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64-404: In Celtic cultures, a bard is an oral repository and professional story teller , verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist , employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities. With the decline of a living bardic tradition in the modern period , the term has loosened to mean

128-588: A stem in bardo-cucullus ('bard's hood'), bardo-magus ('field of the bard'), barditus (a song to fire soldiers), and in bardala (' crested lark ', a singing bird). All of these terms come from the Proto-Celtic noun *bardos ('poet-singer, minstrel'), itself derived, with regular Celtic sound shift * gʷ > * b , from the Proto-Indo-European compound *gʷrH-dʰh₁-o-s , which literally means 'praise-maker'. It

192-662: A 13th-century Irish bard who, according to legend, was exiled to Scotland. The family was at first chiefly employed by the Lords of the Isles as poets, lawyers, and physicians. With the fall of the Lordship of the Isles in the 15th century, the family was chiefly employed by the chiefs of the MacDonalds of Clanranald . Members of the family were also recorded as musicians in the early 16th century, and as clergymen possibly as early as

256-472: A Brittonic language of northern Britain. Celtic regions of mainland Europe are those whose residents claim a Celtic heritage, but where no Celtic language survives; these include western Iberia, i.e. Portugal and north-central Spain ( Galicia , Asturias , Cantabria , Castile and León , Extremadura ). Continental Celts are the Celtic-speaking people of mainland Europe and Insular Celts are

320-705: A Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions of Cisalpine Gaul (Northern Italy), the oldest of which pre-date the La Tène period . Other early inscriptions, appearing from the early La Tène period in the area of Massilia , are in Gaulish , which was written in the Greek alphabet until the Roman conquest. Celtiberian inscriptions, using their own Iberian script, appear later, after about 200 BC. Evidence of Insular Celtic

384-568: A borrowing from Frankish * Walholant , 'Roman-land' (see Gaul: Name ) , the root of which is Proto-Germanic * walha- , 'foreigner, Roman, Celt', whence the English word Welsh ( Old English wælisċ ). Proto-Germanic * walha comes from the name of the Volcae , a Celtic tribe who lived first in southern Germany and central Europe, then migrated to Gaul. This means that English Gaul , despite its superficial similarity,

448-830: A collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia , identified by their use of Celtic languages and other cultural similarities. Major Celtic groups included the Gauls ; the Celtiberians and Gallaeci of Iberia; the Britons , Picts , and Gaels of Britain and Ireland; the Boii ; and the Galatians . The interrelationships of ethnicity, language and culture in the Celtic world are unclear and debated; for example over

512-760: A common cultural and linguistic heritage more than a genetic one. Celtic cultures seem to have been diverse, with the use of a Celtic language being the main thing they had in common. Today, the term 'Celtic' generally refers to the languages and cultures of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall , the Isle of Man , and Brittany ; also called the Celtic nations . These are the regions where Celtic languages are still spoken to some extent. The four are Irish , Scottish Gaelic , Welsh , and Breton ; plus two recent revivals, Cornish (a Brittonic language ) and Manx (a Goidelic language ). There are also attempts to reconstruct Cumbric ,

576-452: A generic minstrel or author (especially a famous one). For example, William Shakespeare and Rabindranath Tagore are respectively known as "the Bard of Avon" (often simply "the Bard") and "the Bard of Bengal". In 16th-century Scotland, it turned into a derogatory term for an itinerant musician; nonetheless it was later romanticised by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832). The English term bard

640-402: A low caste/class. They can be religious figures playing roles in rituals and ceremonies . With regard to narrative traditions, they usually perform from their repertoire and apply their distinct style while innovating on a well-known tale or work, seeking to create an experience by leading, involving, and responding to the audience. Some participate in improvised poetry competitions such as

704-449: A professional hereditary caste of highly trained, learned poets. The bards were steeped in the history and traditions of clan and country, as well as in the technical requirements of a verse technique that was syllabic and used assonance , half rhyme and alliteration , among other conventions. As officials of the court of king or chieftain, they performed a number of official roles. They were chroniclers and satirists whose job it

