Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/137

Rh but now well nigh forgotten. Miss Carey reminds us that the Channel Islands have never belonged to the Kings of France, but to the Dukes of Normandy, from whom descended the Norman Kings of England. The old Norman tongue still lingers in outlying districts of the Islands, and their ballads, dances, and traditions are evidently "Norman and Celtic, and not Anglo-Saxon." With the establishment of Calvinism in the Islands, at the time of the Reformation, there arose a series of severe "ordonnances" to suppress profane songs and dances. In 1785, innkeepers were forbidden to allow dancing on their premises after ten o'clock, except on fête days. Finally, the Island followers of Wesley combined to crush ungodly singing and dancing almost out of existence.

"In olden days" (to quote Miss Carey's rather indefinite words) the great festival of the agricultural year in Guernsey was the "Grand' Querrue" or "Big Plough." This, corresponding to our English "Harvest Home," was held for the purpose of ploughing the fields for the parsnip harvest. A dozen or so of neighbours would meet and co-operate throughout the day, lending their horses and bullocks for the great ploughing. In the evening the owner of the fields would treat all helpers to a supper, and the night would be spent in story-telling, singing, and dancing. At the "Grand' Querrue" of 1907 the dances included three ring-dances accompanied by singing: No. 1, "Ah, mon beau Laurier," No. 2, "Double la Violette," and No. 3, "Après six heures de Fraction." Of these. No. 1, both in words and manner of dancing, has much likeness to certain English matrimonial singing-games, and it ends with the same exhortation to the young couple to kiss one another. The "beau Laurier" takes the place of the British "mulberry-bush" or "merry-ma-tanzie," round which the dancers move in a ring. The two major airs to this dance have, however, no likeness to any of the tunes commonly used in the English singing-games. No. 2 is danced to words which seem to be a parody of an old Norman religious song (or did the secular song precede the latter?). No. 3 is sung and danced by couples of men and women who move round a solitary man. When the music stops the couples change partners, and during the