fili

fili, file, filid (pl.), filidh (pl.). Member of a privileged, powerful caste of poets, diviners, and seers in early Ireland. To be distinguished from the lower-status bard and the brehon, whose learning dealt more with the law. Of the seven orders of fili, the ollam is the highest and most often cited. The simple translation of ‘poet’ is misleading, as much of the writing of the fili in his guise as senchaid [historian] was in prose, including sagas and romances, historical narratives, panegyrics, topography (see DINDSHENCHAS), genealogies, and especially satires, for which he was feared; the ModIr. file, however, may be glossed as ‘poet’. Although his calling was hereditary, each fili was attached to the household of a chief; being fili to the head of a clan was the prerogative of a particular family. Trained for at least twelve years in rigorous mental exercise, the fili might use an esoteric language, bérla na filed; his craft was filedecht. Some commentators have compared the status of the fili to the brahmin of India or to the Christian clergy of early modern Europe.

Bibliography

See Gerard Murphy , ‘Bards and filidh’, Eigse, 2 (1940), 200–7;
G. Turville-Petre , ‘On the Poetry of the Scalds and the Filid’, Ériu, 22 (1971), 1–22;
Liam Breatnach , Uraiceacht na Riar: The Poetic Grades in Early Irish Law (Dublin, 1987)

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