Excerpt from Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland, Vol. 1: Hitherto Unpublished Houses sanctuaries nay, in the height of their enmities, when they managed the cruellest wars one against another, and used their victories as severely, yet these Bards and their retinue had free liberty to pass and repass at their pleasure. The nobles when they came to them, received them honourably, and dis missed them with gifts. They made cantos, and these not inelegant, which the rhapsodists recited, either to the better sort, or else to the vulgar, who were very desirous to hear them, and sometimes they sung to musical instruments. They were often main. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.