[wood] footnotes to CANADIAN FOLKSONGS IDS 



now sung in fun by children, might once have been sung in real earnest 

 % some of their ancestors who lived b}- the chase. Turn where we may, 

 we find ourselves in what has been well called the old curiosity shop of 

 customary lore. English children singing 



Eeny, meeny, miny, mo, 

 are using a variant of 



Eene, meene, mieken, maken, i-'"' 

 in which German children still ask their play-fellows to join them in the 

 Teutonic conquest of Celtic Britain : 



Kurani will'u beid' nâ England gân ! 



It is easy enough to go. back still further. In " Buck, buck, how many 

 horns do I hold up ?" we have the lineal descendant of an old Eoman 

 game, as described by Petronius Arbiter in the time of Nero : ^'^"^ " Tri- 



malchio bade the bo}" get on his back. The boy climbed 



up and slapped him on the shoulders with his hand, laughing and calling 

 out, " Bucca, Bucca, quot sunt hie ? " We can go bej'ond even this ; but 

 probably no one is disposed to denj- the claims of the nursery rhyme to, 

 at least, a very respectable pedigree. 



IX. 



LoVE-SONGS. 



Everyone turns to Nature herself for the origin of the Love-song : 

 but, to full}^ appreciate the influences Avhicli have moulded it into the 

 form it has taken in Canada, we must remember that the natural tones 

 of love have been moditied, first by the pervading gauloiserie of France, 

 then by the customs and ideals of media'val chivalry, and lastly by the 

 peculiarities of Canadian life. Now Nature, of course, needs no discus- 

 sion, and, as the three modifying influences have been discussed before, 

 we take Canadian love-songs exacth' as we find them in Mr. Gagnon's 

 texts and, noting that there they may be somewhat exclusively addressed 

 virginibus puerisque, we shall venture to characterize them generally as 

 an almost perfect blend of Nature, chivahy, gauloiserie and. what we 

 may, pei'haps, be allowed to call for the occasion, Canadiennerie. 



The Chanson des Regrets has no place in Mr. Gagnon's l;)ook. 

 There is no Péronnelle}^' no Young Heiduck to woo and win and ride 

 away,^ no Canadian wife to yield to the wiles of the Demon Lover?'''* no 

 Canadian Launcelot and no Canadian Guinevere. The Canadian maiden 

 makes no such confession of the power of love as her Bressian sister : 



Que veux-tu que je te donne ? 

 Je t'ai déjà trop donné : 

 .Te t'ai donné une ro.se, 

 La plus belle de mes roses 

 Que j'avais sur mon rosier.'^" 



