Note 761 — Chapter V · THE DIFFERENCING ELEMENTS OF COMMUNAL POETRY (continued 3)

Compare the chorus of the Maypole song in Actæon and Diana, in Chappell, I. 126:—

Then to the Maypole come away,

For it is now a holiday.

“Trip and go” was “one of the favourite Morris-dances,” and the words seem to have become a proverbial expression. See Chappell, I. 126, 302. It was on the basis of some refrain of this sort that the first part-song in English, the famous Cuckoo Song, was built up. Ten Brink is surely right in giving it a communal origin, though not communal making.