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.
767. Used as refrain in ballads; see Child, I. 19 f., e.g.:—
768. Deutsche Volkslieder aus Oberhessen, p. xi. His list of references is valuable.
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.
770. See Jeanroy’s chapter, “Le Debat,” in Origines de la Poésie Lyrique en France, pp. 45 ff.
771. Böhme, Kinderlied, pp. 332 ff. See p. 347.
772. See Firmenich, II. 15, where children in the Palatinate on “Rose-Sunday” go about and sing:—
See ibid., II. 34.
773. Letourneau, L’Évolution Littéraire, p. 21.
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.
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.
777. Die Korndaemonen, Berlin, 1868. See also his Roggenwulf und Roggenhund, Danzig, 1866.
778. Work quoted, I. 25.
779. Ibid., I. 248.
780. Ibid., I. 517 ff.; II. 189 f.
781. Ibid., I. 525.
782. Jean de Lery, Histoire, etc., pp. 268 ff.
783. Opposite p. 274.
785. On pp. 25 ff.
786. The name of the brave.
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.
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.
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.
790. See a note in the author’s Old English Ballads, p. lxxxiv.
791. See Chappell, Popular Music, I. 222 ff., 34, 264; II. 426, 457.
792. III. 4. See also the Oxford Dictionary, s.v. “burden,” with the reference to Shakspere’s Lucrece, v. 1133.
793. III. 1.
794. English Rhythms, II. 290.
795. Child, I. 113.
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.
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.
798. Child, I. 209, 214.
799. Ibid., I. 126 ff., in F., O. See H.
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.
801. Chronik, ed. Dahlmann, I. 176 f. See also II. 559 ff.
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.
803. This technical side of the case is discussed by Valentin, Studien über die schwedischen Volksmelodien, pp. 9 f.
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.
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.
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.
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.
809. Quoted by Ritson, Anc. Songs³, p. xxxv.
810. Difference.
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.
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:—
and so on. Then:—
with refrain, or chorus, as before, and imitative actions.”
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.’”
814. Coussemaker, I. 328; Firmenich, I. 380, IV. 679.
815. In the other version “nonnetje,” “nönneke,” little nun.
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.
817. Waitz, Anthropologie, VI. 606.
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.
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.
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.
821. Sociology, II. 123.
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.”
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.
824. See Bastian, “Masken und Maskereien,” Zeitschr. f. Völkerpsych., XIV. 347.
825. Anthropologie der Naturvölker, VI. 78 ff.
826. Wallaschek, p. 189.
827. Letourneau, p. 28.
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.
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.
831. Béowulf, 631 ff., 2631 ff. The béot is the same thing; Battle of Maldon, 213.
832. Pinkerton, Voyages and Travels, London, 1808 ff., XI. 535, 543, 648.
833. Pinkerton, Voyages and Travels, pp. 652, 723.
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.
835. Three Years’ Travel, etc., Phila., 1796; the travels were in 1766-1768. See pp. 171 ff., 220.
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.
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.
838. Ten Broeck, in Schoolcraft, IV. 84.
839. Clavigero, History of Mexico, trans. Cullen, London, 1787, I. 399 f., a description of the great public dances.
840. Schoole of Abuse, p. 34.
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.
842. Described by Mr. Arthur Symons in Harper’s Monthly Magazine, March, 1901, p. 503.
843. Pfannenschmid, Germ. Erntef., p. 400.
845. See the suggestive treatment of this subject by Posnett, Comparative Literature, pp. 117 ff., with his references to Réville and Burnouf.
846. Silius Italicus, naming the troops which Hannibal led out of winter quarters, comes to the Gallician contingent, and describes their youth—
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.
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.
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.
849. See Bruchmann, Poetik, p. 212.
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.
851. See Old English Ballads, p. lxxvi.
852. Such as the author of the Complaynt of Scotland watched at their dancing, and noted the songs.
853. See below, Chap. VII.
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.
855. See book of this title by Sir J. G. Wilkinson, London, 1848, I. 399.
856. It translates “dance” in Luke xv. 25.
857. See Kögel, Gesch. d. deutsch. Lit., pp. 7 ff.
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.”
859. Wolf, Lais, pp. 18, 183 f., puts too much stress on the singing of church music, though he concedes popular origins; p. 22.
860. Work quoted, p. cxvii.
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.
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.
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):—
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.
864. In the translation ascribed to Chaucer, w. 759 ff., “Tha myghtist thou karoles sene,” etc.
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.
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.”
868. See Kind-Harts Dreame, ed. Rimbault, Percy Soc., 1841, p. 38, and note, p. 79.
869. English Minstrelsie, I., p. ix.
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.
871. Brand, “New Year’s Day.”
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.
873. See Böhme, Altd. Liederb., p. xxxv.
874. ’T Boertje, Coussemaker, pp. 329 f., and ’t Patertje, already quoted.
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.
876. In Germany itself: cf. Meyer, Volkskunde, pp. 158, 160, 163.
877. Arbeit u. Rhythmus, pp. 103 f.
878. See note, end of chapter.