"To Miss Hermione Jean Granger, I leave my copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, in the hope that she will find it entertaining and instructive.”
-- From the Will of Albus Dumbledore (DH7)
Beedle the Bard was the accredited author of wizarding children’s fairy tales.
His stories include "The Fountain of Fair Fortune," "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot," "The Warlock's Hairy Heart," "Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump" (thought to be the first known literary reference to Animagi) and "The Tale of the Three Brothers." The five stories were collected in a book entitled The Tales of Beedle the Bard that was given to Hermione Granger by Dumbledore (DH7, DH21, TBB).
Based on his stories, he seems to have been fond of Muggles and mistrustful of Dark magic. He was born in Yorkshire.
Commentary
Etymology
"Beedle" = probably from beadle (n.) Old English bydel "herald, messenger from an authority, preacher," from beodan "to proclaim"
"Beedle" may also be a play-on-words of "Saint Bede" otherwise known as "The Venerable Bede," an English monk born in 673, who lived in the aptly named village of Monkwearmouth in Durham, Northumbria. He wrote books about the history of the world, as well as religious allegories and commentaries. Bede is best known for his Ecclesiastical History of the English People from 731, which was written with the help of another abbot, Albinus of Canturbury (just as "Albus" Dumbledore wrote commentary for Beedle's Tales of Beedle the Bard).