"There I saw playenge jongeleurs, Magiciens, tregeteours, Phetonysses,charmeresses, Old witches, sorceresses;" spoke Geoffrey Chaucer, according to the most trustworthy traditions – born in 1328

"The Testament of Love," Said Geoffrey. "The city of London, that is to me so dear and sweet, in which I was forth growen; and more kindly love,” says he, "have I to that place than to any other in earth; as every kindly creature hath full appetite to that place of his kindly engendrure, and to will rest and peace in that place to abide."

Then I went up the hill and found on top an abode such that all the men alive would have no cunning to describe the beauty of it, nor could devise a plan to make such another, its match in beauty and so wondrously wrought; it still astonies my mind and makes all my wit labor, to think on this castle. The great art and beauty, the plan and curious workmanship, I cannot describe to you my wit suffices not. Nevertheless all the substance thereof I have yet in my remembrance. For it seemed to me, … There I heard Orpheus playing full skillfully upon a harp like apes, or as art counterfeits nature. Then I saw standing behind them, far away and all by themselves, many scores of thousands, who made loud minstrelsy with bagpipes and shawms and many other kinds of pipes, and skilfully played both them of clear and them of reedy sound, such as be played at feasts with the roast-meat, and many a flute and lilting- horn and pipes made of green stalks,

all was of beryl, without piecing or joints; both castle and tower and hall and every chamber.

It is a good argument, and be eve, as I have said: What would soar higher? …and said, “Now by your faith, town or house or any other thing. And when straightway shall tell you how far you now are beheld fields and plains, and now hills, now now (but scarce I saw them) great beasts; now trees, now ships sailing on the sea. But soon, ground that all the world seemed no more than thick that I could discern naught. With that he town or aught that…”

who in a dream saw every point of hell and earth and paradise; who flew so high that the heat melted wings and fell wet amid the sea and there drowned; for whom was made great lamentation. turn your face upward and behold this large region, this air. But look you be not afeared of them that you shall see: for in this region, of a truth, dwells many… subtle devices, gargoyles and pinnacles, tabernacles and imageries; and it was as full of windows as flakes fall in great snow-storms. And also in each of the pinnacles were sundry niches, in which all about over the castle outside stood all manner of minstrels and tellers of tales both tearful and merry, of all that

eke these mystic fumigations; and also clerks who well know all this natural magic, and who give their minds and their craft, in certain aspects of the ascendant, to making images, through which magic, lo, they may make a man sick or whole. There I saw thee, queen Medea, Circe and Calypso There I saw Colle the juggler perform upon a table of sycamore a thing strange to describe; I saw him carry a windmill under a walnut-shell. http://www.4literature.net/Geoffrey_Chaucer/House_of_Fame/4.html http://www.1902encyclopedia.com/L/LEG/legerdemain.html •• Hawksley Workman plays Don't Be Crushed• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ngd5qXwUanY&NR=1