Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs (1886) Part 28

Nought was heard but minstrelsy, Nought but dancing met the eye, In Ca.s.soni's vale and wood And in all the neighbourhood; Hawk and Blacklip, stanch and true, Feasted in their fashion too.

Fast awhile in slumber lie; Sleep, my child, and hushaby.

Older years when you attain, You will roam o'er field and plain; Meadows will with flowers be gay, And with oil the fountains play, And the salt and bitter sea Into balsam changed be.

Fast awhile in slumber lie; Sleep, my child, and hushaby.

And these mountains, wild and steep, Will be crowded o'er with sheep, And the wild goat and the deer Will be tame and void of fear; Vulture, fox, and beast of prey, From these bounds shall flee away.

Fast awhile in slumber lie; Sleep, my child, and hushaby.

You are savory, sweetly blowing, You are thyme, of incense smelling, Upon Mount Basella growing, Upon Mount Ca.s.soni dwelling; You the hyacinth of the rocks Which is pasture for the flocks.

Fast awhile in slumber lie; Sleep, my child, and hushaby.

At the sight of a new-born babe the Corsican involuntarily sets to work making auguries. The mountain shepherds place great faith in divination based on the examination of the shoulder-blades of animals: according to the local tradition the famous prophecy of the greatness of Napoleon was drawn up after this method. The nomad tribes of Central Asia search the future in precisely the same way. Corsican lullabies are often prophetical. An old woman predicts a strange sort of millennium, to begin with the coming of age of her grandson:

"There grew a boy in Palneca of Pumonti, and his dear grandmother was always rocking his cradle, always wishing him this destiny:--

"Sleep, O little one, thy grandmother's joy and gladness, for I have to prepare the supper for thy dear little father, and thy elder brothers, and I have to make their clothes.

"When thou art older, thou wilt traverse the plains, the gra.s.s will turn to flowers, the sea-water will become sweet balm.

"We will make thee a jacket edged with red and turned up in points, and a little peaked hat, trimmed with gold braid.

"When thou art bigger, thou wilt carry arms; neither soldier nor gendarme will frighten thee, and if thou art driven up into a corner, thou wilt make a famous bandit.

"Never did woman of our race pa.s.s thirteen years unwed, for when an impertinent fellow dared so much as look at her, he escaped not two weeks unless he gave her the ring.

"But that scoundrel of Morando surprised the kinsfolk, arrested them all in one day, and wrought their ruin. And the thieves of Palneca played the spy.

"Fifteen men were hung, all in the market-place: men of great worth, the flower of our race. Perhaps it will be thou, O dearest! who shall accomplish the vendetta!"

An unexpected yet logical development leads from the peaceful household cares, the joyous images of the familiar song, the playful picture of the baby boy in jacket and pointed hat, to a terrible recollection of deeds of shame and blood, long past, and perhaps half-forgotten by the rest of the family, but at which the old dame's breast still burns as she rocks the sleeping babe on whom is fixed her last pa.s.sionate hope of vengeance fulfilled.

In the mountain villages scattered about the borders of the vast Sila forest, Calabrian mothers whisper to their babes, "brigantiellu miu, brigantiellu della mamma." They tell the little ones gathered round their knees legends of Fra Diavolo and of Talarico, just as Sardinian mothers tell the legend of Tolu of Florinas. This last is a story of to-day. In 1850, Giovanni Tolu married the niece of the priest's housekeeper. The priest opposed the marriage, and soon after it had taken place, in the absence of Tolu, he persuaded the young wife to leave her husband's house, never to return. Tolu, meeting his enemy in a lonely path, fired his pistol, but by some accident it did not go off, and the priest escaped with his life. Arrest and certain conviction, however, awaited Tolu, who preferred to take to the woods, where he remained for thirty years, a prince among outlaws.

He protected the weak; administered a rude but wise justice to the scattered peasants of the waste country between Sa.s.sari and the sea; his swift horse was always ready to fly in search of their lost or stolen cattle; his gun was the terror of the thieves who preyed upon these poor people. In Osilo lived two families, hereditary foes, the Stacca and the Achena. An Achena offered Tolu five hundred francs to kill the head of the Stacca family. Tolu not only refused, he did not rest till he had brought about a reconciliation between the two houses. At last, in the autumn of 1880, the gendarmes, after thirty years' failure, arrested Tolu without a struggle at a place where he had gone to take part in a country _festa_. For two years he was kept untried in prison. In September 1882 he was brought before the Court of a.s.size at Frosinone. Not a witness could be found to testify against him. "Tolu," they said, "e un Dio." When asked by the President what he had to say in his defence, he replied: "I never fired first. The carabineers hunted me like a wild beast, because a price was set on my head, and like a wild beast I defended myself."

