418 



POPULAR SONGS. 



Russia and Poland have popular songs which, though dissimilar from one 

 another, date from the same epoch of the Middle Ages. In Poland the 

 popular songs are mainly historical and warlike, or touch upon chivalry, 

 while in Russia they are rather religious and domestic, and are used by the 

 peasants to portray their joys and sorrows. Servia and the Danubiaii 

 provinces arc equally rich in popular songs, which have been collated in a 

 work called "Danitza," many of them being of very ancient date. They 

 consist, for the most part, of love and war songs, and are remarkable for their 

 exquisite refinement. Modern Greece has, like Servia, formed a collection of 

 her ancient popular songs, many of which, in the shape of a legendary ballad 



131 



Hiug-gu ver mecih hior-vi! 



Hilt lie - ir mikjafu - au 



I I 1 4 q-t 



it hr -&-& itr:t:: 



Bald-urs (oil - ur 



S-f^ 



bekk i bun - a 



veit ek 



at smul - 



^SllraiSiill 



^=pl-q- 



^B-3E 



s^^ G I Q C* 1 



biiig - vid rau haus - 

 T\ 



. 1 fm\ 



u 1~ 4 ]~ J LHJ -h^IIH _l I |T|. i . TT|T!r3ZI-i i 



ball-ar. 



^ 



a; cig - i Kern ek mcdh oedr-u ord til \idr-is 



Fig. 328. Song of the Sword. Original Melody of the " Krakumal," an ancient record of the 

 Scandinavian Scalds, published by Fetis in his " History of Music," after the version of it by 

 M. Legis. Each of the couplets of this melody commences with a line meaning, " We have 

 fought with the sword." 



of the Middle Ages, retain a perfume of antiquity. Some of these songs are 

 contemporaneous with the conquest of Constantinople by the French crusaders 

 in the twelfth century, and with the occupation of the Morea, which then 

 became a French principality. 



Italy cannot well claim as popular songs the canzoni composed by her 

 poets, who styled themselves reciters in rhyme and love swains, after the fashion 

 of the troubadours of Provence and Languedoc. These pieces of poetry, full 

 of concetti, metaphors, and mystic exaggerations, were doubtless considered, 