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768-754: A result, these items quickly became associated with the Celts, so much so that by the 1870s scholars began to regard finds of the La Tène as 'the archaeological expression of the Celts'". This cultural network was overrun by the Roman Empire, though traces of La Tène style were still seen in Gallo-Roman artifacts . In Britain and Ireland, the La Tène style survived precariously to re-emerge in Insular art . The Urnfield-Hallstatt theory began to be challenged in

832-633: A rethinking of the meaning of "Celtic". John T. Koch and Barry Cunliffe have developed this 'Celtic from the West' theory. It proposes that the proto-Celtic language arose along the Atlantic coast and was the lingua franca of the Atlantic Bronze Age cultural network, later spreading inland and eastward. More recently, Cunliffe proposes that proto-Celtic had arisen in the Atlantic zone even earlier, by 3000 BC, and spread eastwards with

896-535: A revival. The first recorded use of the name 'Celts' – as Κελτοί ( Keltoi ) in Ancient Greek – was by Greek geographer Hecataeus of Miletus in 517 BC, when writing about a people living near Massilia (modern Marseille ), southern Gaul . In the fifth century BC, Herodotus referred to Keltoi living around the source of the Danube and in the far west of Europe. The etymology of Keltoi

960-668: A single culture or ethnic group. A new theory suggested that Celtic languages arose earlier, along the Atlantic coast (including Britain, Ireland, Armorica and Iberia ), long before evidence of 'Celtic' culture is found in archaeology. Myles Dillon and Nora Kershaw Chadwick argued that "Celtic settlement of the British Isles" might date to the Bell Beaker culture of the Copper and Bronze Age (from c. 2750 BC). Martín Almagro Gorbea (2001) also proposed that Celtic arose in

1024-811: A title to various poets From its Romanticist usage, the notion of the bard as a minstrel with qualities of a priest, magician or seer also entered the fantasy genre in the 1960s to 1980s, for example as the ' Bard ' class in Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder , Bard by Keith Taylor (1981), Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish by Morgan Llywelyn (1984), in video games in fantasy settings such as The Bard's Tale (1985), and in modern literature and TV like The Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski (1986–2013) show by Lauren Schmidt Hissrich (2019). As of 2020, an online trend to cover modern songs using medieval style musical instruments and composition, including rewriting

1088-540: A tribal surname, which epigraphic findings have confirmed. A Latin name for the Gauls, Galli ( pl. ), may come from a Celtic ethnic name, perhaps borrowed into Latin during the Celtic expansion into Italy from the early fifth century BC. Its root may be Proto-Celtic *galno , meaning "power, strength" (whence Old Irish gal "boldness, ferocity", Welsh gallu "to be able, power"). The Greek name Γαλάται ( Galatai , Latinized Galatae ) most likely has

1152-491: Is cognate with Sanskrit : gṛṇā́ti ('calls, praise'), Latin : grātus ('grateful, pleasant, delightful'), Lithuanian : gìrti ('praise'), and Armenian : kardam ('raise voice'). In the words of the Oxford English Dictionary , the bards were an "ancient Celtic order of minstrel-poets, whose primary function appears to have been to compose and sing (usually to the harp) verses celebrating

1216-532: Is a loan word from the Celtic languages : Gaulish : bardo- ('bard, poet'), Middle Irish : bard and Scottish Gaelic : bàrd ('bard, poet'), Middle Welsh : bardd ('singer, poet'), Middle Breton : barz ('minstrel'), Old Cornish : barth ('jester'). The ancient Gaulish * bardos is attested as bardus ( sing. ) in Latin and as bárdoi ( plur. ) in Ancient Greek. It also appears as

1280-482: Is also held annually. And many schools hold their own annual eisteddfodau which emulate bardic traditions. Several published research studies into the Welsh bardic tradition have been published. They include Williams (1850), Parry-Williams (1947), Morgan (1983) and Jones (1986). Doubtless research studies have also been published in the current century. From its frequent use in romanticism, 'The Bard' became attached as

1344-510: Is not actually derived from Latin Gallia (which should have produced * Jaille in French), though it does refer to the same ancient region. Celtic refers to a language family and, more generally, means 'of the Celts' or 'in the style of the Celts'. Several archaeological cultures are considered Celtic, based on unique sets of artefacts. The link between language and artefact is aided by

