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NOTE ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS

The illustrations on pp. 28, 75, and 118 are taken from Royal MS. 10. E.

iv. (of the fourteenth century) in the British Museum, where they occur on folios 34 _verso_, 215 _recto_, and 254 _recto_ respectively. The designs in the original form a decorated margin at the foot of each page, and are outlined in ink and roughly tinted in three or four colours. Much use is made of them in the illustrations to J. J.

Jusserand's _English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages_, where M. Jusserand rightly points out that this MS. 'has perhaps never been so thoroughly studied as it deserves.'

GLASGERION

Ther herde I pleyen on an harpe That souned bothe wel and sharpe, Orpheus ful craftely, And on his syde, faste by, Sat the harper Orion, And Eacides Chiron, And other harpers many oon, And the Bret[A] Glascurion.

--Chaucer, _Hous of Fame_, III.

+The Text+, from the Percy Folio, luckily is complete, saving an omission of two lines. A few obvious corrections have been introduced, and the Folio reading given in a footnote. Percy printed the ballad in the _Reliques_, with far fewer alterations than usual.

+The Story+ is also told in a milk-and-water Scotch version, _Glenkindie_, doubtless mishandled by Jamieson, who 'improved' it from two traditional sources. The admirable English ballad gives a striking picture of the horror of 'churles blood' proper to feudal days.

In the quotation above, Chaucer places Glascurion with Orpheus, Arion, and Chiron, four great harpers. It is not improbable that Glascurion and Glasgerion represent the Welsh bard Glas Keraint (Keraint the Blue Bard, the chief bard wearing a blue robe of office), said to have been an eminent poet, the son of Owain, Prince of Glamorgan.

The oath taken 'by oak and ash and thorn' (stanza 18) is a relic of very early times. An oath 'by corn' is in _Young Hunting_.

[Footnote A: From Skeat's edition: elsewhere quoted 'gret Glascurion.']

GLASGERION

1.

Glasgerion was a king's own son, And a harper he was good; He harped in the king's chamber, Where cup and candle stood, And so did he in the queen's chamber, Till ladies waxed wood.

2.

And then bespake the king's daughter, And these words thus said she: ... ... ...