And first came out the thick, thick blood,
And syne came out the thin,
And syne came out the bonnie heart’s blood ...
So with three horses, and what not. This triad is not necessarily sprung from the “Dreitheiligkeit in der Lyrik,” of which Veit Valentin discourses in the Zeitschr. f. vgl. Lit. (New Series) II. 9 ff. “Dreitheiligkeit in der Lyrik,” comes rather from communal iteration in primitive song and dance.
[435]. See his letter to Mason, Works, ed. Gosse, II. 36.
[436]. Professor Earle confuses, in a very uncritical way, the garrulity of romances with the garrulity of epics and of ballads: see his Deeds of Béowulf, p. xlix. A “voluble and rambling loquacity,” he says, is the “natural character of the lay, and still more of the epic, which is a compilation of lays.” And presently he says that the romances are “the nearest extant representative of that unwritten literature which from the very nature of things was undisciplined and loquacious.” Confusion could hardly go beyond this.
[437]. Ferienschriften, I. 87.
[438]. “Das russische Volksepos,” Zeitschr. f. Völkerpsych., V. 187.
[440]. See Porthan, Opera Selecta, III. 305-381. I quote from the original dissertations de Poesi Fennica 1778, pp. 57 ff. He begins by lamenting the decay of old national song near the coast and under clerical influence; intimates that song was a universal gift and was improvised, although sundry bards are now eminent. Memorable events slip into song, now convivial, now satiric; and there is great store of proverbs. The description of dual singing begins with § XI.