drawings of the Saxon gleeman from some ancient MSS. I will add his description of the figures.

"We there see a man throwing three balls and three knives alternately into the air, and catching them one by one as they fall, but returning them again in rotation. To give the greater appearance of difficulty to this part, it is accompanied with the music of an instrument resembling the modern violin. It is necessary to add, that these two figures, as well as those dancing, previously mentioned, form a part only of two larger paintings, which, in their original state, are placed as frontispieces to the Psalins of David; in both, the artists have represented that monarch scated upon his throne, in the act of playing upon the harp or lyre, and surrounded by the masters of sacred music. In addition to the four figures upon the middle of the plate, and exclusive of the king, there are four more, all of them instrumental performers; one playing upon the horn, another upon the trumpet, and the other two upon a kind of tabor or drum, which, however, is beaten with a single drumstick. The manuscript in which this illumination is preserved, was written as early as the eighth century. The second painting, which is more modern than the former by two full centuries, contains four figures besides the royal psalmist: the two not engraved are musicians; the one is blowing a long trumpet, supported by a staff he holds in his left hand, and the other is winding a crooked horn. In a short prologue immediately preceding the Psalms, we read as follows: David, filius Jesse, in regno suo, quatuor elegit qui Psalmos fecerunt, id est Asaph, Æman, Æthan, et Iduthan; which may be thus translated literally: David, the son of Jesse, in his reign, elected four persons who composed psalms; that is to say, Asaph, Æman, Æthan, and Iduthan. In the painting, these four names are separately appropriated, one to each of the four personages there represented. The player upon the violin is called Iduthan, and Ethan is tossing up the knives and balls."s

Another passage may be cited from the same industrious and worthy author.

"One part of the gleeman's profession, as early as the tenth century, was teaching animals to dance, to tumble, and to put themselves into a variety of attitudes at the command of their masters. Upon the twenty-second plate we see the curious though rude delineation, being little more than an outline, which exhibits a specimen of this pastime. The principal joculator appears in the front, holding a knotted switch in one hand, and a line attached to the bear in the other; the animal is lying down in obedience to his command; and behind them are two more figures, the one playing upon two flutes or flageolets, and elevating his left leg while he stands upon his right, supported by a staff that passes under his arm-pit; the other dancing. This performance takes place upon an eminence resembling a stage, made with earth; and in the original a vast concourse are standing round it in a semicircle as spectators of the sport, but they are so exceedingly ill drawn, and withal so indistinct, that I did not think it worth the pains to copy them. The dancing, if I may so call it, of the flute-player, is repeated twice in the same manuscript. I have thence selected two other figures, and placed them upon the seventeenth plate, where we see a youth playing upon a harp with only four strings, and apparently singing at the same time; while an elderly man is

f Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, 132, 133. This book was the last publication of this worthy and industrious man.

Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 134.

performing the part of a buffoon, or posture-master, holding up one of his legs, and hopping upon the other to the music."

hיי

In a Latin MS. of Prudentius, with Saxon notes, there is a drawing which seems to represent a sort of military dance exhibited for public amusement.

"Two men equipped in martial habits, and each of them armed with a sword and shield, are engaged in a combat; the performance is enlivened by the sound of a horn; the musician acts in a double capacity, and is, together with a female assistant, dancing round them to the cadence of the music, and probably the actions of the combatants were also regulated by the same measure."

We may remark, that the word commonly used in Anglo-Saxon to express dancing, is the verb cumbian. The Anglo-Saxon version of the Gospels mentions that the daughter of Herodias tumbude before Herod; and the Anglo-Saxon word for dancer is tumbeɲe. It is probable that their mode of dancing included much tumbling.

We may infer that bear-baiting was an amusement of some importance to our ancestors, as it is stated in Doomsday-book, among the annual payments from Norwich, that it should provide one bear, and six dogs for the bear.