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1408-564: Is often entwined), folk songs and aural tradition , and traditional knowledge . In many indigenous societies, such as Native American and San , these roles are fulfilled in a general sense by elders . In some societies anyone could become a generalist or traditionalist regardless of their social class , and acquisition depends solely on individual aptitude , while in others the roles are hereditary and dependent on class or caste . These people usually hold authority within their respective societies, although musicians sometimes constitute

1472-534: Is primarily a linguistic label. In his 'Celtic from the Centre' theory, he argues that the proto-Celtic language did not originate in central Europe nor the Atlantic, but in-between these two regions. He suggests that it "emerged as a distinct Indo-European dialect around the second millennium BC , probably somewhere in Gaul [centered in modern France] ... whence it spread in various directions and at various speeds in

1536-502: Is unclear. Possible roots include Indo-European * kʲel 'to hide' (seen also in Old Irish ceilid , and Modern Welsh celu ), * kʲel 'to heat' or * kel 'to impel'. It may come from the Celtic language . Linguist Kim McCone supports this view and notes that Celt- is found in the names of several ancient Gauls such as Celtillus, father of Vercingetorix . He suggests it meant the people or descendants of "the hidden one", noting

1600-662: The Histories of Herodotus, which placed the Celts at the source of the Danube . However, Stephen Oppenheimer shows that Herodotus seemed to believe the Danube rose near the Pyrenees , which would place the Ancient Celts in a region which is more in agreement with later classical writers and historians (i.e. in Gaul and Iberia). The theory was also partly based on the abundance of inscriptions bearing Celtic personal names in

1664-530: The 3rd millennium BC , suggesting that the spread of the Bell Beaker culture explained the wide dispersion of the Celts throughout western Europe, as well as the variability of the Celtic peoples. Using a multidisciplinary approach, Alberto J. Lorrio and Gonzalo Ruiz Zapatero reviewed and built on Almagro Gorbea's work to present a model for the origin of Celtic archaeological groups in Iberia and proposing

1728-704: The Gaels ( Irish , Scots and Manx ) and the Celtic Britons ( Welsh , Cornish , and Bretons ) of the medieval and modern periods. A modern Celtic identity was constructed as part of the Romanticist Celtic Revival in Britain, Ireland, and other European territories such as Galicia . Today, Irish , Scottish Gaelic , Welsh , and Breton are still spoken in parts of their former territories, while Cornish and Manx are undergoing

1792-541: The Iberian Peninsula , Ireland and Britain. The languages developed into Celtiberian , Goidelic and Brittonic branches, among others. The mainstream view during most of the twentieth century is that the Celts and the proto-Celtic language arose out of the Urnfield culture of central Europe around 1000 BC, spreading westward and southward over the following few hundred years. The Urnfield culture

1856-537: The Lepontic inscriptions from the 6th century BC. Continental Celtic languages are attested almost exclusively through inscriptions and place-names. Insular Celtic languages are attested from the 4th century AD in Ogham inscriptions , though they were being spoken much earlier. Celtic literary tradition begins with Old Irish texts around the 8th century AD. Elements of Celtic mythology are recorded in early Irish and early Welsh literature. Most written evidence of

1920-714: The Red Book of Hergest , the White Book of Rhydderch , the Book of Aneirin and the Book of Taliesin . The bards Aneirin and Taliesin may be legendary reflections of historical bards active in the 6th and 7th centuries. Very little historical information about Dark Age Welsh court tradition survives, but the Middle Welsh material came to be the nucleus of the Matter of Britain and Arthurian legend as they developed from

1984-464: The first millennium BC ". Sims-Williams says this avoids the problematic idea "that Celtic was spoken over a vast area for a very long time yet somehow avoided major dialectal splits", and "it keeps Celtic fairly close to Italy, which suits the view that Italic and Celtic were in some way linked ". The Proto-Celtic language is usually dated to the Late Bronze Age. The earliest records of

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2048-605: The 13th century, when the 1282 Edwardian conquest permanently ended the rule of the Welsh princes. The legendary suicide of The Last Bard (c. 1283), was commemorated in the poem The Bards of Wales by the Hungarian poet János Arany in 1857, as a way of encoded resistance to the suppressive politics of his own time. However, the poetic and musical traditions were continued throughout the Middle Ages, e.g., by noted 14th-century poets Dafydd ap Gwilym and Iolo Goch . Also

