That's brilliant JimC. I believe the Bards are supposed to have engaged in some kind of initiatory experience, where they would be subjected to incantatory style assaults on their person by their peers. Much in the same fashion as they talk of the feared cursing of Kings - which amounted to debasing his reputation in verse. I have a reference to one made in the supposed secret 'black speech' somewhere, which while superficially praising the King when decoded reads as a whole tirade of insults: "you house of tiny wine cups" and so-on.