The near relationship of the north Englishmen with the Danes and their Scandinavian brothers is reflected both in popular songs and in the folk-lore. It is well known that the old Northmen were in a high degree lovers of minstrelsy. The Scandinavian kings were generally accompanied on their Viking expeditions by bards, who encouraged and cheered the champions with songs respecting the exploits of former times, and about every glorious deed that had been performed during the expeditions. These historical epics passed from mouth to mouth, and from generation to generation. Nor did the Scandinavian conqueror in foreign lands disdain to be celebrated by the bards of his native country. Canute the Great, who was himself a poet, placed the Scandinavian bard high in his hall; and numerous lays, which are still partly preserved in the Sagas, sounded his fame over the north. After the warlike life of heathenism had ceased, the poetical and historical talent of the people expressed itself in ballads and heroic songs, which, during the middle ages, succeeded the lays of the ancient bards. The old ballad, in its characteristic form, belongs peculiarly to the countries of Scandinavia; and it is very remarkable that the corresponding English ballads, which often, both in their prevailing tone and in their form—as, for instance, with regard to the burthen—betray a surprising similarity with the Scandinavian, are in England found exclusively in the north. They are, however, heard still more frequently in the Scotch Lowlands, whither great immigrations of Northmen also took place. In the north of England a very peculiar kind of song for two voices was also formerly heard, and which the English themselves ascribed to the Danes.