Bard
<p>In medieval <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaels" title="Gaels">Gaelic</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britons_%28historical%29" title="Britons (historical)" class="mw-redirect">British</a> culture, a <b>bard</b> was a professional story teller, verse-maker and music composer, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or noble), to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.</p>
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OED:
bard, n.1</p>
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(bɑːd)</p>
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5–; also 6–7 (Sc.) baird, 6 barth, 6–7 bardh.</p>
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[a. Gael. and Ir. bàrd:—OCelt. *bardo-s poet-singer, minstrel (whence Gr. βάρδος, L. bardus, as alien words, ‘bardus Gallice cantor appellatur, qui virorum fortium laudes canit,’ Festus). In Eng. originally only an alien word from the mod. Celtic vernaculars, i.e. in Scotland bard, baird from Gaelic, in England barth, bardh from Welsh bardd, and bard from Irish, employed as in contemporary Celtic usage; first naturalized in Scotland, and then by no means appreciative in its use (see sense 2); afterwards, under the influence of the βάρδος, bardus of the classical writers, adopted in Eng. literature as a historical and poetic term.]</p>
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1.1 An ancient Celtic order of minstrel-poets, whose primary function appears to have been to compose and sing (usually to the harp) verses celebrating the achievements of chiefs and warriors, and who committed to verse historical and traditional facts, religious precepts, laws, genealogies, etc. Still the word for ‘poet’ in modern Celtic languages; and in Welsh spec. A poet or versifier who has been recognized at the Eisteddfod.</p>
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2.2 In early Lowland Scotch used for: A strolling musician or minstrel (into which the Celtic bard had degenerated, and against whom many laws were enacted); in 16th c. a term of contempt, but idealized by Scott by association with 4.</p>
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3.3 Applied to the early versifying minstrels or poets of other nations, before the use of writing, as the Old English gleeman, Scandinavian scald, etc.</p>
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4.4 poet. A lyric or epic poet, a ‘singer’; a poet generally. [Chiefly after Lucan; quot. 1627 in 1.]</p>
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5.5 Comb., as bard-craft; bard-like adj.</p>