Chapter XXII: Act V: Footnote 656 (1)

Zell, _Ferienschriften_, II. 99 ff., “Ueber die Volkslieder der alten
Römer,” is still the best piece of information on the subject,
although it was published in 1829.

Footnote 657:

In carrying loads, in cutting, and the like tasks, the Lhoosai in
southeast India “clear the lungs with a continuous _hau! hau!_
_uttered in measured time by all_; without making this sound they say
they would be unable to work.” Lewin quoted by Böckel, p. lx.

Footnote 658:

_Arbeit u. Rhythmus_, pp. 30 ff. This chapter, quoted above, pp. 107
ff., gives ample references for the subject.

Footnote 659:

_Ehstnische Volkslieder_, 1850, p. 1.

Footnote 660:

_Deutsche Volkskunde_, 1898, pp. 331 f.

Footnote 661:

Work quoted, p. cxxiii. The spinning-room for winter, and in summer
the _rundgänge_, when youths and maidens arm in arm go by long rows
singing songs to their march, are still a refuge for actual poetry of
the people. But, as he says, it is dying fast.

Footnote 662:

Böckel, work quoted, p. clii, notes that the three classes who spread
and sing songs of the folk are women, soldiers, shepherds. Blind
minstrels, of course, are to be added for the chanting and reciting
guild, and in Russia the tailors. But women, soldiers, and shepherds
best keep the old clan instincts.

Footnote 663:

Laura Alexandrine Smith, _Music of the Waters_, London, 1888; John
Ashton, _Real Sailor Songs_, London, 1891. Boatmen’s songs changing or
dying out: Bücher, pp. 128 f. Bücher’s little group of boatmen’s
songs, pp. 118 ff., 66 ff., is far more valuable than these long and
random collections. See his comments, pp. 68 ff. For example, the
boat-song of North American Indians, taken from Baker, is foolishness
to the Greeks who make collections for popular use, but is full of
instruction for the student of poetry; it runs, without the musical
notes:—

Ah yah, ah yah, ah ya ya ya,
Ah ya ya ya, ah ya ya ya,
Ya ya ya ya ya ya.

Footnote 664:

Böckel, p. lx. Roman oarsmen had not only the _celeusma_ to time their
strokes, but often a song of their own: Zell, II. 208.

Footnote 665:

Ed. Murray, E. E. T. S., pp. 40 ff.

Footnote 666:

Bücher, p. 68.

Footnote 667:

Wallaschek, pp. 41, 47. See, too, p. 166: “Mr. Reade observed that his
people”—Africans—“always began to sing when he compelled them to
overcome their natural laziness and to continue rowing.”

Footnote 668:

Chappell, _Pop. Music Olden Time_, pp. 482, 783; Skelton, _Bowge of
Court_.

Footnote 669:

“Cantilenam his verbis Anglice composuit;” see _Historia Eliensis_,
II. 27, in Gale, _Hist. Script._, I. 505; it gives the account here
quoted, then the verses, adding “et caetera, quae sequuntur, _quae
usque hodie in choris publice cantantur_.” ...

Footnote 670:

_Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser_, III. x f.; _Nordboernes Aandsliv_, II.
408.

Footnote 671:

Refrains of rowing are found in many Danish ballads, mostly
irrelevant, as these refrains so often are, but unmistakable. See
Steenstrup, _Vore Folkeviser_, p. 77, for several examples.

Footnote 672:

In Wright-Halliwell, _Reliquiae Antiquae_, I. 240: it belongs to the
fourteenth century. Some rimes for St. Clement’s day are printed by G.
F. Northall, _English Folk-Rhymes_, 1892, mostly begging verses (pp.
222 ff.): although there is a ceremony at Woolwich connected with
blacksmiths, song, however, yielding to formal speech.

Footnote 673:

23 November. See Hampson, _Medii Aevi Kalendarium_, I. 61; and
Brand-Ellis, _Antiquities_, same date. The Germanic year has been
recently studied by Dr. A. Tille, _Yule and Christmas_, London, 1899;
he corrects in some particulars the current ideas set forth by
Weinhold, according to which the seasons were regulated by natural
signs,—solstice and the like. Dr. Tille contends that this was rather
done by economic conditions. Before the German had a settled
agricultural life, Michaelmas superseded Martinmas, the oldest
Germanic festival. Actual harvest festivals are comparatively late.
While Dr. Tille’s idea of borrowing and of Christian influence goes
entirely too far, his emphasis on economic conditions must be noted
and approved.

Footnote 674:

_Great Expectations_, Chap. XII.

Footnote 675:

Or rather Mr. J. Cocke; see note to _Works_, ed. Rimbault, p. 288, and
p. 89. See also the tinker as “master of music” and chief singer of
catches, in Chappell, pp. 187. 353.

Footnote 676:

Among the Romans, too; see Tibullus, Eleg. II. 1:—

Atque aliqua assiduae textis operata Minervae
Cantat, et applauso tela sonat latere.

Footnote 677:

See letter in _Evening Post_, quoted above, p. 168; Böckel, work
quoted; and the preface written by “Carmen Sylva” for the Countess
Martinengo’s _Bard of the Dimbovitzka_, London, 1892.

Footnote 678:

It is almost superfluous to mention Gretchen and the recurrent echo of
her wheel in the stanza _Meine Ruh’ ist hin_. But this, of course, is
art.

Footnote 679:

A version of “The Cruel Brother” (Child, I. 147), from Forfarshire,
has along with the common refrain two lines at the end of the stanza
which partly echo the refrain of labour:—

Sing Annet, and Marret, and fair Maisrie,
An’ the dew hangs i’ the wood, gay ladie.

Footnote 680:

Northall, _English Folk-Rhymes_, p. 322. See the interesting notes
from Southey’s _Doctor_, xxiv, about Betty Yewdale and the song she
and her sister had to sing while learning to knit socks. The song kept
time with the work, _and had to bring in the names of all the folk in
the dale_. See on cumulative song above, p. 200.

Footnote 681:

Dyer, _British Popular Customs_, p. 42.

Footnote 682:

_Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs_, London, 1857, pp. 187 f. Greenside
is near Manchester.

Footnote 683:

_Voceri_, pp. 244 f., with a specimen song taken from Viale.

Footnote 684:

E. H. Meyer, _Volkskunde_, p. 236.

Footnote 685:

_Poes. Pop. Gasc._, II. 224 ff. See his references for this
interesting subject.

Footnote 686:

Coussemaker in his section of songs for the dance, work quoted, pp.
338 f., gives a “ronde” sung during the fête at Bailleul:—

Now the salad must be sowed,
Now the salad must be sowed,
Salad, salad, salad, salad, salad,
Now the salad must be sowed.

Now the salad must be cut,—

then plucked, washed, dried, and so on. The list of these songs could
be extended indefinitely; the fact that this of the salad is sung at a
quite alien festivity simply proves the vogue of the thing. One must
refer, however, to the dances of Catalonian peasants and children, the
songs for which are little more than repetition and refrain
descriptive of country toil, as quoted by Wolf, pp. 34 f., of his
_Proben Portugiesischer und Catalanischer Volksromanzen_, Wien, 1856.

Footnote 687:

Ed. 1825, IX. 41. The phrase “to town” at which our editor boggles,
ignorant of its real meaning, is a further proof of the traditional
character of this song.