It was in the character of a gleeman, or, as it was expressed in the Latin term, joculator, that Alfred visited the Danish encampment. That these persons were not only valued, but well rewarded in their day, we learn from a curious fact: Edmund the son of Ethelred gave a villa to his gleeman, or joculator, whose name was Hitard. This gleeman, in the decline of life, went on a visit of devotion to Rome, and previous to his journey gave the land to the church at Canterbury. In Doomsday-book, Berdic, a joculator of the king, is stated to have possessed three villas in Gloucestershire.

The Anglo-Saxons used a game at hazard, which they called carl. The tapfl-rtan, or tæpl-rtone, was the die. The canons of Edgar forbid priests to be tæplepe, or players at the tæpl There is a passage which may be noticed on this subject concerning Canute: A bishop having made a lucrative bargain with a drunken Dane, rode in the night to the king to borrow money

b Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 134. He adds in a note, that "both these draw. ings occur in a MS. Psalter, written in Latin, and apparently about the middle of the tenth century. It contains many drawings, all of them exceedingly rude, and most of them merely outlines. It is preserved in the Harleian library, and marked 603." His twenty-second plate is in the 182d page of his work; his seventeenth plate in p. 132, to which we refer the reader.

i Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 166. His plate of it is p. 162. The MS. is in the Cotton Lib. Cleop. C. 8.

j Dugdale Mon.

21. p.

k

Spelm. Concil. p. 455.

to fulfil his contract: it says, "he found the king alleviating the tedium of a long night by the play of tesserarum, or scaccorum;" he was successful in his application. Whether this play was the tærl, or any other game more resembling chess, is not clear.

One of their principal diversions was hunting. This is frequently mentioned. A king is exhibited by Bede as standing at the fire with his attendants, and warming himself after hunting." Alfred is praised by his friend Asser for his incomparable skill and assiduity in the arts of the chase." He is stated to have gone as far as Cornwall to enjoy it. The hunt of Edmund, the grandson of Alfred, at Ceoddri, is thus described by a contemporary:

"When they reached the woods, they took various directions among the woody avenues; and lo, from the varied noise of the horns and the barking of the dogs, many stags began to fly about. From these, the king, with his pack of hounds, selected one for his own hunting, and pursued it long through devious ways with great agility on his horse, and with the dogs following. In the vicinity of Ceoddri were several abrupt and lofty precipices hanging over profound declivities. To one of these the stag came in his flight, and dashed himself down the immense depth with headlong ruin, all the dogs following and perishing with him. The king, pursuing the animal and the hounds with equal energy, was rushing onwards to the precipice: he saw his danger, and struggled violently to stop his courser; the horse disobeyed awhile his rein: he gave up the hope of life, he recommended himself to God and his saint, and was carried to the very brink of destruction before the speed of the animal could be checked. The horse's feet were trembling on the last turf of the precipice, when he stopped."P

In the Saxon dialogues above mentioned, we have this conversation on hunting: "I am a hunter to one of the kings.”—“How do you exercise your art?" "I spread my nets, and set them in a fit place, and instruct my hounds to pursue the wild deer till they come to the nets unexpectedly, and so are entangled; and I slay them in the nets."-" Cannot you hunt without nets?" "Yes; with swift hounds I follow the wild deer."—" What wild deer do

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you chiefly take?" Harts, boars, and raindeer (rana,) and goats, and sometimes hares."-"Did you hunt to-day?" "No, because it was Sunday; but yesterday I did. I took two harts and one boar."—" How?" "The harts in nets, the boar I slew." -"How dared you slay him?" "The hounds drove him to me, and I, standing opposite, pierced him."—" You were bold." "A hunter should not be fearful, because various wild deer live in the woods."-"What do you do with your hunting?" "I give the king what I take, because I am his huntsman."" What does he give thee?" "He clothes me well, and feeds me, and sometimes gives me a horse or a bracelet, that I may follow my art more lustily."

