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Updated: May 3, 2025
They were at home in the courtyards of castles and monasteries no less than in the midst of villages and towns, and, mounting on some slight knoll, they would entertain gentles and commoners with voice and violin. They are often introduced into the romances of early England, and many famous glee-maidens are found on the pages of history.
But when I got back to the Garter, what should I find but that poor old Martin had been stricken with the dead palsy while he was playing his rebeck, and would never twang a note more; and there was pretty Perronel weeping over him, and Nat Fire-eater pledging his word to give the old man bed, board, and all that he could need, if so be that Perronel should be trained to be one of his glee-maidens, to dance and tumble and sing.
Up with your nimble spirits, ye morrice-dancers, green men and glee-maidens, bears and wolves and horned gentlemen! Come! a chorus now rich with the old mirth of Merry England and the wilder glee of this fresh forest, and then a dance, to show the youthful pair what life is made of and how airily they should go through it!
Her second effort was a poetical rendering of many of Æsop's fables, done either as a favour or a tribute of love for her protector. This was followed by a translation of the Purgatory of St. Patrick in Ireland, taken from the Latin. Few of the glee-maidens were so richly gifted or so highly placed as Marie.
One of the most celebrated was Adeline, who lived in the time of William the Conqueror, and was successful enough to be rewarded by him with an estate. In the reign of Henry III. we find one really great figure among the glee-maidens, Marie de France.
In the wandering life that they led, they were often forced to take their wives and children along, and thus women grew accustomed to take some part in the performances. The glee-maidens were essentially an English institution, and no doubt they were more sure of courtesy and protection in that country than on the Continent. They were by far the most romantic figures of the minstrel world.
But she hands up an ivory bowl for contributions amongst the young dandies on the roof of a neighbouring coach, who have been listening open-mouthed to the siren, and shillings and half-crowns, and a bit of gold from the one last out of the Bench, pour into it; and she moves off, to make way for three French glee-maidens with a monkey and a tambourine, and the swells return to their cigars and their betting, and we are all attention for the next event on the card, because it is a gentlemen-riders' race; and the performances will consequently be as different as possible from what we have just seen.
But when I got back to the Garter, what should I find but that poor old Martin had been stricken with the dead palsy while he was playing his rebeck, and would never twang a note more; and there was pretty Perronel weeping over him, and Nat Fire-eater pledging his word to give the old man bed, board, and all that he could need, if so be that Perronel should be trained to be one of his glee-maidens, to dance and tumble and sing.
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