Crowning of the Bard

Ceremony in an eisteddfod or mòd
The Crowning of the Bard ( Coroni'r Bardd) (Crùn na Bàrdachd) is one of the most important events in a Welsh eisteddfod or Scottish Gaelic Mòd.

The most famous such ceremony takes place at the National Eisteddfod of Wales, and is normally on the Monday afternoon of Eisteddfod week (it was formerly held on the Tuesday). A new bardic crown is specially designed and made for each eisteddfod and is awarded to the winning entrant in the competition for the Pryddest, poetry written in free verse. According to Jan Morris, "When Welsh poets speak of Free Verse, they mean forms like the sonnet or the ode, which obey the same rules as English poesy. Strict Metres verse still honours the complex rules laid down for correct poetic composition 600 years ago." There are three judges and these have included past crowned bards, such as Mererid Hopwood and T. James Jones. The National Eisteddfod crown was first awarded in 1867. The crowning ceremony is presided over by the Archdruid, who invites one of the judges to read the adjudication and judges' comments before announcing the identity of the bard, using only the pen name that the winner has used when submitting the work. Up to this point, no one knows the true identity of the bard, who is asked to stand and is then escorted to the stage and crowned. Winning the "double" of bardic chair and crown at the same Eisteddfod is a feat that has only been achieved a handful of times in the history of the Eisteddfod. During the 1912 National Eisteddfod at Wrexham, T. H. Parry Williams achieved a double victory for the first time. Parry Williams later recalled returning home to Rhyd ddu, where had been working as a hired hand on the farm of a relative. Upon telling his employer of his double victory, Parry Williams was advised to, "seek grace." When Parry Williams then informed his employer that both victories had gained him £40, the relative shouted in angry disbelief, "Ac mi gwnest nhw i gyd ar dy din!!!" ('And you earned them all sitting on your arse!!!'). More recently, both Alan Llwyd and Donald Evans have won a double victory twice. In August 2018 the winner of the crown was awarded to Cardiff author, Catrin Dafydd, though during the ceremony the archdruid, Geraint Llifon, caused controversy by saying she couldn't have achieved this without men. Llifon later apologised.

According to Ronald Black, "In 1923, following the example of the Welsh Eisteddfod, An Comunn Gàidhealach simplified the structure of its annual poetry competitions into a single contest for a Bardic Crown (Crùn na Bàrdachd), the winner to be acknowledged as Bard of An Commun (Bàird a' Chomuinn Gàidhealaich) for the coming year. The man behind the move, not surprisingly, was Angus Robertson, then President of An Comunn. Offering a distinctive middle path between traditional and modern verse, the competition produced much work of note which deserves to be put into perspective (Many subsidiary prizes remained; Sorley Maclean won a junior one in 1928, while in 1946 Derick Thomson won a gold medal as the most distinguished entrant in the literary competitions generally). The Bard was crowned each year at the closing concert of the Mòd. Astonishingly, unlike in Wales, the winning poem itself formed no part of the proceedings In 1978 no award was made because not entry was of adequate quality. It was the second time in five years that this had happened, and in March 1979 An Comunn announced that the Bardic Crown would no longer be awarded." A watershed moment took place during the 2011 Royal National Mòd at Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, when the poetry of Lewis MacKinnon, composed in the Canadian Gaelic dialect spoken in Antigonish County, Nova Scotia, won the Bardic Crown. It was the first time in the history of the Mòd that such an award had been granted to a Gaelic poet from the Scottish diaspora.