unfamiliar, these songs nevertheless convey the idea of being pervaded with remarkable rhythmicality, and the refrains which nearly all of them contain provide them with a great facility for harmoniousness.
To many English readers probably the locality of Bas-Quercy is, to say the least, not familiar; it may not be out of place, therefore, to mention that the origin of the name of the district is ascribed to its having been inhabited by les Cadurci at the time of the Roman invasion. It now constitutes the department of Lot and part of the Tarn et Garonne; Montauban was its capital.
The first song of this collection, “Escribeto”, is a counterpart of one to which Count Nigra has devoted more attention than any other in his series, in fact, a whole tenth of his book, under the title of “Il Moro Saracino”. ‘Guilhalmes’ in the one, ‘Bel galant’ in the other, marries a maiden so young that she cannot so much as dress herself alone: this homely detail is absent from no version. He goes to the wars, leaving her in his mother’s charge—per la laissa grandi—but while he is gone, “el gran Moro Sarazì” (Nigra), “lous Morous sarrasis” (Soleville), carry her off. He comes back at the end of seven years, and when he learns what has happened, he swears he will do nothing till he has found her, though he perish in the attempt. “S’i n’a duveissa mûrì” (N.), “Quand saurivi de mouri” (S.). He takes his sword with the gold hilt, but he goes forth dressed as a pilgrim, till he meets three washerwomen plying their industry at the foot of a great castle. This introduction of unromantic lavandere is insisted on in every one of Nigra’s seven versions, as well as (labairos-lababoun linge fì) in Soleville’s, and recalls a similarly curious instance in the song of Piedmont at pp. 162-5 of my collection. I have attempted to account for it,[1] and in the instance I was commenting on the laundress
- ↑ “This song is a strange mixture of sublime symbolism and everyday usage. The siren passes into the washerwoman—Undine into the laundress,”