Footnote 688:

“Is your throat clear for _hooky hooky_?” asks Harvest; and the
reapers sing the refrain again. Later he speaks of weeping out “a
lamentable _hooky hooky_.” Drake connected _hooky_ with _hockey_, the
hock or harvest cart sung by Herrick. But perhaps “hooky” is to be
kept without any such change. Leyden, see _Complaynte of Scotland_, p.
xciii, speaking of ring dances at the _kirn_ or feast of cutting down
the grain, says that reapers who first finished the work danced on an
eminence, in view of other reapers, and began the dance “with three
loud shouts of triumph, and _thrice tossing up their hooks in the
air_.” Cf. the Oxford Dict., s.v. _hook_, the common word for reaping
scythe or sickle from Anglo-Saxon down.

Footnote 689:

In his _Neydhardt mit dem Feyhel_, 1562. See Uhland, _Volkslieder_, I.
58, and notes, _Schriften_, III. 24. Böhme follows the song back to
the fourteenth century. In the play it is sung by the duchess and
repeated by the chorus, as in popular dances of the day.

Footnote 690:

In his edition of the play for Macmillan’s _English Comedies_.

Footnote 691:

The reapers now appear “with women in their hands.”

Footnote 692:

Described to the writer by a Japanese gentleman.

Footnote 693:

Bücher, p. 49.

Footnote 694:

Twelve centuries before Christ, Chinese women gathered plantain with a
song that is particularly rich in repetition and refrain; Bücher
quotes the translation of Strauss, of which a stanza runs thus:—

Pflücket, pflücket Wegerich,
_Eija zu und pflücket ihn_!
Pflücket, pflücket Wegerich,
_Eija zu, ihr rücket ihn_.

The whole song minutely follows the process of picking.

Footnote 695:

Grimm, _Mythologies_,⁴ pp. 1036 f. He notes the frequency of this
shouting, leaping, and singing at the planting of crops. It all goes
back, of course, to communal rites.

Footnote 696:

E. H. Meyer, _Volkskunde_, p. 225.

Footnote 697:

Grein-Wülker, _Bibliothek_, I. 312 ff. To describe the whole ceremony
in this case as original, is highly absurd.

Footnote 698:

Zell, _Ferienschriften_, II. 118, 212; see Plin. _Nat. Hist._, XXVIII.
2: “qui fruges excantasset.” Standard works for the investigation of
these relics of ancient cult are Mannhardt, _Wald-und Feldkulte_, 2
vols., 1875-1877; the same author’s _Mythologische Forschungen_,
already quoted; Pfannenschmid, _Germanische Erntefeste_, Hannover,
1878; and, pioneer of them all, Tylor’s admirable work on _Primitive
Culture_. For children’s games, as last refuge of many of these rites,
see F. M. Böhme, _Deutsches Kinderlied u. Kinderspiel_, Leipzig, 1897,
which could be enlarged by a judicious use of Firmenich, _Germaniens
Völkerstimmen_, in four volumes. Böhme says the _Ringelreihen_ of
these games are “uralte Reste chorischer Aufführungen bei den
Jahres-und Gottesfesten unserer heidnischen Vorfahren,” and gives
cases which support his statement. Processional songs of the old cult
survive in the _Ansingelieder_, _Umzugslieder_, and so forth, of the
children, now mainly begging-rimes like the wren-song in Ireland and
England, parallel to the swallow-song in Rhodes. Again, children have
games which imitate sounds and movements of labour; Böhme gives a few.
See also G. F. Northall, _English Folk-Rhymes_, pp. 360 ff. Halliwell,
of course, includes some of these in his nursery-rimes. See also W. W.
Newell, _Games and Songs of American Children_, N. Y., 1883. These
songs of the children would lead us too far a-field, and we shall
cling to the scanty survivals of the songs and refrains of labour
itself.

Footnote 699:

Grein-Wülker, I. 323 f., especially version C.

Footnote 700:

Cattle.

Footnote 701:

Halliwell, _Nursery-Rhymes_, p. 129.

Footnote 702:

Mannhardt, _Mythol. Forsch._, pp. 228 ff., J. Grimm, _Kl. Schr._, VII.
229, in a paper on the “Nothhalm,” with account of harvest rites.

Footnote 703:

This child of destiny, asleep on a sheaf of grain, is wafted to the
kingless land in a boat,—the Lohengrin parallel. For all the enticing
material see Grimm, _Mythologie_,⁴ III. 399 ff.; Müllenhoff, in
_Zeitschr. f. deutsch. Alth._, VII. 410 ff., and in his _Beowulf_, pp.
5 ff., with strongly established probability that the myth celebrates
the beginnings of agriculture among Germans by the North and Baltic
seas.]

Footnote 704:

Mannhardt, _Myth. Forsch._, pp. 15 ff. That the Greeks sang at
reaping, as at planting (Smythe, _Melic Poets_, p. 498, girls sing a
sowers’ song), is beyond question. See Mannhardt’s note and
references, as above, p. 2. He remarks that the Lityerses song in
Theocritus (Id. X.) is an imitation of a real Greek folksong of
labour, not, however, of the original Lityerses. Mr. Lang notes the
resemblance of this situation to the famous scene in Molière’s
_Misanthrope_.

Footnote 705:

Work quoted, p. 17. See his _Wald-u. Feldkulte_, p. 262.

Footnote 706:

That the Romans had these refrains of harvest and vintage, as well as
their Fescennine flytings and improvised satire, is beyond dispute
(Zell, II. 122 ff.), but nothing of it all has come down to us.
Fortune has been kinder with regard to the songs and refrains sung in
processions about the Roman field.

Footnote 707:

Chappell, II. 580. See his quotation from Tusser. Even here, in the
Eastern states of America, middle-aged men have watched the passing of
the “wealthy farmer,” who now exists only in newspapers, and even
there is kept at long range,—“of Indiana,” “of Texas.” Yet we knew him
in our boyhood. The communal farmer occurs in old English novels, and
in some new ones; but he is passing rapidly into tradition. See a
paper on “England’s Peasantry,” by the Rev. Dr. Jessopp, in the
_Nineteenth Century and After_, January, 1901; he tells of the
communal conditions which once prevailed, of the change to the
present, and is “inclined to doubt seriously whether before another
century has ended there will be any such thing as an agricultural
labourer to know.”

Footnote 708:

On the modern corruption of old refrains, see Pfannenschmid, pp. 207
ff., 468 ff.

Footnote 709:

Compare the song sung on this occasion in Bavaria as the peasants
dance about the fire and leap over it for good luck (Firmenich, II.
703):—

Haliga Sankt Veit,
Schick uns a Scheit;
Haliga Sankt Wendl,
Schick uns an Bengl;
Haliga Sankt Florio,
Kent uns des Fuiar O!
_Kent_ = kindle.

Footnote 710:

Mannhardt, _M. F._, pp. 32 fl., 51.

Footnote 711:

Quoted by Reifferscheid, _Westf. Volksl._, Nos. 49, 50, 51. See the
note, p. 188, and variants. The habit is widespread through Westphalia
and the Rhinelands. A refrain printed by Firmenich, _German.
Völkerstimmen_, III. 175, keeps time with the work (near Iserlohn):—

Dai Klinge dai klank,
Dai Hüppe dai sprank,
Wuol üöwer de Bank,
Wuol niäwen den Pal.

