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HOW FOLK-SONGS TRAVELLED 
What characterizes ancient folk-songs is their inveterate 
nomadism. Born under the stars as it were, they at once took 
to the road or the sea. Their life was like that of the Wandering 
Jew of the mediaeval legend and song. Aged and usually ragged, 
they knew of no harbour of grace. Impelled by a fate that goes 
back to their oral birth and transmission, far away and long 
ago, they had to keep on travelling, for as soon as they stopped, 
they died. No frontier impeded their progress for very long; 
they knew how to change garments and penetrate everywhere; 
they passed into other languages, hid their origin, and were 
sung by the country folk. 
To the songs all of Europe was one country, which they 
criss-crossed in all directions. Often they embarked on ships 
and sailed the seas, landing at many ports, even in America. 
Striking instances of how folk-songs have travelled down 
the centuries and over the map will bring out this characteristic; 
the more so since we shall pick them where we found them — far 
from their birthplace, among the vast number of French 
Canadian folk-songs recorded in recent years on the shores of 
the St. Lawrence. 
One of these songs is Dame Lombarde: it had its inception 
in northern Italy, at the end of the sixth century, assumed its 
fixed form a century or two later, migrated into France, where 
it was recorded only once (on the Italian frontier), and finally 
passed to French Canada, where it has survived to this day. 
A second instance is Renaud: it came to life in Scandinavia, 
where it is still familiar, crossed the North sea into Germany 
and Brittany, passed from Celtic Brittany to France proper, 
and thence travelled in all directions on the continent. A third 
song, Germine , is a reminiscence in southern France of the 
Crusades; it invaded northern France, Brittany, and several 
Mediterranean countries. And fourth, La Nourrice du roi (The 
King’s Nurse-maid), is a religious song of Spain, which passed 
the Pyrenees and settled in France, close to the Swiss frontier. 
These songs emigrated from France and crossed the Atlantic in 
the seventeenth century; they are still popular at large among 
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