[705]. Work quoted, p. 17. See his Wald-u. Feldkulte, p. 262.
[706]. That the Romans had these refrains of harvest and vintage, as well as their Fescennine flytings and improvised satire, is beyond dispute (Zell, II. 122 ff.), but nothing of it all has come down to us. Fortune has been kinder with regard to the songs and refrains sung in processions about the Roman field.
[707]. Chappell, II. 580. See his quotation from Tusser. Even here, in the Eastern states of America, middle-aged men have watched the passing of the “wealthy farmer,” who now exists only in newspapers, and even there is kept at long range,—“of Indiana,” “of Texas.” Yet we knew him in our boyhood. The communal farmer occurs in old English novels, and in some new ones; but he is passing rapidly into tradition. See a paper on “England’s Peasantry,” by the Rev. Dr. Jessopp, in the Nineteenth Century and After, January, 1901; he tells of the communal conditions which once prevailed, of the change to the present, and is “inclined to doubt seriously whether before another century has ended there will be any such thing as an agricultural labourer to know.”
[708]. On the modern corruption of old refrains, see Pfannenschmid, pp. 207 ff., 468 ff.
[709]. Compare the song sung on this occasion in Bavaria as the peasants dance about the fire and leap over it for good luck (Firmenich, II. 703):—
Haliga Sankt Veit,
Schick uns a Scheit;
Haliga Sankt Wendl,
Schick uns an Bengl;
Haliga Sankt Florio,