DUTY OF BARDS ©
by Tira Brandon-Evans

According to ancient sources the first level of training in the Druid colleges was the Bardic Grade. The bard in training was obliged to learn the genealogies of all the families and clans. They did this by learning hundreds of stories with contained the lore and lineage of the clans. This was a very important body of knowledge for many reasons. Firstly, all of the families and clans traced their lines directly back to one or more of the Goddesses and/or Gods. Secondly, all of the lore, legend and myth was connected to the genealogies and by memorising them the traditional wisdom of all the people was preserved. Thirdly, knowing who was related to whom and in what way they were related was very important when families were making decisions in regards to who their children should and should not marry.

OUR LOST CULTURE

Today much of this traditional knowledge has been lost. Most of us do not even know our grandmothers’ maiden names.1 We do not know the family stories. Think about this and what it means to you and your children. There is a difference between living in a society and in being part of a culture. This difference is particularly evident in North America where most folks of Western European descent live in a society but do not possess any culture at all unless we wish to regard the "Mall Culture" as our own. This is why so many of us feel so empty. We suffer from depression. We feel that our lives are pointless quite simply because they have no point, no focus. We are, for the most part, born into a cultural void and continue in that sad estate until we die. We pay our taxes, consume goods, produce goods or provide services, reproduce ourselves so that the society can continue and then, when we have performed our tasks for that society, we reach retirement age and are shuffled off to one side because we are no longer of use to our society. No wonder we are depressed, angry, lost and confused.

We no longer encourage our children to grow up to be heroines and heroes. Instead we teach them to make good grades so they can get into good schools so they can get good jobs so they can make lots of money and buy lots of things. But we are all born wanting adventure. We are all born to be heroes and heroines. How sad that so many of us lose that enthusiastic desire to demonstrate the heroic in our lives. Some of us, of course, never lose the dream but we do not know which road to walk. We have no feet. We have been cut off from the roots that connect us to our ancestral culture.

We give in to the pressures of our society. We become consumers and forget we are heroines. We become ‘successful’ and forget we are heroes. Some of us continue to search for meaning beyond the material world and turn to the spiritual traditions of cultures that are still intact. We study Yoga or Zen or Tai Chi. We attend weekend workshops led by folks from the Amazon Jungle or the Australian Outback to learn the traditions of their ancestors. But this does not fill that longing within our souls to reconnect with our own ancestral traditions. We read books that tell us our ancestors were primitive barbarians whose greatest monuments were actually built by folks from outer space. We read more books that tell us how to get in touch with these enlightened beings from the distant stars. We attend lectures and conferences to learn how we can become more than human and avoid physical death. We earnestly seek to discover some meaning – any meaning – beyond our mere material existence and still we are empty and unfulfilled.

RECLAIMING OUR ANCESTORS

Perhaps it is time we stop, retrace our steps, and discover what our ancestors wish to share with us. Our ancestors know us. We are them and they are us. Let us return to the deep wisdom they wish to share.

ENDNOTE:

1. It is both sad and humorous to encounter a person who vows that they are the inheritor of an unbroken line of Druid or Wiccan tradition who cannot trace their own ancestry back beyond the middle of the 19th Cent. This is an easy claim to make. Most who make it say their unbroken tradition has been kept secret within their family for a thousand years or more and their gods or guides have now instructed them to reveal their tradition to the world.

If one were to contact a member of their family who denied such claims the claimant can always say, "Well, of course they deny it, they want to keep it a secret."

When confronted with such a claim one would be wise to consider why anyone would wish to make it. Do they merely wish to appear special or do they seek to benefit in some material way from promoting such claims? If their claim is true they should be able to produce a valid genealogy that goes back to the pre-Christian era. It is highly unlikely any family that has preserved an unbroken, specific and detailed spiritual tradition for two thousand years or more has not also preserved a detailed and unbroken genealogy.

Do bear in mind that everyone on Earth is descended from Heroes and Heroines, Priests and Priestesses, Queens and Kings, Gods and Goddesses. When we meet with those who wish to impress us with their lineages we may all, quite rightly, say that we are also descended from the ancient, wise and holy. [Return to Article]



Tira Brandon-Evans is the Founder and Moderator of the Society of Celtic Shamans, editor of Earthsongs: Journal of the Society of Celtic Shamans, and is, herself, a Faery Shaman. Her books, The Green and Burning Tree: A Faery Shaman's Handbook, Portals of the Seasons: A Celtic Wheel of the Year, Through the Unremembered Gate: Journeys of Initiation, The Labyrinthine Way: Walking Ancient Paths in a Modern World, and Healing Waters, are all published by Elder Grove Press. She is presently writing a book about the Ogham. You may contact Tira by email at info@faeryshaman.org.

Duty of Bards is excerpted from DISCOVERING YOUR ANCESTRAL OR CLAN TOTEMS copyright © 1999 by Tira Brandon-Evans. All text and graphics on this page copyright © 1999-2008 by Tira Brandon-Evans and content providers. All rights reserved. Used with permission. Top of Page

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