[1041]. Child, I. 399 ff.
[1042]. Essays, pp. 365 ff.
[1043]. On p. 358.
[1044]. When the Greek youth leaves his home, Fauriel says, his family sing songs of farewell, traditional and improvised, to which he often improvises a reply. Improvisation, too, and presumably once in the village throng, lies at the foundation of the German prentice songs of leave-taking, the eternal note of scheiden, das thut grämen, with culmination in that exquisite poem, probably not improvised, Innsprück, ich muss dich lassen. The ennobling process is interesting, and is of a piece with the process assumed by A. W. Schlegel for the ennobling of Greek epic out of rude improvisation.
[1045]. Uhland, Volkslieder, I. 78. In spite of the two melodies, I have put the refrain at the beginning, and slightly changed, as in Uhland’s B., at the end. The actual song is for the dance. See Böhme, Altd. Liederb., p. 268. Only two stanzas are given,—one for the happy girl and one for the lovelorn, one the vortanz, the other the nachtanz.
[1047]. Firmenich, II. 742.
[1048]. The translation fails to bring out the simplicity of these two stanzas; they run thus:—
Der Weg ös mer z’wait,
Und der Wold ös mer z’dick,