Page:Old English ballads by Francis Barton Gummere (1894).djvu/90

lxxxiv Ixxxiv INTRODUCTION. admit,^ the so-called narrative lyric, or ballad in stricter sense, was the universal primitive form of poetry of the people, and if, in spite of some faint opposition,^ our best critics conclude that the refrain was a necessary part of the original ballad,* it is clear that a study of the refrain must throw some light on the origins of poetry of the people in general. It is of interest, moreover, to find the refrain best represented in those English and Scottish ballads which spring from pure tradition and are of the most distinctly popular type.* The precise nature of the refrain in any ballad is not always easy to define.* Fortunately, in a description of middle ages took so much into the church from populai: and heathen sources, that a subsequent " taking from the church " was often mere recovery of stolen goods. ^ Steenstnip, Vore Folkeviser^ p. 53. 2 Geijer : see Steenstrup, p. 88. 8 Ibid.^ pp. 88, III : "en folkevise altid har omkvaed." Steenstrup says that out of 502 ballads which he examined, " only about a score " lacked the refrain. the two-line stanza and the more popular or traditional ballads occur. ^ One must distinguish chorus, refrain and burden. Burden is sometimes used in its stricter sense, as defined by Chappell, I, 222 : " The burden of a song, in the old acceptation of the word, was the base, foot, or under-song. It was sung throughout, and not merely at the end of the verse." Thus, in the quotation given above from Miuh AdOy Margaret proposes a song " that goes without a burden " because there was no man on the stage to sing this base or foot ; so that Light d Love^ remarks Chappell, was " strictly a ballett, to be sung and danced." Murray's Dictionary refers, for this use of the word, to Shakspere's Lucrece^ ii33 •* For burden-wise III hum on Tarquin still, While thou [sc. the nightingale] on Tereus descanfst better skill. But often, again, the burden is confused with the refrain ; see Murray, Dictionary, s. v. " Burden," 10 : "the refrain or chorus of a song ; a set of words recurring at the end of each verse." Guest, English Rhythms, II, 290, defines " Burthen " as " the return of the Digitized by LjOOQIC
 * That is, in the first volume of Professor Child's collection, where