Eisteddfod

In Welsh culture, an eisteddfod is an institution and festival with several ranked competitions, including in poetry and music. The term eisteddfod, which is formed from the Welsh morphemes: eistedd, meaning 'sit', and fod, meaning 'be', means, according to Hywel Teifi Edwards, "sitting-together." Edwards further defines the earliest form of the eisteddfod as a competitive meeting between bards and minstrels, in which the winner was chosen by a noble or royal patron.

The first documented instance of such a literary festival and competition took place under the patronage of Prince Rhys ap Gruffudd of the House of Dinefwr at Cardigan Castle in 1176. However, with the Edwardian Conquest of Wales, the closing of the bardic schools, and the Anglicization of the Welsh nobility, it fell into abeyance. The current format owes much to an 18th-century revival, first patronized and overseen by the London-based Gwyneddigion Society. It was later co-opted by the Gorsedd Cymru, a secret society of poets, writers, and musicians founded by Iolo Morganwg, whose beliefs were "a compound of Christianity and Druidism, Philosophy and Mysticism."

Despite the Druidic influences and the demonstrably fictitious nature of Iolo Morganwg's doctrines, rituals, and ceremonies, both the Gorsedd and the eisteddfod revival were embraced and spread widely by Anglican and nonconformist clergy. The revival therefore proved enormously successful and is credited as one of the primary reasons for the continued survival of the Welsh language, Welsh literature, and Welsh culture after more than eight centuries of colonialism.

During his two 20th-century terms as Archdruid of the Gorsedd Cymru, Albert Evans-Jones, whose bardic name was Cynan and who was a war poet and minister of the Presbyterian Church of Wales, created new rituals for both the Gorsedd and the eisteddfod which are based upon the Christian beliefs of the Welsh people rather than upon Modern Druidry. After watching the initiation of Rowan Williams into the Gorsedd at the 2002 National Eisteddfod, Marcus Tanner wrote that the rituals "seemed culled from the pages of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings."

Since its 18th-century revival, the eisteddfod tradition has been carried all over the world by the Welsh diaspora. Today's eisteddfodau (plural form) and the National Eisteddfod of Wales in particular, are in equal parts a Renaissance fair, a Celtic festival, a musical festival, a literary festival, and "the supreme exhibition of the Welsh culture."

In some other countries, the term eisteddfod is used for performing arts competitions that have nothing to do with Welsh culture or the Welsh language. In other cases, however, the eisteddfod tradition has been adapted into other cultures as part of the ongoing fight to preserve endangered languages such as Irish, Cornish, Breton, Scottish Gaelic, Canadian Gaelic, Manx, Guernésiais, and Jèrriais.

As decreed by Iolo Morganwg during the late 18th century, each eisteddfod is proclaimed a year and a day prior to its opening day, by a herald from the Gorsedd Cymru.

The proclamation is to read as follows, "When the year of Our Lord ----, and the period of the Gorsedd of the Bards of Britain within the summer solstice, after summons and invitation to all to all of Wales through the Gorsedd Trumpet, under warning of a year and a day, in sight and hearing of lords and commons and in the face of the sun, the eye of light, be it known that a Gorsedd and Eisteddfod will be held at the town of ----, where protections will be afforded to all who seek privilege, dignity, and license in Poetry and Minstrelsy... And thither shall come the Archdruid and the Gorsedd and others, Bards and Licensiates of the Privilege and Robe of the Bards of the Isle of Britain, there to hold judgment of Chair and Gorsedd on Music and Poetry concerning the muse, conduct, and learning of all that may come to seek the National Eisteddfod honours, according to the privilege and customs of the Gorsedd of Bards of the Isle of Britain: