INTRODUCTION. Ixxix did not sing ballads of the character indicated by the titles. England, in those days, had a supreme love of song; it had a great reputation as the home of dancing; ^ and it had the best of ballads. For an Elizabethan merry-making one must think of ballads and their story as ancillary to the dance itself; ^ but as one goes further back, events and the ballad which sings them take a more important place. It was under escort of song and dance, one may say, that great national or communal events forcea themselves into verse and found room in popular memory; such was the case with that ballad, made in the seventh century to the honor of St. Faro, and sung by the women " as they danced and clapped their hands." ^ Unfortunately, one finds but scant material of this sort; but in later days, survivals of the narrative ballad at a dance are plentiful enough. Such seems to be the Khorovod, "blended dance and song " of the Russians, an immemorial possession, prominent in all Slavonic poetry of the people.* The song of satire and mockery has been already mentioned as favorite for the dance. Historic accounts of the diversion reach far back into the past, and survivals 1 Chappell, II, 625 f. 2 So, too, on an indifferent occasion. " Clap us into Light o^ Lffve^"* says Margaret in Much Ado^ iii, 4; " that goes without a burden: do you sing it, and I'll dance it."
- The record is instructive. " Ex qua victoria carmen publicum
juxta rusticitatem per omnium pene volitabat ora ita canentium, feminaeque chores inde plaudendo componebant." Mabillon, Acta Sanctorum ordinis S. BenedictiyV exi^ths^ 1733, I^» 59®* So " the maidens and minstrels of Scotland" (see p. xxxiii, above) danced and sang those taunting songs about Bannockbum and the English.
- Narrative, too, are most of the dance-songs in a modern Russian
cottage, with interesting arrangement of stanza, and the true ballad- trait of repetition. Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, pp. 2 f., 34. Digitized by LjOOQIC
