Crossword-Solution: MINSTREL 8 letters, 56 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 10

Here, it is true, were none of the appliances which popular merriment would so readily have found in the England of Elizabeth’s time, or that of James—no rude shows of a theatrical kind; no minstrel, with his harp and legendary ballad, nor gleeman with an ape dancing to his music; no juggler, with his tricks of mimic witchcraft; no Merry Andrew, to stir up the multitude with jests, perhaps a hundred years old, but still effective, by their appeals to the very broadest sources of mirthful sympathy.

Constance de Beverley and the minstrel girl in “The Fair Maid of Perth,” not the Duchesse de Langeais, were his heroines.

Ironically, the first professional entertainers to perform in minstrel shows were whites who were imitating plantation slave productions.

Wine and wassail,” he added, gravely casting up his eyes—“all the fault of wine and wassail!—I told Allan-a-Dale, the northern minstrel, that he would damage the harp if he touched it after the seventh cup, but he would not be controlled—Friend, I drink to thy successful performance.” So saying, he took off his cup with much gravity, at the same time shaking his head at the intemperance of the Scottish harper.

This is my weapon," said he, touching his fiddle, "and withal it is my field and mine acre that raiseth flesh-meat and bread for me: yea, and whiles a little drink." So they rode on together and the man was blithe and merry: and Ralph said to him: "Since we are fellows for a good while, as I suppose, what shall I call thee?" Said he, "Morfinn the Minstrel I hight, to serve thee, fair lord.