The people sang and played not only because they wanted to, or because they loved it, but because they were the newspaper and the radio of their time, singing the news and doings of the day. These minstrels who traveled from place to place “broadcasted” the events. No music was written down and no words were fastened by writing to any special piece. The singer would learn a tune and when he sang a long story (an epic) he would repeat the tune many times so it was necessary to find a pleasing melody, or singers would not have been very welcome in the courts and market places. These musical news columns entertained the people who had few amusements. The wandering minstrels with their harps or _crwth_ (Welsh harps), or whatever instrument they might have used in their particular country, were welcomed with open arms and hearts. This sounds as if these singers and players traveled, and indeed they did! They sprang up from all parts of Europe and had different names in different places. There were bards from Britain and Ireland, skalds from the Norse lands, minstrels from “Merrie England,” troubadours from the south of France, trouvères from the north of France, jongleurs from both north and south who danced and juggled for the joy of all who saw them, and minnesingers and meistersingers in Germany. DRUIDS AND BARDS Centuries before this, Homer the great Greek poet was called the Blind Bard and he chanted his poems, the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_, to the accompaniment of the lyre, the favorite instrument of the Greeks. But when we speak of bards in this chapter we mean the poets and musicians of ancient Britain, when that island was inhabited and ruled by the Druids, 1000 B.C. We do not know when the bards first began to make music or when they were first called bards, but it is certain that for many centuries before the Christian era, these rude, barbarous people of the countries we know as Wales, England, Ireland and Scotland, had many songs, dances and musical instruments. Look at a map of France, and see how much like a teapot it is shaped. The western part, the spout, is Brittany! As its name shows, this part of France was inhabited by the same race of people as were in Britain, they spoke the same language, had the same religion and made the same music. These people were Celts and their priests were called Druids. Much we said about primitive people is true of these early Britons. They expressed their feelings, and tried to protect themselves from Nature and human foes by means of religious rites and ceremonies in which music and dancing played the leading part.