means Travelling Bard.* In the palaces of the nobility the Bards were the tutors of their children; and the heir, when he succeeded to his inheritance, cherished with affectionate solicitude the guide and companion of his youth, who repaid this care and protection with the grateful tribute of poetic strains. The Bards, to all, were ostensibly the messengers of peace. From the lordly keep or the village hamlet they went forth on their errand of mercy, having and wanting no other safeguard than their office of conciliation gave them. I have said that they did this ostensibly the truth is, that Bardism, from the fifth and sixth centuries, gradually declined, till it came to resemble the ancient Institute in scarcely more than form and show. The venerated titles and offices remained, but the spirit had well-nigh departed: the noble independence, the consciousness of right, the manly resolution-Truth against the world, had dwindled away. Driven to lean on the patronage of princes, the Bards descended to servile compliance and low adulation. "From their position," writes Mr. Stephens, "the Bards had much power for good or evil. They might have raised the standard of moral and intellectual greatness among their countrymen, and have pointed out more becoming pursuits than those in which they indulged. But, instead of preaching peace, they were too frequently the abettors of war; instead of healing dissensions, they were prone to widen the breaches already made; and instead of leading the way to grander views and principles of conduct, they have, on too many occasions, been the echoes of popular prejudices, and the tools of ambitious chieftains."+ But the virtues of Bardism were not always thus obscured; on occasions they shone forth in primeval lustre. When the Welsh Church, or people, were threatened with spiritual or temporal aggression, the Bards sounded the tocsin of alarm, and their strength returned as at first; their burning words, darting with electric force from heart to heart, kindled those patriot fires which, in the worst of times, have never been wholly * Stephens's Literature of the Cymry, p. 111. extinguished in the breasts of Welshmen. Bardism, at such a crisis, recovered her ancient dominion, and bowed the hearts of the people as one man. I hope that the reader will not think me tedious, if to this general view I append short notices of a few of the most celebrated Welsh Bards. The greatest and most admired of these, and who has maintained his popularity to the present day, was Taliesin.* He lived in the sixth century. A mystery hangs over his birth. He was discovered an infant, floating in a leathern bag, in the salmon-weir belonging to Elphin son of Gwyddno, a prince of Cardiganshire. Gwyddno had lost a great part of his territory by an irruption of the sea. The salmon-weir was all he had to give his son, and of course it must have been a grievous disappointment to poor Elphin, coming on the tiptoe of expectation, to find a child to support, instead of a haul of salmon to support himself. However, he acted the part of a noble prince and a good Christian. He took the foundling home, and brought him up. So soon as he had attained the proper age he was placed in the Monastery of Llancarvan, under Cattwg the Wise, the first abbot. Here he became acquainted with Aneurin, and is supposed to have been brought under the notice of Urien Rheged, a Cumbrian chief, who had fled from his native land and taken refuge in Wales. Urien was a kind friend to Taliesin, who, as in duty bound, has sung the praises of his patron. There is one production of the muse of Taliesin most honourable to him. In a family feud (such things will be) Elphin was taken prisoner by his uncle Maelgwn, prince of North Wales, and confined in a strong castle; Taliesin thereupon addressed to this harsh kinsman a poetical appeal in behalf of his benefactor. The petition was successful, Elphin was released; and the Bard had the satisfaction of serving one friend and winning another, as Maelgwn ever after became his staunch supporter. A poet would have to sing a long time nowaday before he sang a captive free. But ours is literally and metaphorically an iron age. The life of Taliesin appears to have glided tranquilly on, exempt from care or sorrow. Always a welcome guest at the castles of his admirers, he had a little hermitage of his own, to * Cambrian Plutarch, p. 41, &c. |