Footnote 712:

Aubrey, _Remains of Gentilisme_. Folk-Lore Soc., IV. (1881), pp. 81
f., under “Rymers.” On p. 169 he says, “when I was a boy, every
gentleman almost kept a harper; and some of them could versifie.”

Footnote 713:

Wallaschek, p. 179.

Footnote 714:

He too heard a girl “singing an Erse song,” as she span; and he had
his jest, “I warrant you, one of the songs of Ossian.” Hill’s Boswell,
V. 133 f.

Footnote 715:

Before this he had been in a boat and heard one Malcolm sing “an Erse
song, the chorus of which was ‘Hatyin foam foam eri,’ _with words of
his own_.... The boatmen and Mr. M’Queen chorused, and all went well.”
_Ibid._, V. 185.

Footnote 716:

_A Journey to the Western Islands_, Dublin, 1775, p. 97.

Footnote 717:

The doctor complaining that he never could get an Erse song explained,
was told “the chorus was generally unmeaning,” which, of course, would
point to a predominance of the refrain; Johnson himself slyly quoted
an unintelligible refrain from an old English ballad. Hill’s Boswell,
V. 274.

Footnote 718:

V. 203; Lockhart’s _Life of Scott_, IV. 307. Pennant tells the same
story in his _Tour in Scotland_.

Footnote 719:

See above, p. 281, quotation from Leyden. See also for Scottish
custom, Chambers, _Book of Days_, II. 376 ff.

Footnote 720:

Note to Passus, IX. 104, ed. of _Piers Plowman_, version C.

Footnote 721:

Above, p. 286.

Footnote 722:

E. H. Meyer, p. 133.

Footnote 723:

Kurschat, _Litth. Gram._, p. 445, quoted by Böckel, p. cxx.

Footnote 724:

Pfannenschmid, p. 392. The song, “Die Ernt’ ist da, es winkt der
Halm,” is clearly an outgrowth of the older refrain. See also p. 92.
An actual refrain at the work is printed by Firmenich, III. 631:—

Ei Hober, Hober, zeitige Hober!
Ei Mädl, kom und schneid den Hober!
Ei dirre Hober, dirre Hober!
Ei Knechtl, kom und benn den Hober!

Footnote 725:

_Étude_, pp. 24 f.

Footnote 726:

In this dying of communal song, its heart, the refrain, beats strong
to the end, despite the other failing powers. See Beaurepaire’s
valuable testimony to this fact, _Étude_, pp. 39 ff., 48 f. “Deux
lignes au plus composent le couplet. Le refrain est vraiment la partie
importante, il supplie à la pauvreté ou à l’absence de la rime.... Au
reste, il ne faudrait pas s’y tromper, la longueur du refrain, et son
retour continuel, que nous serions tenté de considerer comme un
défaut, forme précisement un des plus sûrs moyens du succès de la
Chanson de Filasse. Elle exige, en effet, peu d’efforts de mémoire,
elle permet à tous les laboureurs de prendre part fréquemment au
chant; et avec son allure monotone, elle s’adapte merveilleusement à
la marche lente et reguliere de travaux de la campagne. Aussi
croyons-nous que c’est en partie à la predominance du refrain, que la
chanson cuellissoire doit sa vogue et sa popularité.” He gives another
song with a refrain of planting.

Footnote 727:

Pfannenschmid (on the cries and songs) pp. 404 ff.; Mannhardt, _M.
F._, pp. 167 ff., for the religious significance; J. Grimm, _Kl.
Schr._, VII. 225 f.; _Book of Days_, II. 377 f. Other instances are
presently to be recounted.

Footnote 728:

Firmenich, IV. (_Anhang_), 687. A longer version on p. 693. Keriole =
_Kyrie eleison_,—substituted for an older heathen cry.

Footnote 729:

See Mannhardt’s chapter on “Demeter,” work quoted; also pp. 20 ff.

Footnote 730:

For all this English material, see Brand-Ellis, “Harvest Home,” in the
_Antiquities_.

Footnote 731:

Chappell, I. 120.

Footnote 732:

_Ibid._, II. 745, one version. See for variants, and similar songs, J.
H. Dixon, _Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of
England_, _e.g._ pp. 175 ff., London, Percy Soc., 1846; Broadwood and
Maitland, _English Country Songs_, pp. 150 ff., London, 1893.

Footnote 733:

In the fifth act of Dryden’s opera, _King Arthur_, is a harvest-song
with this chorus:—

Come, boys, come! Come, boys, come!
And merrily roar out Harvest Home!

and the directions are that the actors shall sing this as they dance,
a good communal trait. The words of this song grew popular, were
varied, and became a ballad; it is in order for some one to show that
harvest-home songs, like other popular verse, come from operas, plays,
concerts, and the like.

Footnote 734:

Perhaps “we end,” as Brand suggests; but perhaps and probably not. At
another place in Devonshire they cry “the knack,” and a rime is
repeated:—

Well cut, well bound,
Well shocked, well saved from the ground.

Footnote 735:

_Five Hundred Points of Husbandry_, Eng. Dial. Soc., 1878, p. 126,
under August. Hentzner noted the shouting of the people _in the cart_.
See Furnivall’s Harrison, _Descrip. Eng._, p. lxxxiv. A curious custom
of the largess-shilling in Suffolk is described by Major Moor, note to
Tusser, p. 294. The reapers answer their leader’s “Holla Lar! Holla
Lar! Holla Lar!—jees,” with “o-o-o-o-,” head inclined, and then,
throwing the head up, vociferate “a-a-a-ah.” This is thrice done by
harvesters for a shilling.

Footnote 736:

Brand-Ellis, “Twelfth Day.”

Footnote 737:

See Uhland, _Kl. Schr._, III. 389 f., and note, with references, 467
f., for the “bornfart,” “bronnefart,” with “dantzen, rennen, springen,
jagen,” closely connected with the May feasts. On the whole subject of
processions, see Pfannenschmid’s second chapter along with his notes,
pp. 342 ff.

Footnote 738:

_Georg._, I. 343 ff.

Footnote 739:

Translation of J. Rhoades. The last line—‘det motus incompositos et
carmina dicat’—is suggestive: “spontaneous gestures and steps, with
song,” emphasize a purely communal dance as compared with the ritual
of the Brothers. Tibullus, by the way, has the Lares, not Ceres, in
mind for the dance and song of his rustics: _Eleg._, I. 1, 23 f.

Agna cadet vobis, quam circum rustica pubes
Clamet: _Io! Messes et bona vina date!_

Footnote 740:

A “queen,” accompanied by a guard of brothers and young folk
generally, goes on Whitsuntide in Servia from farm to farm; at each
she stops and her companions form a circle (_kolo_) and sing their
songs. Each line is thrice repeated, and then follows the refrain
_Leljo!_ Then the dancers hold one another by the belt and dance in a
half-circle, led by an exarch. Between the songs any ready young man
cries out a lusty phrase or two, or makes a verse, after the fashion
of the German _schnaderhüpfl_. See A. W. Grube, _Deutsche
Volkslieder_, Iserlohn, 1866, pp. 132 f.

Footnote 741:

_Germania_, xl.

