In the early ages, as was hinted above, the profession of oral itinerant Poet was
held in the utmost reverence among all the Danish tribes; and therefore we might have
concluded that it was not unknown or unrespected among their Saxon brethren in
Britain, even if history had been altogether silent on this subject. The original country
of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors is well known to have lain chiefly in the Cimbric
Chersonese, in the tracts of land since distinguished by the name of Jutland, Angelen,
and Holstein[7]. the Jutes and Angles in particular, who composed two-thirds of the
conquerors of Britain, were a Danish people, and their country at this day belongs to
the crown of Denmark;[8] so that when the Danes again infested England, three or
four hundred years after, they made war on the descendants of their own ancestors[9].
From this near affinity we might expect to discover a strong resemblance between
both nations in their customs, manners, and even language; and in fact we find them
to differ no more than would naturally happen between a parent country and its own
colonies, that had been severed in a rude, uncivilized state, and had dropt all
intercourse for three or four centuries; especially if we reflect that the colony here
settled had adopted a new religion, extremely opposite in all respects to the ancient
Paganism of the mother-country; and that even at first, along with the original Angli,
had been incorporated a large mixture of Saxons from the neighbouring parts of
Germany; and afterwards, among the Danish invaders, had come vast multitudes of
adventurers from the more northern parts of Scandinavia. But all these were only
different tribes of the same common Teutonic stock, and spoke only different dialects
of the same Gothic language.[10]
From this sameness of original and similarity of manners we might justly have
wondered if a character so dignified and distinguished among the ancient thanes as
the Scald or Bard had been totally unknown or unregarded in this sister nation. And
indeed this argument is so strong, and at the same time the early annals of the Anglo-
Saxons are so scanty and defective (G), that no objections from their silence could be
sufficient to overthrow it. For if these popular bards were confessedly revered and
admired in those very countries which the Anglo-Saxons inhabited before their
removal into Britain, and if they were afterwards common and numerous among the
other descendants of the same Teutonic ancestors, can we do otherwise than conclude
that men of this order accompanied such tribes as migrated hither; that they
afterwards subsisted here, though perhaps with less splendour than in the North; and
that there never was wanting a succession of them to hand down the art, though some
particular conjunctures may have rendered it more respectable at one time than
another? And this was evidently the case. For though much greater honours seem to
have been heaped upon the Northern Scalds, in whom the characters of historian,
genealogist, poet, and musician were all united, than appear to have been paid to the
Minstrels and Harpers (H) of the Anglo-Saxons, whose talents were chiefly calculated
to entertain and divert, while the Scalds professed to inform and instruct, and were at
once the moralists and theologues of their Pagan countrymen; yet the Anglo-Saxon
Minstrels continued to possess no small portion of public favour, and the arts they
professed were so extremely acceptable to our ancestors, that the wordGlee,which
peculiarly denoted their art, continues still in our own language to be of all others the
most expressive of that popular mirth and jollity, that strong sensation of delight,
which is felt by unpolished and simple minds (I).
II. Having premised these general considerations, I shall now proceed to collect from
history such particular incidents as occur on this subject; and, whether the facts
themselves are true or not, they are related by authors who lived too near the Saxon