An
eisteddfod (; plural
eisteddfodau ) is a
Welsh festival of
literature,
music and
performance. The tradition of such a meeting of Welsh artists dates back to at least the 12th century, when a festival of poetry and music was held by
Rhys ap Gruffydd of
Deheubarth at his court in
Cardigan in 1176 but, with the decline of the
bardic tradition, it fell into
abeyance. The present-day format owes much to an eighteenth-century revival arising out of a number of informal eisteddfodau. The closest English equivalent to
eisteddfod is "session"; the word is formed from two
Welsh morphemes:
eistedd, meaning "sit", and
bod, meaning "be".