Note 11 — FOLK-SONG

We cannot widen our borders so as to include that solitary folk-song rescued from ancient Greek literature, the 'Song of the Swallow,' sung by children of the Island of Rhodes as they went about asking gifts from house to house at the coming of the earliest swallow. The metre is interesting in comparison with the rhythm of later European folk-songs, and there is evident dramatic action. Nor can we include the fragments of communal drama found in the favorite Debates Between Summer and Winter,—from the actual contest, to such lyrical forms as the song at the end of Shakespeare's 'Love's Labor's Lost.' The reader may be reminded of a good specimen of this class in 'Ivy and Holly,' printed by Ritson, 'Ancient Songs and Ballads,' Hazlitt's edition, page 114 ff., with the refrain:—

Nay, Ivy, nay, Hyt shal not be, I wys; Let Holy hafe the maystry, As the maner ys.