Note 686 — Chapter V · THE DIFFERENCING ELEMENTS OF COMMUNAL POETRY (continued 2)

Coussemaker in his section of songs for the dance, work quoted, pp. 338 f., gives a “ronde” sung during the fête at Bailleul:—

Now the salad must be sowed,

Now the salad must be sowed,

Salad, salad, salad, salad, salad,

Now the salad must be sowed.

Now the salad must be cut,—

then plucked, washed, dried, and so on. The list of these songs could be extended indefinitely; the fact that this of the salad is sung at a quite alien festivity simply proves the vogue of the thing. One must refer, however, to the dances of Catalonian peasants and children, the songs for which are little more than repetition and refrain descriptive of country toil, as quoted by Wolf, pp. 34 f., of his Proben Portugiesischer und Catalanischer Volksromanzen, Wien, 1856.