The jury brought in a verdict of acquittal; and if any one wishes to make our hero's acquaintance, he has only to take ship for Sardinia and then find the way to the village of Florinas, where he is now peaceably living, beloved and respected by all who know him.

The Sardinian character has old-world virtues and old-world blemishes; if you live in the wilder districts you may deem it advisable to keep a loaded pistol on the table at meal-time; but then you may go all over the island without letters of introduction, sure of a hearty welcome, and an hospitality which gives to the stranger the best of everything that there is. If the Sardinian has an imperfect apprehension of the sacredness of other laws, he is blindly obedient to that of custom; when some progressive measure is proposed, he does not argue--he says quietly: "Custu non est secundu la moda nostra."

No man sweeps the dust on antique time less than he. One of his distinctive traits is an overweening fondness of his children; the ever-marvellous baby is represented not only as the glory of its mother, but also as the light even of its most distant connexions--

Lullaby, sweet lullaby, You our happiness supply; Fair your face, and sweet your ways, You, your mother's pride and praise.

As the coral, rare and bright, In your life does father live; You, of all the dear delight, All around you pleasure give.

All your ways, my pretty boy, Of your parents are the joy; You were born for good alone, Sunshine of the family!

Wise, and kind to every one.

Light of every kinsman's eye; Light of all who hither come, And the gladness of our home.

Lullaby, sweet lullaby.

On the northern sh.o.r.e the people speak a tongue akin to that of the neighbouring isle, and the dialect of the south is semi-Spanish; but in the midland Logudoro the old Sard speech is spoken much as it is known to have been spoken a thousand years ago. It is simply a rustic Latin. Canon Spano's loving rather than critical labours have left Sardinia a fine field for some future folk-lore collector. The Sardinian is short in speech, copious in song. I asked a lad, just returned to Venetia from working in Sardinian quarries, if the people there had many songs? "Oh! tanti!" he answered, with a gesture more expressive than the words. He had brought back more than a touch of that malarious fever which is the scourge of the island and a blight upon all efforts to develop its rich resources. A Sardinian friend tells me that the Sard poet often shows a complete contempt for metrical rules; his poesy is apt to become a rhythmic chant of which the words and music cannot be dissevered. But the Logudorian lullabies are regular in form, their distinguishing feature being an interjection with an almost cla.s.sical ring that replaces the _fa la nanna_ of Italy--

Oh! ninna and anninia!

Sleep, baby boy; Oh! ninna and anninia!

G.o.d give thee joy.

Oh! ninna and anninia!

Sweet joy be thine; Oh! ninna and anninia!

Sleep, brother mine.

Sleep, and do not cry, Pretty, pretty one, Apple of mine eye, Danger there is none; Sleep, for I am by, Mother's darling son.

Oh! ninna and anninia!

Sleep, baby boy; Oh! ninna and anninia!

G.o.d give thee joy.

Oh! ninna and anninia!

Sweet joy be thine; Oh! ninna and anninia!

Sleep, brother mine.

The singer is the little mother-sister: the child who, while the mother works in the fields or goes to market, is left in charge of the last-come member of the family, and is bound to console it as best she may, for the absence of its natural guardian. The baby is to her somewhat of a doll, just as to the children of the rich the doll is somewhat of a baby. She may be met without going far afield; anyone who has lived near an English village must know the curly-headed little girl who sits on the cottage door-step or among the meadow b.u.t.tercups, her arms stretched at full length, round a soft, black-eyed creature, small indeed, yet not much smaller than herself.