We have a little information about the royal hunting in Doomsday-book. When the king went to Shrewsbury to hunt, the most respectable burghers who had horses served as his guard, with arms; and the sheriffs sent thirty-six men on foot, to be stationed at the hunt while the king was there. In Hereford, every house sent a man, to be stationed in the wood whenever the king hunted. Among the drawings in the Saxon calendar in the Cotton library, Tib. B. 5, the month of September represents a boar-hunt: a wood appears, containing boars; a man is on foot with a spear; another appears with a horn slung and applied to his mouth; he has also a spear, and dogs are following.

Hunting was forbidden by Canute on a Sunday.

Every man

was allowed to hunt in the woods, and in the fields that were his own, but not to interfere with the king's hunting."

Hawks and falcons were also favourite subjects of amusement, and valuable presents in those days, when, the country being much overrun with wood, every species of the feathered race must have abounded. A king of Kent begged of a friend abroad two falcons of such skill and courage as to attack cranes willingly, and, seizing them, to throw them to the ground. He says, he makes this request, because there were few hawks of that kind in Kent who produced good offspring, and who could be made agile and courageous enough in this art of warfare. Our Boniface sent, among some other presents, a hawk and two falcons to a friend;t and we may infer the common use of the diversion from his forbidding his monks to hunt in the woods with dogs, and from having hawks and falcons." An Anglo-Saxon, by his will gives two hawks (harocar), and all his stag-hounds (heador hundas), to his natural lord. The sportsmen in the train of the great were so onerous on lands, as to make the exemption of their visit a valuable privilege. Hence a king liberates some lands from those who carry with them hawks or falcons, horses or dogs." The Saxon calendar, in its drawings, represents hawking in the month of October.

Hunting and hawking were for many ages favourite diversions in this island. In the tapestry of Bayeux, Harold appears with his hawk upon his hand. Ethelstan made North Wales furnish him with as many dogs as he chose," whose scent-pursuing noses might explore the haunts and coverts of the deer;" and he also exacted birds, "who knew how to hunt others along the atmosphere." A nobleman is mentioned, who frequented his estates near woods and marshes, because it was convenient for hunting and hawking. This was the fashion of the times; and even the

meek and impassive Edward the Confessor is exhibited as pursuing his deer when he was thwarted by a rustic whom he desired to punish, but that his simple mind knew not that he had the power. The chief delights of this king were, the coursing of swift hounds, whose clamour during the sport he was eager to cheer, and the flights of birds whose nature it is to pursue their kindred prey. Every day, after his morning devotions, he indulged in these exercises."

The Saxon dialogues thus speak of the fowler: How do you deceive fowls?' "Many ways; sometimes with nets, sometimes with gins, sometimes with lime, sometimes whistling, sometimes with hawks, sometimes with traps."— Have you a hawk? “I have."-Can you tame them?'"I can; what use would they be to me, if I could not tame them ?"-'Give me a hawk.' “I will give it willingly, if you will give me a swift hound; which hawk will you have, the greater or the less?" The greater; how do you feed them?" They feed themselves and me in winter, and in spring I let them fly to the woods. I take for myself young ones in harvest, and tame them.”—And why do you let them fly from you when tamed?' "Because I will not feed them in summer, as they eat too much."-But many feed and keep them tame through the summer, that they may again have them ready.' "So they do, but I will not have that trouble about them, as I can take many others."

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CHAPTER VIII.

Their Marriages.

It is well known that the female sex were much more highly valued, and more respectfully treated, by the barbarous Gothic nations, than by the more polished states of the East. Among the Anglo-Saxons, they occupied the same important and independent rank in society which they now enjoy. They were allowed to possess, to inherit, and to transmit landed property; they shared in all the social festivities; they were present at the witena-gemot and the shire-gemot; they were permitted to sue and be sued in the courts of justice; their persons, their safety, their liberty, and their property, were protected by express laws; and they possessed all that sweet influence which, while the human

z Malmsb. lib. ii. c. 13. p. 79.

a Ibid.

p.

91.

b Cotton MS. Tib. A. 3.