26 
Prince Edward Island. It is not so well remembered in France. 
“The Swineherd’’ was more popular there, although it cannot 
have been familiar to many of the northern colonists who 
settled in the New World; otherwise it would have survived 
here more than it has, in scattered fragments. 
Only a few records of Germine can be found in the published 
collections of France, mostly from the northern provinces and 
perhaps without the melody, whereas thirteen versions of “The 
Swineherd’’ are listed by Doncieux. 
The occurrence of these two songs outside of France proper 
is quite extensive. “The Swineherd’’ was first published by 
de la Villemarque for Celtic Brittany in 1839 ( Barzaz Breiz, 
XIX). And de Puymaigre, who first discovered Germine , com- 
pared it to Don Guillermo of Catalogna (Spain). He indicated 
its distribution in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Bohemia, 
Germany, Holland, Flanders, and England. 
Crane, in his Chansons populaires de France (267-8), connects 
it with “Hind Horn’’ and “The Lass of Loch Royal’’ published 
by Child ( The English and Scottish Popular Ballads , 213, 111, 
187). And Nigra ( Canti popolari del Piemonte) shows how this 
southern French song spread to Spain and Italy, and from there 
invaded Greece and even the Slavonic countries. 
It is also possible that it may go back to an earlier date 
than the last Crusade. De la Villemarque believes that it 
originated in Brittany after the first Crusade, in the eleventh 
century, and that it dramatizes the return of Alain, one of the 
Breton chiefs who spent five years in Palestine. If that were 
true, a Breton gwerz would be at the root of all that poetic 
growth, which later spread to all of Europe by way of France 
and Italy. 
LA NOURRICE DU ROI (Page 69) 
The only Canadian version of this folk canticle was found 
among the Acadians of Prince Edward Island, in the Maritimes. 
The eight or ten versions recorded in France belong mostly to 
the central provinces, the east and the southeast. As they are 
all much the same, their common origin is not very ancient. 
The song is a few hundred years old. 
Before its migration to America, presumably with the early 
settlers, it had already travelled in Europe and become ramified. 
