Quote:
Originally Posted by The Colonel
As to the business of travelling bards - might we be confusing the Bard (medieval balladeer) and the Bard (iron age Celtic) ... who was at least partially religious in character?
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Not just iron age. The last great age of the gaelic bardic poets was in the 16th century. Several people had the title (and duties) of ollamh in Ireland up through the nine years war, and it persisted for almost another century in the Scottish Highlands (but was starved without the influx of school trained Irish poets), finally fading completely in the 18th century (after the scouring of the Highlands).