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Updated: June 26, 2025
Sorrow may be a softening medicine at last, but at first it is apt to be a hardening one; and that savage outlaw life which they were leading can never have been a wholesome one for any soul of man, and its graces must have existed only in the brains of harpers and gleemen.
To the right, upon a green mound of waste, within sight of the populous bridge, the gleemen were exercising their art. Here one dexterous juggler threw three balls and three knives alternately in the air, catching them one by one as they fell . There, another was gravely leading a great bear to dance on its hind legs, while his coadjutor kept time with a sort of flute or flageolet.
Out of the door backed Berthun with many bows, and loud sang the gleemen, while all in the hall stood up at once; and then came Alsi, leading the princess, first; and then Ragnar, with the wife of some great noble; and after him that noble and another lady; but Griffin was not there.
Gleemen sang in manlier tones of the long peace and glories of his reign, how warriors and wise counsellors stood round his throne, and Welsh and Scot and Briton obeyed him. His was the one figure that stood out bright against the darkness when England lay trodden under foot by Norman conquerors; and so dear became his memory that liberty and independence itself seemed incarnate in his name.
There were harpers and pipers and gleemen with their tabors; and for forty days a feast was held with rich meats in plenty and the wine flowed like water. And first the King made Robert and William Wendut and Hugh Raven barons, and gave them land and fee. Then when the feast was done, he set out with a thousand knights and five thousand sergeants to seek for Godard.
Osric only was not there, but on Alswythe's neck and arms shone presently wonderfully-wrought collar and bracelets of gold that he had sent, having had them made from the spoils of that tall viking chief that I had slain. Then was there feasting, and songs of gleemen, and, better still, that song of Stert fight sung by Alfred the Atheling himself in full hall.
Brother, the bards and the gleemen are an evil race, ever cursing and ever stirring up the people, and immoral and immoderate in all things, and heathen in their hearts, always longing after the Son of Lir, and Aengus, and Bridget, and the Dagda, and Dana the Mother, and all the false gods of the old days; always making poems in praise of those kings and queens of the demons, Finvaragh, whose home is under Cruachmaa, and Red Aodh of Cnocna-Sidhe, and Cleena of the Wave, and Aoibhell of the Grey Rock, and him they call Donn of the Vats of the Sea; and railing against God and Christ and the blessed Saints. While he was speaking he crossed himself, and when he had finished he drew the nightcap over his ears, to shut out the noise, and closed his eyes, and composed himself to sleep.
And so it was foreboded, ere he were born; so said him Merlin, that was a prophet great, that a king should come of Uther Pendragon, that gleemen should make a board of this king's breast, and thereto should sit poets most good, and eat their will, ere they thence departed, and wine-draughts out draw from this king's tongue, and drink and revel day and night; this game should last them to the world's end.
The deeds of Maori warriors are handed down in song; just as we find in Beowulf, the story of Hrothgar's ancestors was sung before his own companions-in-arms by his gleemen to the accompaniment of some instrument after the mead cup had gone round.
He ended, and our warriors rose and cheered both hero and singer, and when the noise ceased Ethelred gave Ottar his own bracelet; but to Olaf he gave his hand, and there in the presence of all the company thanked him for what he had wrought, giving more praise to him than Ottar had sung. Then sang the English gleemen of the deeds of Eadmund the Atheling, and all were well pleased.
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