Footnote 742:

The procession of the Phrygian goddess, the _magna deum mater materque
ferarum et nostri genetrix_, described by Lucretius in often-quoted
lines, _Rer. Nat._, II. 598 ff., with its Dionysian features, cannot
be discussed here; Germanic and modern examples must suffice.

Footnote 743:

It is a commonplace in sociology that agricultural communities worship
female deities as representatives of fertility, while the god like Tiw
or Woden springs from warlike and nomadic conditions.

Footnote 744:

For example, the rain-song in Servia, an interesting ceremony, full of
cries and with a refrain sung by dancing maidens. The _dodola_, a girl
otherwise naked, but entirely covered with grass, weeds, and flowers,
goes with a retinue of maidens from house to house; before each house
the girls form a dancing ring with the _dodola_ in the middle. The
woman of the house pours water over the _dodola_, while she dances and
turns about; the other maidens now sing the song for rain, each line
ending with the refrain, _oj dodo oj dodo le!_ See Grimm,
_Mythologie_⁴, p. 494. Similar customs prevail in Greece; the song is
here full of repetitions. See Grimm, _Kl. Schr._, II. 447. In the
_Athenæum_, No. 2857 (1882), G. L. Gomme has some interesting notes on
a survival of these processional rites.

Footnote 745:

E. H. Meyer, p. 223.

Footnote 746:

Grimm, _Mythol._,⁴ I. 52.

Footnote 747:

References _ibid._, I. 214 ff., with similar cases. See also III. 86
f.

Footnote 748:

William of Malmesbury tells a story to show that the church could do
better than condemn. In 1012 fifteen young men and women were dancing
and singing in a churchyard and disturbed Robert the priest. He prayed
at them, and for a whole year they had to dance and sing without
ceasing until they sank to the middle in the earth.

Footnote 749:

Gregor. M. _Dial._, III. 28, quoted by W. Müller, _Geschichte und
System der altdeutschen Religion_, Göttingen, 1844, pp. 74 f. The
first book of this excellent treatise is even now the best summary of
old Germanic rites,—clear, compact, and with all necessary references.
For the boar’s head and the famous Latin song, at Oxford, see Grimm,
_Mythol._⁴, p. 178; for the vows, Grimm, _Rechtsalterthümer_, pp. 900
f.

Footnote 750:

From Du Cange, s.v. _Kalendae_. See too Hampson, _Med. Æv. Kal._, I.
140 ff.

Footnote 751:

Broadwood and Maitland, p. 30. Survivals of procession song
(_Ansingelieder_) are printed by Böhme, _Kinderlied_, 331 ff. The
refrain has some body in a song “’t Godsdeel of den Rommelpot,”
printed by Coussemaker, _Chants Pop. des Flamands_, p. 95, and also
found in different parts of Germany. The begging songs for Martinmas
Eve, found in Flanders, are widespread in Germany; Firmenich, work
quoted, prints a good dozen and more from different places. The steps
of dance and march are best heard in his version from Oldenburg, I.
231.

Footnote 752:

Firmenich, I. 281.

Footnote 753:

_Reuzelied_, pp. 139 ff.:—

Als de groote Klokke luyd
De Reuze komt uyt.
_Keere u e’s om, de Reuze, de Reuze,
Keere u e’s om,
Reuzekom_.

That is, “When the big bell sounds, Reuze (giant?) comes out. _Turn
back, Reuze, Reuze, turn back, good Reuze._” The text is corrupt, and
Reuze is not easy to explain; but one need not appeal with Coussemaker
to the Scandinavians to establish the antiquity of this procession and
this refrain.

Footnote 754:

Hampson, I. 61.

Footnote 755:

For a good description of wakes, see Brand-Ellis, and Song 27 of
Drayton’s _Polyolbion_, where such cheering is recorded of the
villages—

That one high hill was heard to tell it to his brother,
That instantly again to tell it to some other.

Footnote 756:

Besides T. Wright’s _Songs and Carols_, Percy Soc., 1847, see W.
Sandy’s _Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern_, London, 1833, with a
long introduction, and the same editor’s Festive Songs, Percy Soc.,
1848. Sandys (_Carols_) gives the cries or refrains of many Christmas
songs:—

Nowell, nowell, nowell, nowell,—
No—el, el, el, el, el, el, el, el, el, el,—
Noel, Noel—

_à moult granz cris_, the familiar refrain in France.

Footnote 757:

_Remaines Gentil._, pp. 9, 21, 23, 26, 31, 36, 40, 161, 180. “Little
children,” he says here, “have a custome when it raines to sing or
charme away the Raine; thus they all joine in a Chorus, and sing thus,
viz.:—

Raine, raine, goe away,
Come againe a Saterday.

I have a conceit that this childish custome is of great antiquity.”

Footnote 758:

See the Helstone Furry-Day Song, Bell, _Ancient Poems_, pp. 167 f.,
with a refrain of some value.

Footnote 759:

Also cross-week and grass-week. See Dyer, _British Popular Customs_,
pp. 204 ff., for a sympathetic account of the customs still lingering
in England.

Footnote 760:

The standard description of English May-games, of course hostile, is
that of Stubbes in his _Anatomie of Abuses_, ed. New Shaks. Soc., p.
149. See also the diatribe in John Northbrooke’s _Treatise wherein
Dicing, Dancing ... are Reprooved_. London, 1579. He leans to
Chrysostom’s view (that is, Age takes this side against Youth, in the
dialogue) that dancing “came firste from the Diuell”, and p. 68ᵇ (only
one page of the leaf is numbered) he describes the May.

Footnote 761:

Compare the chorus of the Maypole song in _Actæon and Diana_, in
Chappell, I. 126:—

Then to the Maypole come away,
For it is now a holiday.

“Trip and go” was “one of the favourite Morris-dances,” and the words
seem to have become a proverbial expression. See Chappell, I. 126,
302. It was on the basis of some refrain of this sort that the first
part-song in English, the famous Cuckoo Song, was built up. Ten Brink
is surely right in giving it a communal origin, though not communal
making.

Footnote 762:

“We have brought the summer home,” is the spirit of all the May
refrains, as the young folk come back with flowers and boughs. See
Brand, “Maypoles.”

Footnote 763:

Still in vogue in some parts of Germany. See E. H. Meyer, p. 256.

Footnote 764:

_Volkslieder_, I. 23. For the whole subject, see Uhland’s _Abhandlung
über die deutschen Volkslieder_, pp. 17 ff. Suspicion has been
expressed that these flytings are a late echo of the Vergilian eclogue
through such a transmitting element as the mediæval _Conflictus Veris
et Hiemis_ and the song to the cuckoo:—

Salve, dulce decus cuculus per saecula, salve!

Comparison of the fragments, however, shows this suspicion to be
groundless, and it is thoroughly discredited by Uhland, _Kl. Schr._,
III. 24. See also Ebert, _Christ. Lat. Lit._, II. 69.

Footnote 765:

_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, V. 2.

Footnote 766:

Ritson, _Ancient Songs_, 3d ed., pp. 113 ff. The text is a sort of
dramatic description. See also T. Wright, _Songs and Carols_; and
Brand, under “Morris Dancers.” The refrains are unfortunately seldom
recorded, but they are the foundation of the little drama.

