The Irish kings in ancient times kept up splendid hospitality at their
respective courts, and never sat down to an entertainment, it was
said, without a hundred nobles at least being present. Next in rank
and superb living to the royal race came the learned men, the ollamhs
and poets; they were placed next the king, and above the nobles at
the festivals, and very gorgeous was the appearance of the Ard-Filé
on these occasions, in his white robes clasped with golden brooches,
and a circlet of gold upon his head; while by his side lay the golden
harp, which he seized when the poetic frenzy came upon him, and swept
the chords to songs of love, or in praise of immortal heroes. The
queen alone had the privilege to ask the poet to recite at the royal
banquets, and while he declaimed, no man dared to interrupt him by a
single word.
A train of fifty minor bards always attended the chief poet, and they
were all entertained free of cost wherever they visited, throughout
Ireland, while the Ard-Filé was borne on men’s shoulders to the palace
of the king, and there presented with a rich robe, a chain, and a
girdle of gold. Of one bard, it is recorded that the king gave him, in
addition, his horse and armour, fifty rings to his hand, one thousand
ounces of pure gold, and his chess-board.
The game of chess is frequently referred to in the old bardic tales;
and chess seems to have been a favourite pastime with the Irish from
the most remote antiquity. The pieces must have been of great size,
for it is narrated that the great Cuchullen killed a messenger who had
told him a lie, by merely flinging a chessman at him, which pierced his
brain. The royal chess-board was very costly and richly decorated. One
is described in a manuscript of the twelfth century: “It was a board
of silver and pure gold, and every angle was illuminated with precious
stones. And there was a man-bag of woven brass wire.” But the ancestors
of the same king had in their hall a chess-board with the pieces formed
of the _bones of their hereditary enemies_.
The dress of the bards added to their splendour, for the Brehon laws
enacted that the value of the robes of the chief poet should be five
milch cows, and that of the poetess three cows; the queen’s robes being
of the value of seven cows, including a diadem and golden veil, and a
robe of scarlet silk, embroidered in divers colours. The scions of the
royal house had also the right to seven colours in their mantle; while
the poet was allowed six, and the poetess five—the number of colours
being a sign of dignity and rank.
Learning was always highly esteemed in Ireland, and in ancient Erin the
_literati_ ranked next to the kings.
The great and wise _Ollamh-Fodla_, king of Ireland in Druidic times,
built and endowed a college at Tara, near the royal palace, which
was called _Mur-Ollamh_, “the Wall of the Learned.” All the arts and
sciences were represented there by eminent professors, the great
ollaves of music, history, poetry, and oratory; and they lived and
feasted together, and formed the great Bardic Association, ruled over
by their own president, styled the Ard-Filé, or chief poet of Ireland,
from _Filidecht_ (philosophy or the highest wisdom); for the poets,
above all men, were required to be pure and free from all sin that
could be a reproach to learning. From them was demanded—
“Purity of hand,
Purity of mouth,
Purity of learning,
Purity of marriage;”
and any ollamh that did not preserve these four purities lost half his
income and his dignity, the poet being esteemed not only the highest
of all men for his learning and intellect, but also as being the true
revealer of the supreme wisdom.
Music was sedulously taught and cultivated at the college of the
ollamhs; for all the ancient life of Ireland moved to music.
The Brehons seated on a hill intoned the laws to the listening people;
the Senachies chanted the genealogies of the kings; and the Poets
recited the deeds of the heroes, or sang to their gold harps those
exquisite airs that still enchant the world, and which have been wafted
down along the centuries, an echo, according to tradition, of the soft,
pathetic, fairy music, that haunted the hills and glens of ancient
Ireland.
The chief poet was required to know by heart four hundred poems, and
the minor bards two hundred. And they were bound to recite any poem
called for by the kings at the festivals. On one occasion a recitation
was demanded of the legend of the _Taine-bo-Cuailne_, or The Great
Cattle Raid, of which Maeve, queen of Connaught, was the heroine, but
none of the bards knew it. This was felt to be a great disgrace, and
Seanchan and the bards set forth to traverse Ireland in search of the
story of the Taine, under _Geasa_, or a solemn oath, not to sleep twice
in the same place till it was found.
At length it was revealed to them that only the dead Fergus-Roy knew
the poem, and forthwith they proceeded to his grave, and fasted and
prayed for three days, while they invoked him to appear. And on their
invocation Fergus-Roy uprose in awful majesty, and stood in his grave
clothes before them, and recited the Taine from beginning to end to the
circle of listening bards. Then, having finished, he descended again
into the grave, and the earth closed over him.
During this expedition, Guaire the Generous took charge of all the
wives and the poetesses of the Bardic Association, so as they should
not trouble the bards while on their wanderings in search of the ballad
of the Taine. Yet they do not seem to have been great feeders, these
learned ladies; for it is related of one of them, Brigit the poetess,
that although she only ate one hen’s egg at a meal, yet she was called
“Brigit of the great appetite.”
It was on their return from the search for the Taine that the bards
decreed a vote of thanks to Guaire the king.
In order to keep up the dignity of the great bardic clan, an income
was paid by the State to each of the professors and poets according to
his eminence; that of the chief poet being estimated by antiquarians
at about five thousand a year of our money, for the lofty and learned
Bardic Association disdained commerce and toil. The Fileas lived only
on inspiration and the hospitality of their royal and noble patrons,
which they amply repaid by laudatory odes and sonnets. But, if due
homage were denied them, they denounced the ungenerous and niggard
defaulter in the most scathing and bitter satires. Of one chief it is
recorded that he absolutely went mad and died in consequence of the
malignant poems that were made on him by a clever satirical bard.
At last the Brehons found it necessary to take cognizance of this
cruel and terrible implement of social torture, and enactments were
framed against it, with strict regulations regarding the quality and
justice of the satires poured out by the poets on those who had the
courage to resist their exactions and resent their insolence. Finally,
however, the ollamhs, poets, and poetesses became so intolerable that
the reigning king of Ireland about the seventh century made a great
effort to extirpate the whole bardic race, but failed; they were too
strong for him, though he succeeded in, at least, materially abridging
their privileges, lessening their revenues, and reducing their numbers;
and though they still continued to exist as the Bardic Association,
yet they never afterwards regained the power and dignity which they
once held in the land, before their pride and insolent contempt of
all classes who were not numbered amongst the ollamhs and fileas, had
aroused such violent animosity. The Brehon laws also decreed, as to
the distraint of a poet, that his horsewhip be taken from him, “as a
warning that he is not to make use of it until he renders justice.”
Perhaps by the horsewhip was meant the wand or staff which the poets
carried, made of wood, on which it is conjectured they may have
inscribed their verses in the Ogham character.
The Brehons seem to have made the most minute regulations as to the
life of the people, even concerning the domestic cats. In the _Senchas
Mor_ (The Great Antiquity) it is enacted that the cat is exempt from
liability for eating the food which he finds in the kitchen, “owing
to negligence in taking care of it.” But if it were taken from the
security of a vessel, then the cat is in fault, and he may safely be
killed. The cat, also, is exempt from liability for injuring an idler
in catching mice while mousing; but _half-fines_ are due from him for
the profitable worker he may injure, and the excitement of his mousing
takes the other half. For the distraint of a dog, a stick was placed
over his trough in order that he be not fed. And there was a distress
of two days for a black and white cat if descended from the great
champion, which was taken from the ship of Breasal Breac, in which were
white-breasted black cats; the same for the lapdog of a queen.