Banba

[I] A triune goddess with Banba, Fótla, and Éire representing the sovranty and spirit of Ireland. She was the wife of Mac Cuill, son of Ogma. Her name has been used over the centuries as one of the symbols for “Mother Ireland.”

Bard

A class of poets known throughout the ancient Celtic world. Bards, poets, and minstrels held a high position in Celtic society and were closely associated with the druids. Diodorus Siculus observed: “They have also lyric poets whom they call bards. They sing to the accompaniment of instruments resembling lyres, sometimes a eulogy and sometimes a satire.” The bards were a highly trained and professional group—the repositories of Celtic history, legend, and folklore as well as poetry. They were under the patronage of chieftains and kings. Marcus Porcius Cato (234–149 b.c.) remarks on the sophistication of Celtic eloquence and rhetoric. Poseidonius (ca. 135–50 b.c.), quoted by Athenaeus (ca. a.d. 200), records an incident that might well have come straight out of the Celtic mythological tales. A feast was given in Gaul by a chieftain named Louernios, whose name means “fox.”

A Celtic poet who arrived too late met Louernios and composed a song magnifying his greatness and lamenting his own late arrival. Louernios was very pleased and asked for a bag of gold and threw it to the poet, who ran beside his chariot. The poet picked it up and sang another song saying that the very tracks of Louernios’ chariot on the earth gave gold and largesse to mankind.

But the bards were also powerful and in one myth, a satire composed by the bard Fafne, caused blotches to appear on the face of Meilge, the king. See also Filidh. Bardic schools flourished in historical Ireland and were finally suppressed in the seventeenth century.

Bardsey

[W] Bardsey Island—Ynys Enlli in Welsh—lies off the extreme western end of the Lleyn Peninsula, in Gwynedd. It is the island where Merlin, with nine attendants and the thirteen treasures of Britain, eventually goes and is held in a magical sleep for all time. See Myrddin. The island later became known as the “holy island of saints,” for here the Celtic saint Dyfrig (Dubricius), a major church leader of the second half of the fifth century, spent his last