by Andy Letcher
This article first appeared
in "Druidry - Rekindling the Sacred
Fire" Edited by Philip Shallcrass
and Emma Restall Orr and published by The British
Druid Order, 1999
So you wanna be a bard, but what the hell does
that really mean? Well, we
could go to the historical evidence and see
what the bards did in reality so
as to recreate or revive the tradition. The
trouble with this sensible
approach is that we already have a notion of
what a bard is, and historical
'fact' never seems to quite live up to the archetypes
of our imagination. We
already know what a bard is.
Shut your eyes for a minute and picture a bard.
What do you see? Perhaps a
pre-Raphaelite androgyne dripping over his love-torn
harp strings? Perhaps a
Pictish bagpiper? Perhaps the village witch
telling stories round the fire
of her dimly lit hut? It is these images that
inspire us: for me it is the
medieval Troubadours, the wandering minstrels,
that fuel my imagination.
Indeed, this particular bardic energy seems
to be the energy behind the 'new
medievalism' of the road protest movement. These
archetypes are an energy
for us to use so we can recreate bardism for
our modern needs in this crazy,
crazy world, and yet still be embedded in the
bardic tradition.
So what is this tradition and where do we find
it? For me, the gateway was
through the medium of storytelling. Much of
what follows was taught to me by
my teachers, Peter Vallance and particularly
Ana Adnan. It is to them, and
to the tradition, that I dedicate this article,
with love and thanks for the
gifts they gave me.
To be a bard is to learn to listen. Perhaps
the most important bardic art
is storytelling. All the wisdom of all the peoples
of the world is held
within their stories. The world is not the same
place after a story is told.
Through the mystery of the word we recreate
the world, we shape reality, we
sing the world into being. To be a bard is to
listen to the land, to the
wind in the trees, to the boom of the surf against
the rocks. Somehow, in a
way that I cannot quite fathom, our music, our
stories, our culture rise up
from the land. Stories open us to the magic
of the earth - they reconnect us
to it. A place like Oxford (my home) comes alive
when we know that it is at
the exact centre of Britain and that there is
a red dragon and a white
dragon buried underneath the city. A mound in
Marlborough shudders to life
when we know that this is where Merlin lies
buried.
Stories are precious things and have a life
of their own. Open yourself to
stories and you open yourself to a depth of
understanding that far surpasses
the paltry efforts of the intellect. There is
an old storytelling tradition
that when you tell a story, you imagine the
person who told it you is stood
behind you. The person who told them is stood
behind them and so on. A whole
chain of ghosts connecting the tradition and
giving it its momentum. You
don't need to tell a story, you just need to
open your mouth and it will
happily tell itself, propelled by the life it
has been given by the weight
of all those ancestors. Indeed, I've never grasped
the `orthodox' meaning of
the bardic symbol (a square interlocked with
a circle), but it occurred to
me that it is really an open mouth. awen descends
(or maybe rises snakelike
from the earth, for aren't all acts of creation
sexual in origin?), we open
our mouths and out comes a song, a poem or a
story. For anyone who is
creative, the description of awen is a beautiful,
lyrical image of that most
sacred mystery: the act of creation.
But as I said earlier, a story is a precious
thing. Care must be exercised
in the telling, for a sacred story demands a
sacred audience. More than half
of the ceremony of story is the audience and
their energy. When all flows
well the energy forms an unbroken circle and
the teller gets back as much as
they give out. The circle becomes fuzzy as people's
attention starts to
wander, so the storyteller uses tricks and pure
deviosity (is that a word?)
to bring them back. Any interruption shatters
the circle and it smashes to
the ground like a broken vase. This simply must
not happen to a sacred
story, for if it does the power of the story
dwindles and is lost.
These stories are not entertainment; they are
power. Certain tribes have
stories that are told only in the most dire
need, such as times of drought.
Disbelieving anthropologists record the event
and then look to the cloudless
sky to see the first rain-clouds start to form,
just as the storyteller knew
they would. Take care with sacred stories, for
it is horrible when it goes
wrong. I know this from bitter experience, and
you can be damned sure that
when it happens you have misjudged the mood
and needs of the audience. You
have told the wrong story at the wrong time.
Like I said, to be a bard is to learn to listen.
You have to listen to the
needs of the audience, and of the stories. You
have to listen to your heart
and not your head, and herein lies the secret
of the bardic tradition as a
key to self-knowledge. A bard must know the
self inside out and listen to
those unconscious motivations that endlessly
determine our behaviour. The
ultimate is to have the right story for every
occasion. All you then need to
do is to stand up and wait for the right story
to pop into your head. Scary
stuff huh? Especially in front of an audience
of 200 people. The bardic path
is not for the faint-hearted.
Sometimes there will be a contradiction between
the needs of the audience
and the needs of the story, after all, do we
really want to reinforce sexist
stereotypes to young children? To what extent
can we change stories? This is
a tricky issue and only you can answer that
one. Frankly, you cannot tell a
story unless you have fallen in love with it.
You are revealing a part of
yourself to the audience; good side and also
dark side. Part of the joy of a
tale like Snow White is its twisted nastiness,
and somehow in telling it we
exorcise the politically incorrect contents
of our psyche. Years of sexual
repression have to be released and re-integrated
into the psyche, and
stories are one way to do this (didn't we tell
you that bards have to be
psychologists as well?). Naturally, one chooses
the right story for the
right audience, and Snow White requires a particular
audience!
For children, and also adults, I might change
a story slightly in the light
of the modern political enlightenment, but more
often than not I keep the
story true and add a line of explanation "...this
was the custom in those
days...." Sacred stories I don't touch
and often tell word for word.
Through stories you can take an audience to
some strange and grim places.
This is a huge responsibility, so remember to
always bring them back.
One bardic art has been the writing of stories,
and, given that we have
lost most of our stories, should we write new
ones? The problem is that new
stories don't carry the weight of all those
ghosts. I have heard people tell
their own stories and some are frankly dreadful.
I suspect these come from
the head; the intellect. Others have reduced
me to tears they are so
beautiful. They feel like real stories. These
come from somewhere deeper. I
don't believe you can sit down and say "Right,
today I'm going to write a
story." It doesn't work like that. A story
comes to you; it bubbles up from
the earth; from the rocks and trees, and demands
to be heard. If we offer
these stories to the world in a spirit of humility
then maybe they will
catch on, to be given a life of their own through
the embellishments and
magick of other tellers. In this way we can
become channels for the earth.
Never has there been a greater need for bards.
Our collective souls are
battered and lost, and we desperately need that
sense of reconnection to the
earth, the land, and to each other. In some
Druid traditions the bardic
grade is simply an entry level to the higher
grades, but this undermines the
bardic tradition. It is a magickal, mystical
tradition. Through story and
song we can shape the world, and if we look
at the old stories we find that
the bards could sing down mists, lull people
to sleep, cause blisters on
their enemies through the power of their sarcasm!
Even Merlin was cured of
his madness by the sound of a harp. These are
all forgotten arts; forgotten
mysteries, but perhaps, if we plunge into the
heart of this wonderful
tradition, that is so much a part of this land
of Albion, then they will
once more be revealed to us.
The time is now. These are mythic times, and
we are all called to play our
part in the fight for the earth. We are the
ancestors of the people to
follow; to be remembered in story. Arise bards
of Albion, and take your
place in history!
PS. The ultimate guide to the bardic arts is
a book called The Stone and the
Flute by Hans Bemmann - Penguin. Read it and
beware.
