Page:Old English ballads by Francis Barton Gummere (1894).djvu/82

lxxvi Ixxvi INTRODUCTION. Besides this wider association of song and dance, it is of importance to note the close connection between dancing and the narrative ballad. As early as the seventeenth century, Faroe islanders were known to use their traditional songs as music for the dance ; and later the invaluable work of Lyngbye mentions as favorite not only the satiric ballad, but even the distinctly heroic ballad. Dancing, says Lyngbye,^ is the islanders' chief amusement. At a given dance, one or more persons begin to sing, then all folk present join in the ballad, or, at the very least, in the refrain. " The purpose of the song is not, like dance-music, simply to order the steps, but at the same time by its meaning and contents to waken certain feelings. One can notice by the demeanor of the dancers that they are not indifferent to the tendency and spirit of the song ; ^ for by their gestures and expressions they take pains, while they dance, to show the various contents of it." Thus, amid conditions which come nearer to the primitive state than any of which we have such accurate knowledge, is found a genuine song of the people, in which dancing is the main fact, singing a necessity, heroic deeds a favorite subject, and sponta- neous composition by a part or the whole of the throng a not infrequent factor. We note the present and immediate influence of those doings which the song chances to describe ; no one person is needed to interpret between the fact and the metrical form. In Iceland, to take a different phase of the matter, rimur, with metre 1 Faroiske Quader, p. viii. This account is confirmed by later observers. See Maurer in Westermann*s Illustr. Monatsheften^ May, 1863, quoted by Bohme, Geschichte d. Tanzesy p. 13 ; and Hammershaimb, Farosk Anthologiy p. xli ff. 2 " They follow the story, with breathless interest," says Ham- mershaimb ; and he describes the dramatic fervor with which they make real again the ballad of a victorious battle. Digitized by LjOOQIC