they had something like what was
afterward called a burden, a refrain which, instead of coming in at
the end of the melody, was sung by a part of the singers continually
with it.

Nor was musical cultivation confined to England. In the eighth and
ninth centuries the Scandinavians had a civilization of considerable
vigor. The minstrels were called Scalds, polishers or smoothers of
language. Fetis well says: "As eminently poets and singers as they
were barbarians, they put into their songs a strength of ideas, an
energy of sentiment, a richness of imagination with which we are
struck even in translations, admittedly inferior to the originals. Not
less valiant than inspired, their scalds by turns played the harp,
raising their voices in praise of heroes, and precipitated themselves
into the combat with sword and lance, meeting the enemy in fiercest
conflict. Most that remains from these poet-minstrels is contained in
the great national collections called Eddas, of which the oldest
received their present form early in the eleventh century. The sagas
contained in the Eddas form but a mere fragment of this ancient
literature. More than 200 scalds are known by name as authors of
sagas. These warriors, so pitiless and ferocious in battle, show
themselves full of devotion to their families. They were good sons,
tender husbands and kind fathers. The Eddas contain pieces of singular
delicacy of sentiment." Their songs, when compared with those of other
races, are more musical, the sentiment is richer and more profound,
and the rhythms have more variety. The melodic intervals, also,
indicate a more delicate sense of harmony than we find in other parts
of Europe at so early a date. Their instrument was the harp. Iceland
was the foremost musical center of the civilized world in the ninth
century, and it is said that kings in other parts of Europe sent there
for capable minstrels to lead the music in the courts.

A very highly finished English composition, a round with strict canon
for four voices, with a burden of the kind already mentioned, repeated
over and over by two other voices has been discovered. It is the
famous "Summer is Coming In," composed, apparently, some time before
the year 1240.

On page 101 is given a reduced _fac simile_. It is written on a staff
of six lines, in the square notes of the Franconian period. The clef
is that of C. The asterisk at the end of the first phrase marks the
proper place of entrance for