Note 598 — Chapter X · HAPPY ENGLAND

The choral music of the Teutons did not create a favourable impression on the mind of Tacitus, vide his account of a primitive Hymn of Hate: “The Germans abound with rude strains of verse, the reciters of which, in the language of the country, are called Bards. With this barbarous poetry they inflame their minds with ardour in the day of action, and prognosticate the event from the impression which it happens to make on the minds of the soldiers, who grow terrible to the enemy, or despair of success, as the war-song produces an animated or a feeble sound. Nor can their manner of chanting this savage prelude be called the tone of human organs: it is rather a furious uproar; a wild chorus of military virtue. The vociferation used upon these occasions is uncouth and harsh, at intervals interrupted by the application of their bucklers to their mouths, and by the repercussion bursting out with redoubled force.”—Germania, I., iii., p. 313.