Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/438

 41 8 Reviews.

in Folk-Song," by Mr. E. S. Jacques — survivals such as an un- instructed collector might be liable to mistake for errors of the singer, and to obliterate in transcription ; an entertaining paper by the Hon. Secretary, Mrs. Kate Lee, on the " Experiences of a Folk-Song Collector," containing practical hints which many a folklorist might study with profit ; and finally, twelve traditional airs, previously unpublished. The second number contains a report of the year's work, from which it seems that thirty-one tunes have been received from nine collectors for collation and consideration by the committee ; a paper on Jewish Synagogue Music, and another on English Sailors' Songs ; and lastly, ten inedited folk-songs, and ten preserved in the traditions of the Synagogue.

As to the matter of these gleanings, the majority are narrative love-songs, possessing, even when obviously corrupted by repeti- tion, that curious affecting pathos which is a " note " of the genuine folk-song all over the world. A few ballads ("folk-tales in verse ") are mentioned among the sea-songs, but only one of the real old sort is given : " Come, Mother, Come Make up my Bed " — a variant on the old theme of the separated lovers who die for love. Trade and labour-songs are not represented.

More attention, however, has been paid to the music than to the words ; and undoubtedly the study of folk-music has its own importance, not only as throwing light on the history and develop- ment of musical science, but for its bearing on some of the pro- blems of folklore. For here we can often get at actual facts, where in other departments we have to depend on reasoning and probability. Take, for instance, the Jewish evidence now before us. The melodies used in synagogal and other worship are in reality the folk-tunes of the several countries in which Jewish immigrants have settled, but interwoven by their adapters with curious cadences of an Oriental cast ; thus displaying clearly the double influence of race and environment. Again, the " tough- ness" of popular tradition, especially when sanctioned by ritual or ecclesiastical practice, is illustrated by the fact that one at least of the melodies still traditionally sung by the descendants of Spanish Jews was originally set to words by Rabbi Judah Hallevi, who was born in Castile in 1085.

After this, the information that the ballad of the capture of the Szveet Trinity, printed in black letter in the reign of Elizabeth, is