Footnote 767:

Used as refrain in ballads; see Child, I. 19 f., _e.g._:—

Sing ivy, sing ivy ...
Sing holly, go whistle, and ivy ...
Sing green bush, holly, and ivy.

Footnote 768:

_Deutsche Volkslieder aus Oberhessen_, p. xi. His list of references
is valuable.

Footnote 769:

At a harvest-home at Selborne, 1836, Bell (pp. 46 ff.) heard two
countrymen recite a “Dialogue between the Husbandman and the
Servingman”; “it was delivered in a sort of chant or recitative,”
though the rhythm is good for such doggerel; what suggests the older
refrain is that the rime (second and fourth lines of each stanza) has
to be either with “husbandman” or with “servingman” throughout. The
odd lines have interior rime.

Footnote 770:

See Jeanroy’s chapter, “Le Debat,” in _Origines de la Poésie Lyrique
en France_, pp. 45 ff.

Footnote 771:

Böhme, _Kinderlied_, pp. 332 ff. See p. 347.

Footnote 772:

See Firmenich, II. 15, where children in the Palatinate on
“Rose-Sunday” go about and sing:—

Ri, ra, ro
Der Summertaagk iss do!

See _ibid._, II. 34.

Footnote 773:

Letourneau, _L’Évolution Littéraire_, p. 21.

Footnote 774:

“Choruses are about all the Indians sing. They have probably four or
five words, then the chorus. ‘They have brought us a fat dog’; then
the chorus goes on for half a minute; then a repetition again of the
above words ‘they have brought us a fat dog.’... Tukensha, a rock, or
grandfather, is often appealed to in the choruses for aid.” Answer to
question about Indian poetry by Rev. Mr. Fletcher, who lived several
years with the Winnebago Indians. He says, too, “there are no Indian
poets in this country.” Schoolcraft, IV. 71.

Footnote 775:

“Account of the History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations
who once Inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighbouring States,”
_Transact. Amer. Philos. Soc._, 1819, pp. 200 ff.

Footnote 776:

Quoted above, p. 255, from _Indian Tribes_, V. 563 f.

Footnote 777:

_Die Korndaemonen_, Berlin, 1868. See also his _Roggenwulf und
Roggenhund_, Danzig, 1866.

Footnote 778:

Work quoted, I. 25.

Footnote 779:

_Ibid._, I. 248.

Footnote 780:

_Ibid._, I. 517 ff.; II. 189 f.

Footnote 781:

_Ibid._, I. 525.

Footnote 782:

Jean de Lery, _Histoire_, etc., pp. 268 ff.

Footnote 783:

Opposite p. 274.

Footnote 784:

See above, p. 253.

Footnote 785:

On pp. 25 ff.

Footnote 786:

The name of the brave.

Footnote 787:

One can readily understand that Stevenson heard his islanders sing, in
chorus of perhaps a hundred persons, legendary songs about which not
two of these singers could agree in their translation. _Letters of R.
L. Stevenson_, II. 152.

Footnote 788:

_Lais_, p. 18. Professor Schipper, in his valuable treatise on
_Englische Metrik_, I. 326 ff., follows Wolf in this definition; but
in both cases the analytic purpose excuses this neglect of the
communal origin, and the material presented allows the student to make
his own comparisons and supply the neglected considerations.

Footnote 789:

A. W. Grube, _Deutsche Volkslieder_, Iserlohn, 1866, in his sections
“Der Kehrreim des Volksliedes,” pp. 1-103, and “Der Kehrreim bei
Goethe, Uhland und Rückert,” pp. 187-306, follows Wolf in part,
deriving refrains from the church hymns (p. 112), but adds a plea for
the antiquity of folksong, which is “von Haus aus Chorgesang” (p.
183). So, too, on p. 125, he seems to view the origin of poetry of the
people as a statement of contemporaneous events in one sentence—hence
not “invented”—which is sung by the throng. He notes the increased
power of the refrain with the preponderance of lyric over epic
elements: though he neglects the dance and communal conditions
generally. The close connection of Goethe (as in the _Ach neige, Du
Schmerzensreiche_) and of Rückert (as in the beautiful repetitions of
_Aus der Jugendzeit_) with popular poetry, is admirably treated. See
pp. 189 ff., 284 ff.

Footnote 790:

See a note in the author’s _Old English Ballads_, p. lxxxiv.

Footnote 791:

See Chappell, _Popular Music_, I. 222 ff., 34, 264; II. 426, 457.

Footnote 792:

III. 4. See also the Oxford _Dictionary_, s.v. “burden,” with the
reference to Shakspere’s _Lucrece_, v. 1133.

Footnote 793:

III. 1.

Footnote 794:

_English Rhythms_, II. 290.

Footnote 795:

Child, I. 113.

Footnote 796:

_Nordboernes Aandsliv_, II. 434 ff.; but this evolution is stoutly
denied by Steenstrup, _Vore Folkeviser_, pp. 120 ff., in a study of
the refrain to be considered below.

Footnote 797:

Child, I. 403: printed after the sixth stanza, and so till the
eleventh, when the chorus is slightly changed to suit the story, and
kept so to the end. For the strophic refrain or chorus and its
popularity in Old French, see Schipper, I. 328.

Footnote 798:

Child, I. 209, 214.

Footnote 799:

_Ibid._, I. 126 ff., in F., O. See H.

Footnote 800:

_Studies in the English Ballad Refrain, with a Collection of Ballad
and Early Song Refrains._ Thesis presented by John Henry Boynton in
candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English, May 1,
1897. In 3 vols., Ms., Harvard University Library. The material is
excellently put together; but the genetic and historical elements are
not sufficiently brought out. The comparative work is good, and as a
study of actual refrains this dissertation is of distinct value. The
burden-stem is discussed in section V., pp. 184 ff.

Footnote 801:

_Chronik_, ed. Dahlmann, I. 176 f. See also II. 559 ff.

Footnote 802:

Chappell quoted by Child, _Ballads_, I. 7. “I must avow myself,” says
Professor Child, “to be very much in the dark as to the exact relation
of stem and burden.” See also _Ballads_, II. 204, first note.

Footnote 803:

This technical side of the case is discussed by Valentin, _Studien
über die schwedischen Volksmelodien_, pp. 9 f.

Footnote 804:

_Les Origines de la Poésie Lyrique en France au Moyen Age_, Paris,
1889, pp. 102 ff. (see note 2, p. 111), and 387 ff. On the etymology
of _refrain_, see pp. 103 f.

Footnote 805:

_Ibid._, p. 113. Jeanroy will not accept the view of Wackernagel and
Bartsch that the refrains preserved in old French lyric poetry are
actual “popular” songs, or fragments of them; but he willingly accepts
the theory that all refrains were once of a communal kind. These, he
thinks, are hopelessly lost. See pp. 115 ff. A few older refrains can
be found in foreign lyric which imitated the French; pp. 177 ff.

Footnote 806:

_Ibid._, p. 396, note 1. Or, as in old Portuguese song, copied from
the popular manner, one part of the dancers sang one verse, and
another part, like strophe and antistrophe, repeated the verse with a
slight change, usually in the final word which rimes with the other
final word. The connection of this with the _contrasto_ of lover and
sweetheart, imitated in the dance, of debate, flyting, _tenso_, and
the like, would lead too far afield. See p. 207, and below, p. 325.

