Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/35

 Rh throughout the world, and have everywhere become the household property of the nations, no one asking whence they came or who brought them. Thus we find that they have indeed been wandering from country to country, from nation to nation, carried by throbbing hearts and willing minds.

We are accustomed to take for granted, or at any rate we do not investigate deeply, the kind of intercourse which existed between the nations in olden times. Did they live isolated, every one on his own glebe? What intercourse was there between the townsfolk and those living in the villages? In what way were such communications carried? It would lead me too far to enter here upon the discussion of the various ways of communication between one nation and another. But let me state at once that no period in human history is known in which any nation has been allowed to live isolated for any length of time. There is no such thing as isolation. It must be sufficient for our purpose if I touch, however lightly, upon some of the means by which communication was kept open, at least in the Middle Ages. First, there were pilgrimages to the local shrines, reminding you of Chaucer's famous pilgrimage to Canterbury, and there were also the longer pilgrimages to Rome from every part of Christendom. People mixed and travelled together, met on the road, exchanged their experiences, told their adventures, spiced them with romantic episodes, added some satirical touches, and in such wise lightened their journey, from which they came back carrying with them the history of their travels, memories of adventures, tales and curious superstitions, relics of saints, practices of various places, and sometimes perhaps a not unwelcome merry song, or a stirring ballad, or a jolly jest. I remind you then of the minstrels, lute on back, travelling in the train of some great lord, or on their own account, singing romances and ballads,