Page:Old English ballads by Francis Barton Gummere (1894).djvu/99

Rh INTRODUCTION. xciii Roumanian ballads,^ Carmen Sylva says that most of them are improvisations, " sung to a monotonous chant/' and "usually begin and end with a refrain." This improvisation is not confined to a few singers ; ^ at the dance, or in the spinning-room, a person who would escape his turn to make a stanza, must follow the example set by Caedmon. Caedmon,* of course, reminds us of improvisation in our old literature ; and for another proof of the ease with which Englishmen of that day dropped into poetry, one may take threats of the church against any priest who, — welcome, of course, to make a pious chanson as often as he pleased, — should in an unguarded moment "turn gleeman or ale-bard."* But we need go no farther afield in search of evidence about this spontaneous character of early poetry ; the difficulty besets us not here, but in the actual process of primitive " making." 1 The Bard of the Dimboviizka, London, 1892. 2 Ralston quotes good authority to the same effect for the powers of improvisation shown by peasants, — particularly women, — in Russia. Songs of Russian People^ pp. 40 f., 54. ^^f^g^•^ <f^^^ glltnan <f^&(ie eala-scop wut^. — There are ample hints of improvisation in our older literature. In Biowulf the "king's thane " not only sings a traditional ballad of Sigmund, but seems to improvise a lay about the deed which has just been done (B^ow.^ V. 867 ff.) ; and perhaps the same is true of the warriors who ride about the hero's tomb, and chant his praises. King Cnut has at least the reputation of an early water-poet ; and Here ward plays his harp and sings his own ballad cunctis admirantibus {De Gestis Herewardi in Michel, Chron. Norm.y II, 19). King Horn {K. H.^ ed. Wissmann, 1485 ff.), in a well known passage, takes his harp, and sings to R3rmenhild a lay of his own making. Digitized by LjOOQIC
 * Bede, Hist Eccl.^ iv, 24 (22).
 * Schmid, Gesetze d, Angelsachsen^ p. 366 : gif priost oferdruncen