_pipere_, the player on the pipe or flute; _fithelere_, the fiddler; and _horn-blawere_, the horn-blower. The _gligman_, or _gleeman_, was the same who, at a later period, was called, in Latin, _joculator_, and, in French, a _jougleur_; and another performer, called _truth_, is interpreted as a stage player, but was probably some performer akin to the gleeman. The harp seems to have stood in the highest rank, or, at least, in the highest popularity, of musical instruments; it was termed poetically the _gleó-beam_, or the glee-wood. [Illustration: _No. 26. Anglo-Saxon Minstrels._] Although it was considered a very fashionable accomplishment among the Anglo-Saxons to be a good singer of verses and a good player on the harp, yet the professed minstrel, who went about to every sort of joyous assemblage, from the festive hall to the village wake, was a person not esteemed respectable. He was beneath consideration in any other light than as affording amusement, and as such he was admitted everywhere, without examination. It was for this reason that Alfred, and subsequently Athelstan, found such easy access in this garb to the camps of their enemies; and it appears to have been a common disguise for such purposes. The group given in the last cut (No. 26) are intended to represent the persons characterised in the text (of Prudentius) by the Latin word _ganeones_ (vagabonds, ribalds), which is there glossed by the Saxon term gleemen (_ganeonum_, _gliwig-manna_). Besides music and dancing, they seem to have performed a variety of tricks and jokes, to while away the tediousness of a Saxon afternoon, or excite the coarse mirth of the peasant. That such performers, resembling in many respects the Norman jougleur, were usually employed by Anglo-Saxons of wealth and rank, is evident from various allusions to them. Gaimar has preserved a curious Saxon story of the murder of king Edward by his stepmother (A.D. 978), in which the queen is represented as having in her service a dwarf minstrel, who is employed to draw the young king alone to her house. According to the Anglo-Norman relator of this story, the dwarf was skilled in various modes of dancing and tumbling, characterised by words of which we can hardly now point out the exact distinction, “and could play many other games.” _Wolstanet un naim aveit,_ _Ki baler e trescher saveit;_ _Si saveit sailler e tumber,_ _E altres gius plusurs juer._