The Beginnings of Poetry

by Francis Barton Gummere

[395]. Villemarqué, Barzaz-Breiz, Paris, 1846, II. 285. Le Temps Passé begins p. 273.

[396]. Or suppose one should pin the ego folk to a belief in the statement found in so many ballads that they are written by the person of whom they sing! This statement is a favourite in Basque songs. See F. Michel, Le Pays Basque, pp. 320 f.

[397]. Or take the Schloss in Oesterreich:—

Wer ist, der uns dies Liedlein sang?

So frei ist es gesungen;

Das haben gethan drei Jungfräulein

Zu Wien in Oesterreiche.

[398]. Compare the dance and singing of the Botocudos, above, p. [95].

[399]. No one now pretends that “Expliceth, quod Rychard Sheale,” at the end of the Ms. of the old Cheviot ballad, makes Sheale the author of it.

[400]. Work quoted, p. lvii. The implied protest against Grimm, p. lxxxii, must be read along with the passage just cited.