Eisteddfod

Eisteddfod (from a Welsh word meaning a sitting) is the name of a Welsh congress called together for the purpose of musical, poetical, and literary competition, and having for its main object the keeping alive of the national language and customs. In former times the places of meeting were in different districts of Wales according to the place of the bards. Commissions from the kings of Wales, and later from the kings of England, appointed the judges down to 1568, when the custom of holding Eisteddfodau died out, to be revived in recent years. In 1887 an Eisteddfod was held in London, and Englishmen were astonished, if not edified, to see the solemn opening of the session inaugurated by the Druids in Gorsedd, each on his proper stone in the circle.