Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/271

Rh actually woos the knight beneath the water, giving colour to the suggestion; but the present instance seems to show that nothing is intended beyond a homely and prosaic fact. Of the washerwomen the pilgrim learns that this is the castle of the very Saracen Moor of whom he is in search. Begging under the windows, he obtains a sight of his maiden (Fiorensa in Piedmont, Escribeto in Bas-Quercy). As he takes the alms from her hand she recognises by the ring he wears that he is indeed her husband, though she had just been in doubt “that anyone could have come so far as from her country except it had been a swallow, who flies the whole livelong day”. But when she is satisfied it is he, she instructs him how to find the swiftest horse in the stable, and carry her off, pretending she is his bag of oats for the horse. One or two of the Piedmontese versions wind up with the Moor’s complaint: “To think that I should have had her seven years, and never so much as touched her hand!” This is wanting in the one from Bas-Quercy, but in nearly every other detail it is identical.

Count Nigra rightly calls this one of the most charming of folk-songs, and he has bestowed infinite pains in the study of its origin and wanderings; and we refer our readers to his treatise on it, not only for its intrinsic interest, but as a fine specimen of his analytical instinct.

Another instance of great beauty is the group of songs classed by Count Nigra as Fior di Tomba, and in his analysis of these there is much to interest the folk-lorist of every country; for no nationality is without this incident. Is this not because there is a sublime meaning of the mind and soul underlying the pretty love-conceit of the heart? Expressed tersely by Jean Paul, “The bier is the cradle of heaven.” The light for her lover’s eyes which glowed round the tomb of Beatrice opened Paradise to him and to us.

The group of the Donna Lombarda is treated of course