Page:Old English ballads by Francis Barton Gummere (1894).djvu/39

INTRODUCTION. xxxiii communal songs of satire, and put them down only with great difficulty; for they seem to have been a legacy from heathen Europe. They touched politics as well as religion. Satiric ballads often arose from the hatred of folk for folk, nation for nation, like the songs made after Bannockbum, and sung with a refrain "in daunces, in the carols of the maidens and minstrels of Scotland, to the reproofe and disdaine of Englishmen."^ Of more interest, however, for our present task is the evidence that a ballad of satire could have a distinctly communal origin, that its actual creation could be in the community and — if the expression will pass — by the community. Moreover, this satiric ballad was sung in the same place, by the same people, and for the same purpose, as the heroic ballad of tradition. In Pastor Lyngbye's valuable book,^ we read of such a satiric ballad made by the Faroe Islanders. It is in derision of some unfortunate fisher- man, who comes to the public dance, is seized by a couple of stalwart comrades, and pushed out before the throng — that is, before the whole community. Then the ballad which mocks some misadventure of his, known to all the folk, is sung by the dancing crowd, — a few at first, then all ; with facts so given, spontaneous production is easy enough; and so, verse upon verse, they make the man bad songs shall be sung about us," male cangun ja cantie rCen seit t N3rrop quotes Iliad, vi, 358, as a parallel case. Moreover, who of us does not know the remorseless rimes, largely spontaneous, which a band of children can rain in chorus upon the head of some un- popular urchin } 1 Fabyan's Chronicle, from which this is taken, was written long after the event, and is not too trustworthy. ^Far0iske Quader om Sigurd, etc., Randers, 1822. P. E. Miiller writes the preface, and quotes from L)nigbye*s journal. Our quota- tion is found at p. 14. A few additional details in V. U. Hammers- haimb, Fardsk Anthologi, I, Copenhagen, 1891, p. xli ff. Digitized by LjOOQIC