Page:Old English ballads by Francis Barton Gummere (1894).djvu/85

Rh INTRODUCTION. Ixxix did not sing ballads of the character indicated by the titles. England, in those days, had a supreme love of song; it had a great reputation as the home of dancing; ^ and it had the best of ballads. For an Elizabethan merry-making one must think of ballads and their story as ancillary to the dance itself; ^ but as one goes further back, events and the ballad which sings them take a more important place. It was under escort of song and dance, one may say, that great national or communal events forcea themselves into verse and found room in popular memory; such was the case with that ballad, made in the seventh century to the honor of St. Faro, and sung by the women " as they danced and clapped their hands." ^ Unfortunately, one finds but scant material of this sort; but in later days, survivals of the narrative ballad at a dance are plentiful enough. Such seems to be the Khorovod, "blended dance and song " of the Russians, an immemorial possession, prominent in all Slavonic poetry of the people.* The song of satire and mockery has been already mentioned as favorite for the dance. Historic accounts of the diversion reach far back into the past, and survivals 1 Chappell, II, 625 f. 2 So, too, on an indifferent occasion. " Clap us into Light o^ Lffve^"* says Margaret in Much Ado^ iii, 4; " that goes without a burden: do you sing it, and I'll dance it." juxta rusticitatem per omnium pene volitabat ora ita canentium, feminaeque chores inde plaudendo componebant." Mabillon, Acta Sanctorum ordinis S. BenedictiyV exi^ths^ 1733, I^» 59®* So " the maidens and minstrels of Scotland" (see p. xxxiii, above) danced and sang those taunting songs about Bannockbum and the English. cottage, with interesting arrangement of stanza, and the true ballad- trait of repetition. Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, pp. 2 f., 34. Digitized by LjOOQIC
 * The record is instructive. " Ex qua victoria carmen publicum
 * Narrative, too, are most of the dance-songs in a modern Russian