Standish O'Grady; selected essays and passages

84 STANDISH o'GRADY
the key to immense volume of semi-historic bardic
tradition. As intercourse increased between the various
nations and septs, and as the bards passed to and fro,
from assembly to assembly, the topical hero became of
provincial, if not national importance. No bard, not
stationary and attached to a single tribe, would obviously
be qualified to exercise his profession without an acquain-
tance with the accepted history of the gods and heroes
honoured in the localities which he visited. Now, though
the kings and warlike tribes regarded strife and conquest
as the chief end of existence, the bardic class was, to a
considerable extent, relieved from martial duties. To
engage in war was ever unbecoming to a bard, though
acquaintance with the bardic art was held honourable
in a warrior. Thus, the bards of ancient Ireland were
enabled to form themselves into a fraternity—a great
national guild. Caesar records this of the Gaulish
druids, and the fact is equally patent in the history of
Ireland.
It is, therefore, easy to conceive under such conditions
a local hero of more than ordinary fame, arising some-
times from the celebrity of the assemblies held around
his mound and sometimes from the prowess and conquests
of the tribes who held him in honour— growing to the
dimensions of a national hero ; though his achievements
may have been local, yet, their recital would have become
or have tended to become national. I believe that the
chief heroes of all the more important cemeteries, or
groups of mounds, were well known amongst the bards
pf the inland as 9 confraternity. Unconsciously then and