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The bold gleeman went out before the house, and waited, lest any more should come to fight. The king and his wife wailed loud. Maids and wives beat their breasts. I ween that Death had sworn an oath against them, for many a knight was yet to die by the hands of the strangers. Thirty-Sixth Adventure How the Queen Bad Them Burn Down the Hall "Now do off your helmets," said Hagen the knight.
At this moment they heard the rapid splash of a boat, manned by many rowers, behind, and a voice shouted aloud to the men on board the ship they had left: "Hast seen a boat with a gleeman and harp bearer?" "They have just left the ship." "Follow; they are English spies. Sweyn will give the weight of their heads in red gold."
One other thing we heard in Colchester, for we waited there for two days, resting our horses. There was a wandering gleeman who came into the marketplace on the hill top, and we stood and listened to him. And first he sang of how Danes had come and burnt Harwich town. But the people told him to sing less stale news than that, for Harwich was close at hand.
Thus pressed, the gleeman took his harp and sang an old Scandinavian song of the first sea king who invaded England, Ragnar Lodbrok. He told how the fierce Ragnar sailed for England, how his fleet was wrecked, but still how, with the relics of his forces, he assaulted Northumbria, and was taken captive by Ella the king, who threw him into a hole filled with vipers and toads.
There was no help for it; and commending courage with a significant look to his companion, the gleeman and Alfgar ascended. It was yet dark, and the language and appearance of each might pass tolerably under ordinary circumstances for the characters they had assumed. "Now a song, and we will keep it up till daylight."
Yeats's Gleeman, 'the whole Middle Ages under his frieze coat. The longer and more intimately we know these peasants, the more we realise how much in imagination, or in the clouds, if you will, they live.
This loud speech, coming from a man of so formidable an appearance, somewhat daunted the disloyal party, and they fell into a sullen silence, which enabled Alleyne to hear something of the talk which was going on in the further corner between the physician, the tooth-drawer and the gleeman.
"The four forest lads must be jogging soon," she said. "They bide at Emery Down, a mile or more from here. Yeomen prickers they are, who tend to the King's hunt. The gleeman is called Floyting Will. He comes from the north country, but for many years he hath gone the round of the forest from Southampton to Christchurch.
One was a cook, who "came to buy milk," says the chronicler; the other seemingly a gleeman. They told stories, jested, harped, sang, drank, and pleased much the garrison and Sir Robert, who let them hang about the place. They asked next, whether it were true that the famous Hereward was there? If so, might a man have a look at him?
"Ful oft of ð=am h=eape hw=inende fl=eag giellende g=ar on grome ð=eode." Full oft from that host hissing flew The whistling spear on the fierce folk. The gleeman ends this song with two thoughts characteristic of the poets of the Saxon race. He shows his love fur noble deeds, and he next thinks of the shortness of life, as he sings:
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