2112-496: The 13th century. The (Welsh) Laws of Hywel Dda, originally compiled around 900, identify a bard as a member of a king's household. His duties, when the bodyguard were sharing out booty , included the singing of the sovereignty of Britain—possibly why the genealogies of the British high kings survived into the written historical record. A large number of Welsh bards were blind people . The royal form of bardic tradition ceased in

2176-473: The Bell Beaker culture over the following millennium. His theory is partly based on glottochronology , the spread of ancient Celtic-looking placenames, and thesis that the Tartessian language was Celtic. However, the proposal that Tartessian was Celtic is widely rejected by linguists, many of whom regard it as unclassified. Celticist Patrick Sims-Williams (2020) notes that in current scholarship, 'Celt'

2240-479: The Britons resembled the Gauls in customs and religion. For at least 1,000 years the name Celt was not used at all, and nobody called themselves Celts or Celtic, until from about 1700, after the word 'Celtic' was rediscovered in classical texts, it was applied for the first time to the distinctive culture, history, traditions, language of the modern Celtic nations – Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, and

2304-511: The Celtic-speaking people of the British and Irish islands, and their descendants. The Celts of Brittany derive their language from migrating Insular Celts from Britain and so are grouped accordingly. The Celtic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages . By the time Celts are first mentioned in written records around 400 BC, they were already split into several language groups, and spread over much of western mainland Europe,

2368-599: The Celts with the Iron Age Hallstatt culture which followed it ( c.  1200 –500 BC), named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt , Austria, and with the following La Tène culture ( c.  450 BC onward), named after the La Tène site in Switzerland. It proposes that Celtic culture spread westward and southward from these areas by diffusion or migration . A newer theory, " Celtic from

2432-1106: The Central Asian aytysh , the North African Kabyle people 's amusnaw , the Spanish repentismo  [ es ] , or the African Ewe people 's halo . In parts of the world they remain as custodians of culture despite rising literacy rates . Celt Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European The Celts ( / k ɛ l t s / KELTS , see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples ( / ˈ k ɛ l t ɪ k / KEL -tik ) were

2496-574: The Eastern Hallstatt region ( Noricum ). However, Patrick Sims-Williams notes that these date to the later Roman era, and says they suggest "relatively late settlement by a Celtic-speaking elite". In the late 20th century, the Urnfield-Hallstatt theory began to fall out of favour with some scholars, which was influenced by new archaeological finds. 'Celtic' began to refer primarily to 'speakers of Celtic languages' rather than to

2560-508: The Gauls claimed descent from an underworld god (according to Commentarii de Bello Gallico ), and linking it with the Germanic Hel . Others view it as a name coined by Greeks; among them linguist Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel , who suggests it meant "the tall ones". In the first century BC, Roman leader Julius Caesar reported that the Gauls called themselves 'Celts', Latin : Celtae , in their own tongue . Thus whether it

2624-514: The Greeks to apply this name for the type of Keltoi that they usually encountered". Because Classical writers did not call the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland Κελτοί ( Keltoi ) or Celtae , some scholars prefer not to use the term for the Iron Age inhabitants of those islands. However, they spoke Celtic languages, shared other cultural traits, and Roman historian Tacitus says

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2688-476: The Isle of Man. 'Celt' is a modern English word, first attested in 1707 in the writing of Edward Lhuyd , whose work, along with that of other late 17th-century scholars, brought academic attention to the languages and history of the early Celtic inhabitants of Great Britain. The English words Gaul , Gauls ( pl. ) and Gaulish (first recorded in the 16–17th centuries) come from French Gaule and Gaulois ,

2752-558: The West ", suggests proto-Celtic arose earlier, was a lingua franca in the Atlantic Bronze Age coastal zone, and spread eastward. Another newer theory, "Celtic from the Centre", suggests proto-Celtic arose between these two zones, in Bronze Age Gaul, then spread in various directions. After the Celtic settlement of Southeast Europe in the 3rd century BC, Celtic culture reached as far east as central Anatolia , Turkey . The earliest undisputed examples of Celtic language are

