Bardic Freedom (was RE: Hail Poetry!

[Mike Baker]

Tangwystyl (Heather Rose Jones) chided me:
>> <directly quotation here taken from W. Winwood Reade, _The Veil of Isis, 
or
>> Mysteries of the Druids_, Newcastle Publishing reprint [original pub. 
info.
>> not given in reprint], 1992, pg. 83>
> May I indulge in a little scholarly criticism here? All my "woo-woo"
> radar goes off at a title like "The Veil of Isis, or Mysteries of the
> Druids". How certain are you of the accuracy of this source? What do you
> know about _it's_ sources? A lot of the ... shall we say, "less rigorous"
> modern writings on druids use sources like Iolo Morgannwg (Edward
> Williams) who is infamous for having completely muddied the waters of
> research on bardic and druidic history with his forgeries and inventions.

Frankly, I cannot vouch completely for the accuracy of the work cited.  The 
*passage* quoted was consistent with oral tradition as I understand it.  I 
am not really satisfied with only being able to give the reprint pub. info. 
 But, this was the source at hand when I reached that place in the paper. 
 With your kind and indulgent assistance (the citation passed along 
yesterday), this will be a passage revised prior to the next release of the 
paper.

> Now, I could be completely wrong about the book in question.  But I don't
> know of any extant sources of "ancient British laws" earlier than the
> Hywel Dda tradition (unless "British" is being interpreted to include
> Anglo-Saxon, for which there are earlier codes available).

Herein I will admit to ignorance of the underlying source while repeating a 
lament: will we ever know just how much of the seminal material has been 
lost forever by the passing years and intolerant ancestors of our own age? 
 My own presumption is that the citation may extend to Anglo-Saxon as 
readily as the version I quoted may be an alternate (and decidedly 
questionable) translation of the passage you have provided from the Hywel 
Dda source.

I'm not an academic currently, but I do aspire to making as vigorous a 
defense of certain oral and personal traditions as I can.  I *am* aware of 
the limits of my researches; hopefully, I have and will continue to provide 
some degree of qualification to my statements where the sources used are in 
some doubt. It seems that I may need to strengthen the disclaimers used...

> I'll send you a catalog privately.

Received, and thanks. I'll consider my order carefully, but should be 
placing one soon.

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!