This, she solemnly informs you, is her baby. Not quite so often can she be seen now as before the pa.s.sing of the Education Act, prior to which all truants fell back on the triumphant excuse, "I can't go to school because I have to mind my baby," some neighbouring infant brother, cousin, nephew, being producible at a moment's notice in support of the a.s.sertion. In those days the mere sight of a baby filled persons interested in the promotion of public instruction with wrath and suspicion. Yet womanhood would lose a sweet and sympathetic phase were the little mother-sister to wholly disappear. The songs of the child-nurse are of the slenderest kind; the tether of her imagination has not been cut by hope or memory. As a rule she dwells upon the important fact that mother will soon be here, and when she has said that, she has not much more to say. So it is in an Istriot song: "This is a child who is always crying; be quiet, my soul, for mother is coming back; she will bring thee nice milk, and then she will put thee in the crib to hushaby." A Tuscan correspondent sends me a sister-rhyme which is introduced by a pretty description of the grave-eyed little maiden, of twelve or thirteen years perhaps, responsible almost to sadness, who leans down her face over the baby brother she is rocking in the cradle; and when he stirs and begins to cry, sings softly the oft-told tale of how the dear mamma will come quickly and press him lovingly to her breast:

Che fa mai col volto chino, Quella tacita fanciulla?

Sta vegliando il fratellino, Adagiato nella culla.

Ed il pargolo se desta, E il meschino prorompe in pianto, La bambina, mesta, mesta, Vuol chetarlo col suo canto:

Bambolino mio, riposa, Presto mamma tornera; Cara mamma che amorosa Al suo sen ti stringera.

The little French girl turns her thoughts to the hot milk and chocolate that are being prepared, and of which she no doubt expects to have a share:--

Fais dodo, Colin, mon p't.i.t frere, Fais dodo, t'auras du lolo.

Le papa est en haut, qui fait le lolo, Le maman est en bas, qui fait le colo; Fais dodo, Colin, mon p't.i.t frere Fais dodo.

In enumerating the rewards for infantine virtue--which is sleep--I must not forget the celebrated hare's skin to be presented to Baby Bunting, and the "little fishy" that the English father, set to be nurse _ad interim_, promises his "babby" when the ship comes in; nor should I pa.s.s over the hopes raised in an inedited cradle song of French Flanders, which opens, like the Tuscan lullaby, with a short narration:

Un jour un' pauv' dentilliere En amic.l.i.ton ch'un petiot garchun, Qui d'puis le matin n'fesions que blare, Voulait l'endormir par une canchun.

In this barbarous _patios_, the poor lace-maker tells her "p't.i.t pocchin" (little chick) that to-morrow he shall have a cake made of honey, spices, and rye flour; that he shall be dressed in his best clothes "com' un bieau milord;" and that at "la Duca.s.se," a local _fete_, she will buy him a laughable Polchinello and a bird-organ playing the tune of the sugar-loaf hat. Toys are also promised in a j.a.panese lullaby, which the kindness of the late author of "Child-life in j.a.pan" has enabled me to give in the original:

Nen-ne ko y[=o]--nen-ne ko y[=o]

Nen-ne no mori wa--doko ye yuta Ano yama koyete--sato ye yuta Sato no miyage ni--nani morota Ten-ten taiko ni--sh[=o] no fuye Oki-agari koboshima--nu hari-ko.

Signifying in English:

Lullaby, baby, lullaby, baby Baby's nursey, where has she gone Over those mountains she's gone to her village; And from her village, what will she bring?

A tum-tum drum, and a bamboo flute, A "daruma" (which will never turn over) and a paper dog.

Scope is allowed for unlimited extension, as the singer can go on mentioning any number of toys. The _Daruma_ is what English children call a tumbler; a figure weighted at the bottom, so that turn it how you will, it always regains its equilibrium.

More ethereal delights than chocolate, hare's skins, bird-organs, or even paper dogs (though these last sound irresistibly seductive), form the subject of a beautiful little Greek song of consolation: "Lullaby, lullaby, thy mother is coming back from the laurels by the river, from the sweet banks she will bring thee flowers; all sorts of flowers, roses, and scented pinks." When she does come back, the Greek mother makes such promises as eclipse all the rest: "Sleep, my child, and I will give thee Alexandria for thy sugar, Cairo for thy rice, and Constantinople, there to reign three years!" Those who see deep meaning in childish things will look with interest at the young Greek woman, who sits vaguely dreaming of empire while she rocks her babe.

The song is particularly popular in Cyprus; the English residents there must be familiar with the melody--an air constructed on the Oriental scale, and only the other day set on paper. The few bars of music are like a sigh of pa.s.sionate longing.