2816-471: The achievements of chiefs and warriors, and who committed to verse historical and traditional facts, religious precepts, laws, genealogies, etc." In medieval Gaelic and Welsh society, a bard ( Scottish and Irish Gaelic) or bardd ( Welsh ) was a professional poet, employed to compose elegies for his lord . If the employer failed to pay the proper amount, the bard would then compose a satire (c.f. fili , fáith ). In other Indo-European societies,

2880-454: The bards can be known only indirectly through mythological stories. The first mention of the bardic profession in Ireland is found in the Book of Invasions , in a story about the Irish colony of Tuatha Dé Danann (Tribe of Goddess Danu), also called Danonians. They became the aos sí (folk of the mound), comparable to Norse alfr and British fairy . During the tenth year of the reign of

2944-672: The burials "dated to roughly the time when Celts are mentioned near the Danube by Herodotus , Ramsauer concluded that the graves were Celtic". Similar sites and artifacts were found over a wide area, which were named the 'Hallstatt culture'. In 1857, the archaeological site of La Tène was discovered in Switzerland. The huge collection of artifacts had a distinctive style. Artifacts of this 'La Tène style' were found elsewhere in Europe, "particularly in places where people called Celts were known to have lived and early Celtic languages are attested. As

3008-602: The early 15th century. The last of the family to practise classical Gaelic poetry was Domhnall MacMhuirich, who lived on South Uist in the 18th century. In Gaelic-speaking areas , a village bard or village poet ( Scottish Gaelic : bàrd-baile ) is a local poet who composes works in a traditional style relating to that community. Notable village bards include Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna and Dòmhnall Ruadh Phàislig  [ gd ] . A number of bards in Welsh mythology have been preserved in medieval Welsh literature such as

3072-684: The early Celts comes from Greco-Roman writers, who often grouped the Celts as barbarian tribes. They followed an ancient Celtic religion overseen by druids . The Celts were often in conflict with the Romans , such as in the Roman–Gallic wars , the Celtiberian Wars , the conquest of Gaul and conquest of Britain . By the 1st century AD, most Celtic territories had become part of the Roman Empire . By c. 500, due to Romanisation and

3136-466: The last Belgic monarch, the people of the colony of Tuatha Dé Danann, as the Irish called it, invaded and settled in Ireland. They were divided into three tribes—the tribe of Tuatha who were the nobility, the tribe of De who were the priests (those devoted to serving God or De) and the tribe of Danann, who were the bards. This account of the Tuatha Dé Danann must be considered legendary; however

3200-408: The latter 20th century, when it was accepted that the oldest known Celtic-language inscriptions were those of Lepontic from the 6th century BC and Celtiberian from the 2nd century BC. These were found in northern Italy and Iberia, neither of which were part of the 'Hallstatt' nor 'La Tène' cultures at the time. The Urnfield-Hallstatt theory was partly based on ancient Greco-Roman writings, such as

3264-535: The lyrics in a medieval style, is known as bardcore . In 2023 Google released its AI chatbot Bard . List of oral repositories Oral repositories are people who have been trusted with mentally recording information constituting oral tradition within a society. They serve an important role in oral cultures and illiterate societies as repositories of their culture's traditional knowledge , values, and morals. People termed as "oral repositories" have been likened to "walking libraries", leading to

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3328-445: The migration of Germanic tribes, Celtic culture had mostly become restricted to Ireland, western and northern Britain, and Brittany . Between the 5th and 8th centuries, the Celtic-speaking communities in these Atlantic regions emerged as a reasonably cohesive cultural entity. They had a common linguistic, religious and artistic heritage that distinguished them from surrounding cultures. Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of

3392-610: The other being the fili . According to the Early Irish law text on status, Uraicecht Becc , bards were a lesser class of poets, not eligible for higher poetic roles as described above. However, it has also been argued that the distinction between filid (pl. of fili ) and bards was a creation of Christian Ireland, and that the filid were more associated with the church. By the Early Modern Period, these names came to be used interchangeably. Irish bards formed

3456-462: The presence of inscriptions. The modern idea of a Celtic cultural identity or "Celticity" focuses on similarities among languages, works of art, and classical texts, and sometimes also among material artefacts, social organisation , homeland and mythology . Earlier theories held that these similarities suggest a common "racial" ( race is now a contested concept) origin for the various Celtic peoples, but more recent theories hold that they reflect

3520-399: The same function was fulfilled by skalds , rhapsodes , minstrels and scops , among others. A hereditary caste of professional poets in Proto-Indo-European society has been reconstructed by comparison of the position of poets in medieval Ireland and in ancient India in particular. Bards (who are not the same as the Irish filidh or fili ) were those who sang the songs recalling

3584-600: The same origin, referring to the Gauls who invaded southeast Europe and settled in Galatia . The suffix -atai might be a Greek inflection. Linguist Kim McCone suggests it comes from Proto-Celtic *galatis ("ferocious, furious"), and was not originally an ethnic name but a name for young warrior bands . He says "If the Gauls' initial impact on the Mediterranean world was primarily a military one typically involving fierce young *galatīs , it would have been natural for

3648-463: The saying "whenever an old man dies, it is as though a library were burning down". Roles vary, and can be titular, formal or informal, some professional specialists such as the Caucasian ashik , or more commonly amateurs and knowledgeable generalists such as the bulaam of the Kuba people . Types of information held by oral repositories includes lineages , oral law , mythology , oral literature and oral poetry (of which oral history

3712-402: The story was an integral part of the oral history of Irish bards themselves. One of the most notable bards in Irish mythology was Amergin Glúingel , a bard, druid and judge for the Milesians . The best-known group of bards in Scotland were the members of the MacMhuirich family, who flourished from the 15th to the 18th centuries. The family was centred in the Hebrides , and claimed descent from

3776-491: The tradition of regularly assembling bards at an eisteddfod never lapsed and was strengthened by formation of the Gorsedd by Iolo Morganwg in 1792. Wales in the twentieth century is a leading Celtic upholder of the bardic tradition. The annual National Eisteddfod of Wales ( Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru ) (which was first held in 1880) is held in which bards are chaired (see Category:Chaired bards ) and crowned (see Category:Crowned bards ). The Urdd National Eisteddfod

3840-505: The tribal warriors' deeds of bravery as well as the genealogies and family histories of the ruling strata among Celtic societies. The pre-Christian Celtic people recorded no written histories; however, Celtic peoples did maintain an intricate oral history committed to memory and transmitted by bards and filid. Bards facilitated the memorization of such materials by the use of metre , rhyme and other formulaic poetic devices. In medieval Ireland, bards were one of two distinct groups of poets,

3904-532: The ways in which the Iron Age people of Britain and Ireland should be called Celts. In current scholarship, 'Celt' primarily refers to 'speakers of Celtic languages' rather than to a single ethnic group. The history of pre-Celtic Europe and Celtic origins is debated. The traditional "Celtic from the East" theory, says the proto-Celtic language arose in the late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of central Europe, named after grave sites in southern Germany, which flourished from around 1200 BC. This theory links

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3968-436: Was given to them by others or not, it was used by the Celts themselves. Greek geographer Strabo , writing about Gaul towards the end of the first century BC, refers to the "race which is now called both Gallic and Galatic ", though he also uses Celtica as another name for Gaul. He reports Celtic peoples in Iberia too, calling them Celtiberi and Celtici . Pliny the Elder noted the use of Celtici in Lusitania as

4032-501: Was preeminent in central Europe during the late Bronze Age , circa 1200 BC to 700 BC. The spread of iron-working led to the Hallstatt culture (c. 800 to 500 BC) developing out of the Urnfield culture in a wide region north of the Alps. The Hallstatt culture developed into the La Tène culture from about 450 BC, which came to be identified with Celtic art . In 1846, Johann Georg Ramsauer unearthed an ancient grave field with distinctive grave goods at Hallstatt , Austria. Because

4096-441: Was to praise their employers and damn those who crossed them. It was believed that a well-aimed bardic satire, glam dicenn , could raise boils on the face of its target. The bardic system lasted until the mid-17th century in Ireland and the early 18th century in Scotland. In Ireland, their fortunes had always been linked to the Gaelic aristocracy, which declined along with them during the Tudor Reconquest . The early history of

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