RUSSIAN CURSIVE WRITING.
A public document of Kamtschatka, written on birch bark.
In leaving the subject of folk-song, it is necessary for the reader not only to consider anew the loose and unscientific way in which this term has been employed, but also to bear in mind that few of the above specimens can lay claim to the title in any rigid classification. Long ago, a German critic reminded zealous collectors of his day that when one has dipped a pailful of water from the brook, one has captured no brook; and that when one has written down a folk-song, it has ceased to be that eternally changing, momentary, spontaneous, dance-begotten thing which once flourished everywhere as communal poetry. Always in flux, if it stopped it ceased to be itself. Modern lyric is deliberately composed by some one, mainly to be sung by some one else; the old communal lyric was sung by the throng and was made in the singing. When festal excitement at some great communal rejoicing in the life of clan or tribe "fought its battles o'er again," the result was narrative communal song. A disguised and baffled survival of this most ancient narrative is the popular ballad. Still more disguised, still more baffled, is the purely lyrical survival of that old communal and festal song; and the best one can do is to present those few specimens found under conditions which preserve certain qualities of a vanished world of poetry.
It may be asked why the contemporary songs found among Indian tribes of our continent, or among remote islanders in low stages of culture, should not reproduce for us the old type of communal verse. The answer is simple. Tribes which have remained in low stages of culture do not necessarily retain all the characteristics of primitive life among races which had the germs of rapidly developing culture. That communal poetry which gave life to the later epic of Hellenic or of Germanic song must have differed materially, no matter in what stage of development, from the uninteresting and monotonous chants of the savage. Moreover, the specimens of savage verse which we know retain the characteristics of communal verse, while they lack its nobler and vital quality. The dance, the spontaneous production, repetition,—these are all marked characteristics of savage verse. But savage verse cannot serve as model for our ideas of primitive folk-song.
[1] For facsimile of the MS., music, and valuable remarks, see Chappell, 'Ballad Literature and Popular Music of the Olden Time,' Vol. i., frontispiece, and pages 21 ff. For pronunciation, see A. J. Ellis, 'Early English Pronunciation,' ii., 419 ff. The translation given by Mr. Ellis is:—
"Summer has come in; loudly sing, cuckoo! Grows seed and blossoms mead and springs the wood now. Sing, cuckoo! Ewe bleats after lamb, lows after (its) calf the cow; bullock leaps, buck verts (seeks the green); merrily sing, cuckoo! Cuckoo, cuckoo! Well singest thou, cuckoo; cease thou not never now. Burden.—Sing, cuckoo, now; sing, cuckoo! Sing, cuckoo, sing cuckoo, now."—Lhude, wde (=wude), awe, calve, bucke, are dissyllabic. Mr. Ellis's translation of verteth is very doubtful.
[2] The first stanza in the original will show the structure of this true "ballad" in the primitive sense of a dance-song. There are five of these stanzas, carrying the same rhymes throughout:—
A l'entrada del temps clar,—eya,—
Per joja recomençar,—eya,—
E per jelos irritar,—eya,—
Vol la regina mostrar
Qu' el' est si amoroza.