Footnote 807:

_Ibid._, p. 405. This chapter, where Jeanroy traces the growth of
artificial forms, like the rondel and so on, out of purely popular
refrain and verse, is of distinct value to the student of communal
poetry. It completely refutes the claim of superficial criticism,
common enough of late, that ballad and folksong are merely dregs of an
older art, and that some pretty comparison, say a tramp in an old
dress-coat, solves the communal problem. As jaunty and insufferable a
piece of comment as can be found anywhere in print is Mr. Gregory
Smith’s chapter on “The Problem of the Ballads and Popular Songs” in
his _Transition Period_, pp. 180 ff.

Footnote 808:

See above, p. 174. The refrain is very clearly an actual cry at the
dance.

Footnote 809:

Quoted by Ritson, _Anc. Songs_³, p. xxxv.

Footnote 810:

Difference.

Footnote 811:

It is useless to pile up references; any collection has such refrains
in plenty. This “springewir den reigen” (_Carmina Burana_, ed.
Schmeller, p. 178), however, like Neidhart’s dance-songs, although it
goes with the welcome to May, is conventional already and artistic.

Footnote 812:

Chambers, _Popular Rhymes of Scotland_, pp. 132 ff. “Another form of
this game is _only a kind of dance_,” says the editor, without
italics, “in which the girls first join hands in a circle and sing
while moving round to the tune of Nancy Dawson:—

Here we go round the mulberry-bush,

and so on. Then:—

This is the way the ladies walk ...
This is the way they wash the clothes ...

with refrain, or chorus, as before, and imitative actions.”

Footnote 813:

Lucian, in his treatise on the dance, is no authority for primitive
dancing and refrain; but it is noteworthy that he gives such an
exhortation as a kind of refrain. “The song that they sing as they
dance,” he says of the Lacedæmonians, § 11, “is an invitation to Venus
and the loves.... One of these songs is a lesson in dancing (!): ‘On,’
they sing, ‘young people, stretch your legs and dance your best.’”

Footnote 814:

Coussemaker, I. 328; Firmenich, I. 380, IV. 679.

Footnote 815:

In the other version “nonnetje,” “nönneke,” little nun.

Footnote 816:

Bujeaud, _Chants et Chansons ... de l’ouest_, I. 88, from Poitou;
reprinted by Crane, _Chansons Populaires_, pp. 87 ff. See a similar
song, Crane, pp. 162 ff.; many more could be instanced, and some have
been already named.

Footnote 817:

Waitz, _Anthropologie_, VI. 606.

Footnote 818:

_Vore Folkeviser_, pp. 75-112, “Omkvaedet.” Geijer denied that the
refrain is necessary to a ballad, but Steenstrup’s argument is
convincing; out of 502 Scandinavian ballads which he examined, not
more than 20 lacked a refrain. The ballads in Child’s collection point
the same way, at least for the older and shorter ballads; the _Gest_,
of course, and others of that sort, as well as broadside copies, have
passed from the lyrical stage. But even these must go back to an
earlier song with a refrain. Of the two-line ballads, the older form,
there are 31, and of these only 7 lack the refrain in their present
form. Of the 305 ballads in the collection, 106 in at least one
version show evidence of refrain or chorus,—more than a third; while
of some 1250 versions in all, about 300 have the refrain. This count
was made very carefully by Mr. C. H. Carter, of Haverford College. Of
course, Wolf had long since proved that the refrain is characteristic
of all early poetry in the vernacular, and played a leading part in
popular verse everywhere, from its first collection in the fifteenth
century down to the present time. See his _Lais_, pp. 27, 191.

Footnote 819:

“Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft,” _Schriften_, III., pp. 87, 89. See also
Ribot, _Psychology of the Emotions_, p. 334, who calls dancing the
“primordial art,” and shows that here is the transition from mere
movement to æsthetic activity.

Footnote 820:

_Geschichte des Tanzes_, p. 4. This is the best treatise on the
subject, though mainly confined to Germany. _A History of Dancing from
the Earliest Ages ... from the French of Gaston Vuillier, with a
Sketch of Dancing in England_, by Joseph Grego, London, 1898, is of
scant use for the student of origins and development. Dancing “was
probably unknown to the earliest ages of humanity,” a bold assertion,
is followed by another, that “it is certain that dancing was born with
man.” Information of value can be found, however, on special topics;
_e.g._ on the _branle_, p. 100, and its connection with children’s
games.

Footnote 821:

_Sociology_, II. 123.

Footnote 822:

See also Yrjö Hirn, _Förstudier_, pp. 89 f. Dismissing exceptions, he
declares that “dancing in its widest sense is as universal as laughing
and weeping.”

Footnote 823:

No dancing in Iceland, says Kerguelen, who visited there in 1767. See
Pinkerton, _Voyages and Travels_, I. 751. Volumes of proof could be
furnished for refuting this light-hearted assertion.

Footnote 824:

See Bastian, “Masken und Maskereien,” _Zeitschr. f. Völkerpsych._,
XIV. 347.

Footnote 825:

_Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, VI. 78 ff.

Footnote 826:

Wallaschek, p. 189.

Footnote 827:

Letourneau, p. 28.

Footnote 828:

Work quoted, pp. 95 ff. He refers to Hartshorne, “The Weddas,” _Indian
Antiquary_, VIII. 316 f.; E. Tennent, _Ceylon_, II. 437 ff.; and E.
Schmidt, _Globus_, LXV. 15 f.

Footnote 829:

See above, p. 95. It is interesting, however, particularly in
connection with the idea of rhythm as the chief factor in the social
process, that these Veddahs live mainly in pairs; “except on some
extraordinary occasion they never assemble together,” and this dance
is evidently their chief means to express a social union. See Bastian,
_Der Völkergedanke_ ..., p. 72.

Footnote 830:

See also the Brazilian dances noted by Lery, above, p. 312.

Footnote 831:

_Béowulf_, 631 ff., 2631 ff. The _béot_ is the same thing; _Battle of
Maldon_, 213.

Footnote 832:

Pinkerton, _Voyages and Travels_, London, 1808 ff., XI. 535, 543, 648.

Footnote 833:

Pinkerton, _Voyages and Travels_, pp. 652, 723.

Footnote 834:

_Ibid._, p. 667; no italics in the original. So, p. 654, twenty young
women dance to their own singing, and in many other cases; the fact is
beyond dispute. For a dance of more complicated character, but with
chorus and refrain, see pp. 678 f.

Footnote 835:

_Three Years’ Travel_, etc., Phila., 1796; the travels were in
1766-1768. See pp. 171 ff., 220.

Footnote 836:

See Lescarbot, _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_, Paris, 1609, pp. 317
ff., an account of the tribal dances of the Algonquins in honour of a
victory, with interesting particulars. So, too, pp. 691 ff., another
account, with a dance where they “do nothing but sing _Hé_ or _Het_!
like a man cutting wood, with a movement of the arm; and they dance a
‘round’ without holding one another or stirring from one place,
beating their feet upon the earth.” So, says Lescarbot, they make
fires and jump through them, like our French peasants on the eve of
St. John, who shout and dance the whole night. His fifteenth chapter,
pp. 765 ff., is on _Danses el Chansons_, and accents the dance after a
feast. Here, too, he says, “après la panse vient la danse.” Savages,
he says, always sing to their dancing.

