Music, Acting, & Entertainers

Many a settlement has had entertainers passing through them. Some settlements have permanent entertainers in them, though usually in a rare case. Most entertainers have learned skills dating back to earlier civilisations, including a few non-human groupings.
Entertainment is generally an annual event taking place during market days, or special events. These events can range from religious feast days, to celebrations involving one or more locals, or local traditional events. Entertainers skilled in music will perform with drums, flutes, lyres or similar instruments, and some locals will have a passible knowledge of the same. The same with acting, with troops of actors & similar performers passing through putting on stories, parables, local legends, or religious, military, or political re-enactments. Sometimes both the music & the acting will attract the wrong types, making thievery more rife when around, or allowing local thieves to ply their trade more easier. Sometimes, dancing troops, jugglers, fire breathers, sword swallowers, exotic animal handlers, tight rope walkers, and jugglers also pass through. When many of the nobles, especially rulers in Europe have a banquet, they normally get entertainers in to appear between or during courses. The Norse have Skalds who act as poets & bards, generally recording & reciting the great deeds of the warriors they follow. Bards are found in Celtic society too, keeping a good part of the oral history & stories of the tribes & clans alive as well as recounting stories to do with the Fey alive (though these are generally embellished somewhat compared to what the Druids would recite).
In places like the Middle East and the Far East, there is traditions of entertainers that differ slightly to Europe. The entertainers in the Middle East generally act as an oral story teller, or as musicians in the royal places. The far East has many musicians, dancers, actors, and puppeteers, telling old stories concerning the gods, or legends from times past. Some are tied to local theatres or similar buildings or regions, and some tour around making money for shows. One thing that makes a significant difference between the Far East and West, is that Eastern entertainers draw heavily from the religions & spiritual side of their place of origin, and some have close links to specific temples. Also, they devote themselves wholly to their craft instead, though sometimes their specific skill set takes in elements from their country of origin.
In most instances, at least in Europe, the troops of entertainers are never fully trusted, as many will travel around to gain stories, songs, dances, or other skills they need to perform. Also, they are never fully settled in one place for too long unless they have a specific patronage that forces them to return for a length of time every few weeks to months. This can bring them into conflict every once in a while with local or religious authorities, who view them as going against the social order. Once in a while they will get barred from a region under penalty of imprisonment, or in rarer cases, even death.