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A Brief History of the Irish Fili (Poet)

The Bard or Fili, as they were called in Ireland, were the poets, musicians, and keepers of tribal lore and genealogy. They were the keepers of the Word, which to the Celtic peoples was sacred and the source of all knowledge and magic. They believed it to be the very wellspring of life. It is because of this belief that the Druids never wrote any of their lore. Teaching other than by the spoken Word profaned the sacred knowledge.

Following the introduction of Christianity to Ireland the Druids lost much of their power and influence. The Poets, who up until this time had been subordinate to the Druids, took over many of the roles formally held only by the Druids. The Poets attained great power and influence and were both respected and feared. For though the Poet’s chief duty was to praise the king, the Poet also had the ability to satirize his enemies. This power of the Word was so powerful that the satire inflicted on a person could cause open sores to appear on the victim’s face, and could even cause death.
aned following the arrival of Christianity, the Filid were all too eager to take up the banner once carried so proudly by the Druid caste. Maybe the new “rulers” of the land didn’t see the Filid as threatening to the new religion. The Filid began to write and sing religious poetry instead of praising the rulers. Many of the traditional stories were altered to fit in with the new religious dogma. The Filid regulated themselves for centuries, and as with any self-regulated institution, there were the inevitable abuses of power. The Filid soon became so powerful that laws were passed to limit their power. Even with such laws in place, the Poet class was formidable, to say the least.

The art of the poet was rigidly structured, from the teaching of new Filid to the type and structure of the poetry and musical compositions. As an example, there were rules demanding a fixed number of lines in each verse of a poem, rules covering the number of syllables, and so on. The whole art was very advanced and structured and all teaching was done by rote–which is to say the student had to repeat the master’s lessons until he memorized them. Nothing was ever put into writing. It wasn’t until Cromwell invaded Ireland and the Filid sought safety in France that this rule was broken and many of the stories and poems we now have were finally written.

The training of a Fili lasted many years; the beginning student was called “Ollaire” and passed on to the other grades of “Tamhan” and “Drisac.” At these grades the student was expected to learn the basics of the art, including grammar and the Ogham, and they had to memorize 20 stories. Following completion of these tasks students were called “Anruth” and were expected to learn 95 more tales, as well as the place-name stories of Ireland, called “Dindshenchas,” and the forms of poetic composition and meter. Following this grade students were called “Eces” and “Fili,” passing through these two grades to be called “Ollamh,” which means “doctor of poetry.” By the time a student reached this grade, he was the master of more than 350 stories and poems. The symbol of the Filid was the bell branch; up to the grade of Anruth they carried the bronze branch; as Anruth they were entitled to carry a branch of silver; and finally as Ollamh, a golden branch.