"I started up the trail October twenty-third,
I started up the trail with the 2-U herd."
Strikingly as the ballads differ from consciously "artistic" narrative in their broken movement and allusive method, the contrast is even more different if we consider the naive quality of their refrains. Sometimes the refrain is only a sort of musical accompaniment:
"There was an old farmer in Sussex did dwell,
(Chorus of Whistlers)
There was an old farmer in Sussex did dwell
And he had a bad wife, as many knew well.
(Chorus of Whistlers)"
Or,
"The auld Deil cam to the man at the pleugh,
Rumchy ae de aidie."
Sometimes the words of the choral refrain have a vaguely suggestive meaning:
"There were three ladies lived in a bower,
Eh vow bonnie
And they went out to pull a flower,
On the bonnie banks of Fordie."
Sometimes the place-name, illustrated in the last line quoted, is definite:
"There was twa sisters in a bower,
Edinburgh, Edinburgh,
There was twa sisters in a bower,
Stirling for aye
There was twa sisters in a bower,
There came a knight to be their wooer,
Bonny Saint Johnston stands upon Tay."
But often it is sheer faëry-land magic: