Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/256

 248 text "children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, and saying, 'We have piped unto you and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you and ye have not lamented.'" (Matthew xi.)

In connection with the mourning for Jenny (which in England is signified by a low wailing sound, a tnie keening) Mr. Newell mentions that "in a Flemish town, a generation since, when a young girl died, her body was carried to the church, and thence to the cemetery by her former companions." He is probably not aware that the same custom prevails to this day in several parts of Italy. The first time I witnessed the bearing of a bier by women was at Varese; on that occasion they were young married women, the body being that of a young mother who had died in childbirth. The shrill voices of the mourners as they chanted the litany for the dead, moving in slow procession from the lake-shore to the church of San Vittore, produced a strikingly touching effect. But it is stranger to see, as I have seen more recently at Spezia, the little coffin of a child carried to the grave entirely by children of from six to ten years old, and followed also exclusively by a string of little ones, dressed nicely in their best frocks, of whom one or two would carry a bright posy, or a wreath of flowers. I could never see any older person accompanying the cortège, except one man who walked at a certain distance, it may be to keep order; but his presence did not seem necessary, for the children appeared to know quite well what to do, and performed their office with great propriety, though without any affectation of particular sadness. When they came back they skipped over the strip of grass by the new sea-wall, seeing who could pick the most daisies.

In the Games and Songs of American Children there is so much of interest that I have been obliged to limit myself to the discussion of a very few points. I must however, in conclusion, allude to the especially suggestive remarks on the assignment of certain stated periods of the year to the playing of certain games. Climate or other circumstances may have originated the usage, but it is adhered to with automatic regularity where the cause has long since disappeared and been forgotten. It seems a case of " hereditary memory," not perhaps without its bearings on the migrations of birds and other instances of animal instinct.

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