Tallen Cyenns, The Tale Of The Bean Sidhe

It is found written in the Scrolls of Taloned Claws a story of where Tallen remembered a time when he and his longtime friend John FitzStephen were out on a few night patrols in the lands where there was often blowing blinding snows with sub-zero temperatures and they heard the sounds that closely resembled the wailing of a "Bean Sidhe", popularly known as a Banshee. This is a spirit that will visit a household and by wailing it warns of a family member is about to die. Some think that when a Banshee is caught, it is obliged to tell the name of the doomed. The antiquity of this concept is vouched for by the fact that the Morrigan, in a poem from the 8th century, is described as washing spoils and entrails. It was believed in County Clare that Richard the Clare, the Norman leader of the 12th century, had met a horrible beldame, washing armor and rich robes "until the red gore churned in her hands", who warned him of the destruction of his host.

The Bean Sidhe has long streaming hair and is dressed in a gray cloak over a green dress. Her eyes are fiery red from the constant weeping. When multiple Banshees wail together, it will herald the death of someone very great or holy. Although not always seen, the Bean Sidhe mourning call is heard, usually at night when someone is about to die. In 1437, King James I of Scotland was approached by an Irish seeress or banshee who foretold his murder at the instigation of the Earl of Atholl. This is an example of the Bean Sidhe in human form. There are records of several the human banshees or prophetesses attending the great houses of Ireland and the courts of local Irish kings. In some parts of Leinster, she is referred to as the "Bean Chaointe" or keening woman, whose wail can be so piercing that it shatters glass.

When Tallen was a child of twelve and living in that region far north of where his family had lived for most of his life he remembers hearing this similar sound for the very first time. As it was at night and there was a storm approaching he recalls that his oldest sister had told him it was the spirit of the "Bard of Laden" walking the lands being burdened, or heavily weighed down, in looking for someone to tell his stories to. In medieval Ireland, bards were one of two distinct groups of poets, the other being the fili. According to the Early Irish law text on status, Uraicecht Becc, bards were a lesser class of poets, not eligible for higher poetic roles as described above. However, it has also been argued that the distinction between filid (pl. of fili) and bards was a creation of Christian Ireland, and that the filid were more associated with the church. By the Early Modern Period, these names came to be used interchangeably. Irish bards formed a professional hereditary caste of highly trained, learned poets. The bards were steeped in the history and traditions of clan and country, as well as in the technical requirements of a verse technique that was syllabic and used assonance, half rhyme and alliteration, among other conventions. As officials of the court of king or chieftain, they performed a number of official roles. They were chroniclers and satirists whose job it was to praise their employers and damn those who crossed them. It was believed that a well-aimed bardic satire, glam dicenn, could raise boils on the face of its target.

The bardic system lasted until the mid-17th century in Ireland and the early 18th century in Scotland. In Ireland, their fortunes had always been linked to the Gaelic aristocracy, which declined along with them during the Tudor Reconquest. The early history of the bards can be known only indirectly through mythological stories. The first mention of the bardic profession in Ireland is found in the Book of Invasions, in a story about the Irish colony of Tuatha De Danann (Peoples of Goddess Danu), also called Danonians. They became the aos sí (folk of the mound), comparable to Norse alfr and British fairy. During the tenth year of the reign of the last Belgic monarch, the people of the colony of Tuatha De Danann, as the Irish called it, invaded and settled in Ireland. They were divided into three tribes, the tribe of Tuatha who were the nobility, the tribe of De who were the priests, those devoted to serving God or De, and the tribe of Danann, who were the bards. This account of the Tuatha De Danann must be considered legendary; however the story was an integral part of the oral history of Irish bards themselves. In medieval Gaelic and British culture, a bard 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. Originally a specific, lower class of poet, contrasting with the higher rank known as fili in Ireland and Highland Scotland, with the decline of living bardic tradition in the modern period the term "bard" acquired generic meanings of an author or minstrel, especially a famous one. For example, William Shakespeare, and Rabindranth Tagore, are known as the "Bard of Avon" and the "Bard of Bengal" respectively.