Beer for the lads of the forest, mead for the gleeman, strong waters for the tinker, and wine for the rest.
Close to the corner of the chimney sat a middle-aged gleeman, clad in a faded garb of Norwich cloth, the tunic of which was so outgrown that it did not fasten at the neck and at the waist.
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.
"Why indeed?" asked the gleeman, taking a long drain at his tankard.
A general laugh followed this sally at the dentist's expense, in the midst of which the gleeman placed his battered harp upon his knee, and began to pick out a melody upon the frayed strings.
Here, it is true, were none of the appliances which popular merriment would so readily have found in the England of Elizabeth's time, or that of James -- no rude shows of a theatrical kind; no minstrel, with his harp and legendary ballad, nor
gleeman with an ape dancing to his music; no juggler, with his tricks of mimic witchcraft; no Merry Andrew, to stir up the multitude with jests, perhaps a hundred years old, but still effective, by their appeals to the very broadest sources of mirthful sympathy.
The Anglo-Saxon poems of Beowulf, the scop or
gleeman's tale and the fight at Finnesburg: With a literal translation, notes, glossary, etc.