e they sent over sea to the bookbinders, not in small numbers,
but at times whole ships full, to the wonder of foreign nations."

The Anglo-Saxon Scop and Gleeman.--Our earliest poetry was made
current and kept fresh in memory by the singers. The kings and nobles
often attached to them a _scop_, or maker of verses. When the
warriors, after some victorious battle, were feasting at their long
tables, the banquet was not complete without the songs of the _scop_.
While the warriors ate the flesh of boar and deer, and warmed their
blood with horns of foaming ale, the _scop_, standing where the blaze
from a pile of logs disclosed to him the grizzly features of the men,
sang his most stirring songs, often accompanying them with the music
of a rude harp. As the feasters roused his enthusiasm with their
applause, he would sometimes indulge in an outburst of eloquent
extempore song. Not infrequently the imagination of some king or noble
would be fired, and he would sing of his own great deeds.

We read in _Beowulf_ that in Hrothgar's famous hall--

"...eth=aer was hearpan sw=eg,
swutol sang scopes."

...there was sound of harp
Loud the singing of the scop.

In addition to the _scop_, who was more or less permanently attached
to the royal court or hall of a noble, there was a craft of gleemen
who roved from hall to hall. In the song of _Widsieth_ we catch a
glimpse of the life of a gleeman:--

"Sw=a scriethende gesceapum hweorfaeth
gl=eomen gumena geond grunda fela."

Thus roving, with shaped songs there wander
The gleemen of the people through many lands.

The _scop_ was an originator of poetry, the gleeman more often a mere
repeater, although this distinction in the use of the terms was not
observed in later times.

The Songs of Scop and Gleeman.--The subject matter of these songs
was suggested by the most common experiences of the time. These were
with war, the sea, and death.

[Illustration: ANGLO-SAXON GLEEMAN. _From the tapestry designed by
H.A. Bone_.]

The oldest Anglo-Saxon song known, which is called _Widsieth_ or the
_Far Traveler_, has been preserved in the _Exeter Book_. This song was
probably composed in the older Angle-land on the continent and brought
to England in the memories of the singers. The poem is an account of
the wanderings of a gleeman over a great part of Europe. Such a song
will mean little to us unless we can imaginatively represent the
circumstances under which it was