And never will we depart from thee
For better or worse, my joy!
For thou shalt still have our good-will,
God’s blessing on my sweet boy.”
And the author adds, “This song went up and down through the whole country, and at length became a dance among the common sort.”
The old heroic ballad was a geste, and the singer was a gestour. Chaucer speaks of—
“Jestours that tellen tales
Both of seeping and of game.”
The tales of game were stories calculated to provoke laughter, in which very often little respect was paid to decency; sometimes, however, they were satirical. These tales of game were much more popular than those of weeping, and the gestour, whose powers were mainly employed in scenes of conviviality, finding by experience that the long lays of ancient paladins were less attractive than short and idle tales productive of mirth, accommodated himself to the prevailing coarse taste, and the consequence was that nine of the pieces conceived in a light vein have been preserved to every one of the other.
In the “Rime of Sir Thopas,” Chaucer speaks of—