Footnote 837:

It is unfortunately not superfluous to suggest that the dances
described by Homer are anything but primitive, though they retain some
primitive traits. The dance pictured on the shield of Achilles (_Il._
XVIII.), youths dancing and fair maids, hand in hand, is a _ronde_, to
be sure, in form, but a society affair as well, with full dress,
complicated figures, and a “divine minstrel” for the music. However,
the vintage dance to the Linos song, described in the preceding
verses, holds, like our harvest refrains, an older fashion.

Footnote 838:

Ten Broeck, in Schoolcraft, IV. 84.

Footnote 839:

Clavigero, _History of Mexico_, trans. Cullen, London, 1787, I. 399
f., a description of the great public dances.

Footnote 840:

_Schoole of Abuse_, p. 34.

Footnote 841:

When M. Gaston Paris, _Les Origines de la Poésie Lyrique en France au
Moyen Age_, p. 42, says he has found no dance among the old Romans
except the professional dance, he overlooks the fact that this rustic
dance in procession about the fields is proof of similar dances for
pleasure. It is no professional affair which Vergil has in mind: _det
motus incompositos et carmina dicat_. Surely the dances were not
danced by slaves.

Footnote 842:

Described by Mr. Arthur Symons in _Harper’s Monthly Magazine_, March,
1901, p. 503.

Footnote 843:

Pfannenschmid, _Germ. Erntef._, p. 400.

Footnote 844:

See above, p. 301.

Footnote 845:

See the suggestive treatment of this subject by Posnett, _Comparative
Literature_, pp. 117 ff., with his references to Réville and Burnouf.

Footnote 846:

Silius Italicus, naming the troops which Hannibal led out of winter
quarters, comes to the Gallician contingent, and describes their
youth—

barbara nunc patriis ululantem carmina linguis,
nunc, pedis alterno percussa verbere terra,
ad numerum resonas gaudentem plaudere caetras.

Lemaire (_Bib. Class. Lat._, Sil. Ital. _Punic._, III. 345 ff.),
explains this as a heroic ballad which the soldiers sing, as they
dance and strike their shields, when going into battle. He refers to
the classical passages for this as well as for the Pyrrhic dance; but
see note at the end of this chapter. The perhaps similar custom of the
Germans, noted by Tacitus, is treated in a masterly way by Müllenhoff.
See the next note but one.

Footnote 847:

Pantomime, as early form of dance leading to poetry and drama, was
noted by Adam Smith, _Essays_, p. 151. For older literature, see
Blankenburg, _Zusätze_, I. 153 ff. Erotic dances were exaggerated by
Scherer into the protoplasm of all poetry, _Poetik_, pp. 83, 114; and
are more moderately treated by Hirn, _Förstudier_, pp. 88 ff., and
Grosse, _Anf. d. Kunst_, pp. 21 ff. It is a developed art, of course,
that Lucian has in mind in his treatise on the dance. See, however,
Lucian, §§ 36, 63, 65.

Footnote 848:

Manley, _Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperian Drama_, I. 296 ff., from the
Folk-Lore Journal, VII. 338 ff. The date of the play is 1779. For the
Germanic sword-dance, see Müllenhoff, _Festgabe für G. Homeyer_,
“Ueber den Schwerttanz,” p. 117. A bibliography of this subject is
printed in the _Zeitschr. f. Völkerpsychol._, etc., XIX. 204, 416;
especially see p. 223; and other references may be added from Paul’s
_Grundriss_, II. i. 835, for the German. For the sword-dance in
Shetland noted by Scott, see Lockhart’s _Life_, ed. 1837, III. 162.
For other gymnastic plays, see the two books of Groos, _Spiele der
Thiere_ and _Spiele der Menschen_.

Footnote 849:

See Bruchmann, _Poetik_, p. 212.

Footnote 850:

Skill, of course, and rivalry are early provocatives of art in the
dance. As to ball-playing as a part of it, references could be given
for all times and climes.

Footnote 851:

See _Old English Ballads_, p. lxxvi.

Footnote 852:

Such as the author of the _Complaynt of Scotland_ watched at their
dancing, and noted the songs.

Footnote 853:

See below, Chap. VII.

Footnote 854:

See Uhland, _Kl. Schr._, III. 399 ff., and 484 ff., who gives other
well-known instances of this panic dance, as well as the _tarantella_
of Italy. The shaman, of course, even among a tribe as low as the
Veddahs, dances himself into a fit.

Footnote 855:

See book of this title by Sir J. G. Wilkinson, London, 1848, I. 399.

Footnote 856:

It translates “dance” in Luke xv. 25.

Footnote 857:

See Kögel, _Gesch. d. deutsch. Lit._, pp. 7 ff.

Footnote 858:

_Sigeléoð_ in Anglo-Saxon, sung after a victory, was doubtless the
same thing. Kögel notes that _leikr_, _leik_, in Norwegian dialects
down to this day, means both “war” and “dance”; and he conjectures
that _winelâc_, in Anglo-Saxon, goes back to an originally erotic
dance, as it may go forward to a children’s “kissing-game.”

Footnote 859:

Wolf, _Lais_, pp. 18, 183 f., puts too much stress on the singing of
church music, though he concedes popular origins; p. 22.

Footnote 860:

Work quoted, p. cxvii.

Footnote 861:

Bladé, _Poésies Populaires de la Gascogne_ (Vol. III. is devoted
entirely to songs for the dance), III. i. ff. “En général on ne danse
aux chansons que faute de mieux,” although even now, at times, “they
bid the music cease, and dance to the sound of their own voices.” The
dancing is literally a round, a circle.

Footnote 862:

See Wolf’s note, _Lais_, pp. 185 f. On this _carole_ or _ronde_,
danced mainly by women, but now and then by men and women, see
Jeanroy’s chapter, already quoted, and the additional suggestions of
M. Gaston Paris, _Origines d. l. Poés. Lyr._, pp. 44 ff., really a
review of Jeanroy’s book. “Ce qui caractérisait surtout les caroles,
c’était le chant qui les accompagnait,” says M. Paris. The only use of
instruments, and these very simple, was to mark the rhythm. Dancers
turned to the left.

Footnote 863:

An early reference, from “Ruodlieb,” may be added to show the
connection of dance and song; the passage occurs in a description of
the dancing bears (III. 84 ff., ed. Grimm-Schmeller, _Lat. Ged. des X.
u. XI. Jhrh._, p. 144):—

cum plebs altisonam fecit gyrando choream,
accurrunt et se mulieribus applicuere,
quae gracili voce cecinerunt deliciose,
insertisque suis harum manibus speciosis
erecti calcant....

The bears dance, then, along with the singing and dancing women; Grimm
calls them _spielweiber_, and quotes an ecclesiastical prohibition
(_ibid._, p. xv); but part of the description, witness the _plebs_,
will pass for a communal dance.

Footnote 864:

In the translation ascribed to Chaucer, w. 759 ff., “Tha myghtist thou
karoles sene,” etc.

Footnote 865:

_De vulg. Eloq._, II. iii. See note in Howell’s translation, London,
1890. Crescimbeni, _L’Istoria della volgar Poesia_, Venez., 1731
(written in 1697), quotes, though in disapproval, Minturno for the
primacy of _ballate_ (p. 148): “ballads,” says M., because “si
cantavano ballando,” which is the root of the matter.

