A reference to Chaucerian mynstrels

I chose the name 'mynstrel' for my blog on Blogger, http://mynstrel.blogspot.com/, as a play on 'minstrel'.

I had proposed many more simple blog names, like songmaker, songmaster, singer, but those blogs were already taken on Blogger.

There are quite a few other 'mynstrels' operating on the web - some are musicians, some are computer specialists. So by taking the blog name mynstrel (without checking more fully!) I add to the confusion.

But here is an entertaining and much earlier use of the word 'mynstrel' from Chaucer's times ... in response to a competition by the Spectator Newspaper.

clipped from www.spectator.co.uk In Competition No 2560 you were invited to describe a visit to Glyndebourne or Glastonbury in the style of an author of your choice. The winners, printed below, get £25 each while the extra fiver goes to Brian Murdoch for his hilarious Chaucer. Whanne that the sumer shoures, lyke Noye’s fludde, Turneth fayr fields of tentes to seas of mudde, And whanne the raine still bucket-wise downfalles, Thanne longen folke to goon to festivalles, That they may wel disport themselves withal, At sexe and drugges, and eke with rockenrol. So with the yonge squires hied I me, As whilom Arthur did, to Glastonbury, To heare and see the famèd mynstrels playe Upon a stage two thousand yerd awaye. A wylde wyf ther was, Winehouse yclept, The whiche did sing, and as she sange she lept, Just when I came nye to her playing-place, And so she struck her ellebowe to my face, That I did falle, and laye ther al forlorn. Methinks anon I shall try Glyndebourne. Brian Murdoch/Geoffrey Chaucer