In this notes “THE BLENDING”–of alter­nate prose and verse–“is not unknown in var­i­ous coun­tries.” Thus in Dr. Steere’s Swahili Tales (Lon­don, 1870), p. vii. we read: “It is a con­stant char­ac­ter­is­tic of pop­u­lar native tales to have a sort of bur­den, which all join in singing. Fre­quent­ly the skele­ton of the sto­ry seems to be con­tained in these snatch­es of singing, which the sto­ry-teller con­nects by an extem­po­rized account of the inter­ven­ing his­to­ry … Almost all these sto­ries had sung parts, and of some of these, even those who sung them could scarce­ly explain the mean­ing … I have heard sto­ries part­ly told, in which the verse parts were in the Yao and Nyamwezi lan­guages.” The exam­ples giv­en (Sul­tan Maj­nun) are only vers­es sup­posed to be chant­ed by the char­ac­ters in the tale. It is improb­a­ble that the Yaos and Nyamwezis bor­rowed the cus­tom of insert­ing verse into prose tales from Arab lit­er­a­ture, where the inter­ca­lat­ed verse is usu­al­ly of a moral and reflec­tive char­ac­ter.

Mr. Jamieson, in Illus­tra­tions of North­ern Antiq­ui­ties (p. 379), pre­served a cante-fable called Ros­mer Half­man, or The Mer­man Ros­mer. Mr. Moth­er­well remarks (Min­strel­sy, Glas­gow, 1827, p. xv.): “Thus I have heard the ancient bal­lad of Young Beichan and Susy Pye dilat­ed by a sto­ry-teller into a tale of remark­able dimensions–a para­graph of prose and then a screed of rhyme alter­nate­ly giv­en.” The exam­ple pub­lished by Mr. Moth­er­well gives us the very form of Aucassin and Nico­lete, sur­viv­ing in Scotch folk lore:- “Well ye must know that in the Moor’s Cas­tle, there was a maf­sy­more, which is a dark deep dun­geon for keep­ing pris­on­ers. It was twen­ty feet below the ground, and into this hole they closed poor Beichan. There he stood, night and day, up to his waist in pud­dle-water; but night or day it was all one to him, for no ae styme of light ever got in. So he lay there a lang and weary while, and think­ing on his heavy weird, he made a murn­fu’ sang to pass the time–and this was the sang that he made, and grat when he sang it, for he nev­er thought of escap­ing from the maf­sy­more, or of
see­ing his ain coun­trie again:

“My hounds they all run mas­ter­less, My hawks they flee from tree to tree; My youngest broth­er will heir my lands, And fair Eng­land again I’ll nev­er see. “O were I free as I hae been, And my ship swim­ming once more on sea, I’d turn my face to fair Eng­land, And sail no more to a strange coun­trie.”

Now the cru­el Moor had a beau­ti­ful daugh­ter called Susy Pye, who was accus­tomed to take a walk every morn­ing in her gar­den, and as she was walk­ing ae day she heard the sough o’ Beichan’s sang, com­ing as it were from below the ground.”

All this is clear­ly anal­o­gous in form no less than in mat­ter to our cante-fable. Mr. Moth­er­well speaks of fabli­aux, intend­ed part­ly for recita­tion, and part­ly for being sung; but does not refer by name to Aucassin and Nico­lete. If we may judge by anal­o­gy, then, the form of the cante-fable is prob­a­bly an ear­ly artis­tic adap­ta­tion of a pop­u­lar nar­ra­tive method.

STOUR; an ungain­ly word enough, famil­iar in Scotch with the sense of wind-dri­ven dust, it may be dust of bat­tle. The French is Estor.

BIAUCAIRE, oppo­site Taras­con, also cel­e­brat­ed for its local hero, the death­less Tar­tarin. There is a great deal of learn­ing about Biau­caire; prob­a­bly the author of the cante-fable nev­er saw the place, but he need not have thought it was on the sea-shore, as (p. 39) he seems to do. There he makes the peo­ple of Beau­caire set out to wreck a ship. Ships do not go up the Rhone, and get wrecked there, after escap­ing the per­ils of the deep.