438 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



More coherent evidence concerning the differentiation of the poet 

 from the priest is hardly to be expected where, instead of a con- 

 tinuous evolution of one society, we have an agglomeration of 

 societies, in which the conquering society from the beginning 

 incorporated other ideas and usages with its own. 



When, from Southern Europe of early days, we turn to North- 

 ern Europe, we meet, in Scandinavia, with evidence of a connec- 

 tion between the primitive poet and the medicine-man. Speaking 

 of the " diviners, both male and female, honored with the name of 

 prophets," who were believed to have power to force the ghosts of 

 the "dead to tell them what would happen," Mallet says that 

 " poetry was often employed for the like absurd purposes : " these 

 same skalds or bards were supposed to achieve this end " by force 

 of certain songs which they knew how to compose." At the same 

 time that these poets and musicians of the ancient northern na- 

 tions invoked the spirits of the departed in verses which most 

 likely lauded them, they " were considered as necessary appendages 

 to royalty, and even the inferior chieftains had their poets." The 

 Celts had kindred functionaries, whose actions were evidently 

 similar to those of the Greek priest-poets. Says Pelloutier, basing 

 his statement on Strabo, Lucan, and others : 



"Les Bardes, qui faisoient [des] Hymnes, etoient Poetes et Musiciens; 

 ils composoient les paroles, et l'air sur lequel on les chantoit." 

 The use of the word "hymnes" apparently implying that their 

 songs had something of a sacred character. That the connection 

 between poet and priest survived, or was re-established, after 

 paganism had been replaced by Christianity, there is good evi- 

 dence. In the words of Mills 



" Every page of early European history attests the sacred consideration 

 of the minstrel ; " his peculiar dress " was fashioned like a sacerdotal robe." 

 And Fauriel asserts that 



" Almost all the most celebrated troubadours died in the cloister and under 

 the monk's habit." 



But it seems a probable inference that after Christianity had sub- 

 jugated paganism, the priest-poet of the pagans, who originally 

 lauded now the living chief and now the deified chief, gradually 

 ceased to have the latter function and became eventually the 

 ruler's laureate. "We read that 



" A joculator, or bard, was an officer belonging to the court of William 

 the Conqueror." 



" A poet seems to have been a stated officer in the royal retinue when 

 the king went to war." 



And among ourselves such official laureateship still survives, or 

 is but just dying. 



While the eulogizer of the visible ruler thus became a court- 

 functionary, the eulogizers of the invisible ruler no longer an 