Footnote 866:

It has been repeatedly noticed that older English dances are known by
the ballads sung to them. Even some of the tragic ballads were used
for the dance; but one must think of gay little songs and refrains as
staple for the merry rounds; nothing else will fit the seasons when
“maydes daunce in a ring.”

Footnote 867:

3ᵇ, Bodley copy of 1568. See also the refrain for a dance in the _Four
Elements_, above, p. 322.

Footnote 868:

See _Kind-Harts Dreame_, ed. Rimbault, Percy Soc., 1841, p. 38, and
note, p. 79.

Footnote 869:

_English Minstrelsie_, I., p. ix.

Footnote 870:

In 1767 a “young lady from Scotland” sang as she danced, at the royal
theatre in Copenhagen; but there, too, in 1726, a Stockholm
dancing-girl had done the same thing. “Novelty” is not the word. See
Steenstrup, _Vore Folkev._, pp. 8 f.

Footnote 871:

Brand, “New Year’s Day.”

Footnote 872:

Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, in many places; Pfannenschmid, _Germ.
Erntej._, pp. 271 ff., 580 ff. For love-songs and the dance, Uhland,
III. 391 ff., and notes, 471, with valuable account of the manner of
dancing, and of the leader, the _voresingen_ and the _voretanzen_.

Footnote 873:

See Böhme, _Altd. Liederb._, p. xxxv.

Footnote 874:

_’T Boertje_, Coussemaker, pp. 329 f., and _’t Patertje_, already
quoted.

Footnote 875:

_Pétition pour des Villageois que l’on empêche de danser._ Par
Paul-Louis Courier, Vigneron, ... Paris, 1822, addressed to the
Chamber of Deputies, asking that the folk of Azai may dance on Sundays
“sur le place de leur commune.” Despite the mystification, there is
some serious intent behind this fooling.

Footnote 876:

In Germany itself: cf. Meyer, _Volkskunde_, pp. 158, 160, 163.

Footnote 877:

_Arbeit u. Rhythmus_, pp. 103 f.

Footnote 878:

See note, end of chapter.

Footnote 879:

Grosse, _Anf d. Kunst_, p. 218; Donovan, _Lyre to Muse_, pp. 91, 127
ff.; Jacobowski, _Anfänge d. Poesie_, p. 127. This author’s discussion
of circle and straight line, as of women and of men in the dance, and
of other formations, is a bit fanciful although interesting and
suggestive. See, too, Donovan on the ring of folk (choral) about a
centre of interest,—altar or the like. Work quoted, p. 204.

Footnote 880:

The development of the dance into different kinds of poetry is
foreshadowed by many of the older writers, although the first really
comparative treatment of the subject must be assigned to A. W.
Schlegel in the lectures at Berlin a century ago. Herder has some
valuable remarks on the subject in his early essay _Vom Geist der
ebräischen Poesie_, following, of course, many hints of Lowth. Two
hundred years ago, Burette, a really learned writer, drew up his
“Mémoire pour servir à l’Histoire de la Danse des Anciens,” published
in the _Mém._, Acad. of Inscript., etc., I. 93 ff., Paris, 1717.
Movement and imitation caused the dance, which is “nearly as old as
man,” and sprang from joy. Cadence is the mainspring; avoid, he says,
Lucian’s prattle about the stars. Wedding, festival, vintage,
harvest,—look to these, says Burette, in quite modern spirit, for the
origins of the dance. He traces metres to the rhythm of songs sung by
the dancers. Another article of this writer investigates ball-playing,
often combined with dance and song. Another writer on the dance was
John Spencer, D.D., master of Corpus Christi College (1630-1693), the
founder of the science of comparative religions; his “Dissertatio de
Saltandi Ritu,” is printed in the _Thesaurus Antiquitat. Sacrar.
complectens selectissima clarissimorum Virorum Opuscula in quibus
Veterum Hebraeorum Mores, Leges, etc., illustrantur_, Vol. XXXII.,
Venet., 1767. Spencer studies the dance of the Hebrews, and his
references are valuable; he is comparative, and uses dances of modern
Turks to illustrate his subject. Hebrews got some of their festal
dances from heathen,—the _saltationes promiscuas_; for erotic dances
he thinks to have been early and everywhere. For a man of his date, he
concludes very boldly “probabilius est, sacras choreas agendi morem,
ex antiquissimo gentium usu primitus oriundum,” and so came to the
Hebrews. The festal dances, where Jews bore about branches and sang a
choral full of repetitions and with a constant refrain, he compares
with pagan affairs of the sort; the pæan is compared with refrains
like _Hallel_ and _Hosannah_. In fine, this is sharp, clear,
comparative work, and good reading still. From Joannis Meursi
_Orchestra sive de Saltationibus Veterum_ ... Lugd. Batav., 1618, not
much is to be learned except a list (alphabetical) of the old dances,
with references to the classic passages. Most of the articles are
short, but the Pyrrhic Dance has twelve pages. An early essay on
dancing, with considerable scope for its time, is inserted in Elyot’s
_Governour_, edited by Croft, London, 1880, from the edition of 1531,
I. 202 ff. Elyot seems to be the first Englishman who wrote about the
art.

Footnote 881:

See above, p. 128.

Footnote 882:

_Essai Comparatif sur l’Origine et l’Histoire des Rythmes_, Paris,
1889.

Footnote 883:

Even this may be questioned in a literal sense. “Formen,” says Usener,
_Altgriechischer Versbau_, p. 111, “werden nicht geschaffen, sondern
sie entstehen und wachsen. Der schöpferische Künstler erzeugt sie
nicht, sondern bildet das Ueberkommene veredelnd um.” He is speaking
of the popular four-accent verse found in so many languages.

Footnote 884:

_L’Esthétique du Mouvement_, Paris, 1889, Cap. iv. See pp. 54, 65.

Footnote 885:

In the _First Principles_.

Footnote 886:

_Essai_, pp. 102, 104.

Footnote 887:

_Mélusine_, I. 1 ff. See, too, _Poésie du Moyen Age_, pp. 77, 89.

Footnote 888:

_Zeitschr. f. Völkerpsychol._, XVII. 113 ff.

Footnote 889:

_Kalewala_, p. 38.

Footnote 890:

_Nordboernes Aandsliv_, II. 437 ff.

Footnote 891:

The refrain of two lines, he thinks, was added to the two-line stanza
of narrative ballads; and so resulted the common ballad stanza. This
is denied by Steenstrup.

Footnote 892:

“Proved” by that old primitive-Aryan process now something
discredited: _danz_ is an imported word (meaning both song and dance).
See Vigfusson’s _Icelandic Dictionary_, _s.v._ More formidable, but
far from final, is the silence of the sagas.

Footnote 893:

A similar denial, not only of the original character of recorded
ballads, but of the ballad habit itself, is made for Denmark by
Professor G. Storm in his otherwise valuable book, _Sagnkredsene om
Karl den Store og Didrik af Bern hos de nordiske Folk_, Kristiania,
1874, pp. 174 f.

Footnote 894:

See below on the _schnaderhüpfl_ and _stev._

Footnote 895: