Duty & Privilege for Bards

[Mike Baker]

mary k cummings wrote (in the bardic maillist):
> I would like to throw out an opinion and get reactions, if you good
> gentles would not mind.  (Yes, I have a bit of an ulterior motive,
> but...  Don't we all?) :)   Hmmmm.....  Phrasing....   Hmmmmm...
> A bard must satusfy both duty and privlidge within the bounds of
> ability.  It is a privlidge to entertain.  It is a duty to acknowledge
> the events of the day, both good and bad.

Privilege should only be accorded to bards worthy of the names and titles 
they have been *given* (i.e. acknowledged by others).  Duty holds 
requirements for every entertainer whether or not they aspire to the ranks 
of the "true" bards.

What are the duties? What are the privileges?  These are questions as old as 
the peoples that acknowledge the station and importance of bards.

I have available a scholarly-style paper on the subject, currently under 
revision to include literary proofs of female bards within the historical 
timeframe covered by the SCA (or pre-dating it a few centuries).  I spend 
the better part of forty pages of manuscript in examination, seeking to 
define bards by observation and usage, by comparison to other entertainers 
and by perusal of research materials. (I will announce availability of the 
revised text when it is completed.)

And with all this, I still quoted myself when it came time to define the 
duties of a bard.  Understand, I had written out a description for use as a 
"starter" in the preliminary of trying to work with a student at 
long-distance, via electronic BBS.  It was a simple manner to reshape that 
electronic message and include it as an appendix to the larger work.  BUT: 
the summary of duties I repeated in that way was essentially similar to the 
pledges made when I accepted a name.

To some extent, privilege is not essential to the bardic existence.  Duty is 
first, last, and ever foremost.  Privileges define where and how the bard 
interacts with his or her current community, and reinforce the role of bard 
as one who should "walk between" separate communities.  There are certain 
rights that, when accorded to an individual bard, may appear at first to be 
privilege.  They are in fact more an acknowledgement by the particular 
society of the worth of bards in their midst as a general class than any 
honor for a singular person.

Duty and Privilege: not so much what a bard thinks about as what a bard _IS_ 
. . .

Kihe Blackeagle (the Dreamsinger Bard)  s.k.a. Amr ibn Majid al-Bakri 
al-Amra
     currently residing in Barony of the Steppes, Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mike C. Baker                      mbaker at rapp.com
Any opinions expressed are obviously my own unless explicitly stated 
otherwise!