1883,] Hugh Fraser —Folklore from Eastern Gorakhpur. 
21 
such all pronunciation is made to yield to the necessities of the tune. 
Take for example the first word in these songs, as I have heard it 
sung, the second syllable, fsr, is pronounced and held on for as long as 
five or six other syllables together, so that, to judge by the singing, even 
would be a very inadequate representation of the pronunciation of 
the word. Yet the word is certainly in ordinary prose, and 
(or rather see next note) is required by the metre, such as it is. 
Hence, except in the case of No. IV, I have not given the name of 
the metre at the head of each song, but the name of the air to which it is 
sung. No. IV is not sung to any special air, and hence I have given the 
name of the metre as Thumari. Most of the songs are sung to the air 
called Kajart git, an air which is popular at the commencement of the 
rainy season, when the sky is covered with clouds, and which is so called 
for that reason, the clouds being compared to or lamp-black collyrium. 
If it is wished to classify the songs under any known metre, it will be 
found easiest to class all Kajaris as irregular Thumaris, but pandits deny 
that they fall under any metrical system whatever. 
V. 1. is instr, sing, (shortened from for the sake 
of metre) of the neuter interrogative pronoun, ^r, ‘what.’ One of 
the oblique forms of is which regularly becomes in the instr. 
or for metre This instr. in ^ is common throughout 
the Bibari dialects. In Magadhi it is only used in the case of masc. 
nouns ending in a silent consonant,—thus ‘ I shall 
take away by force’, where is the instr. of ‘force.’ As 
does not end in a silent consonant, the form could not occur 
in Magadhi. In Maithili, as in Bhojpuri, the term ^ can be added to 
any noun, and (also in this like Bhojpuri) a final long vowel is shortened 
before it,—or when the final vowel is ^jt, the vowel is elided. Hence we 
get in Maithili from ‘ a girl’: and from *fhfT, ‘ahorse.’ 
Similarly in Bhojpuri we get from 3^, ‘ what (obl.)\ and 
(see v. 2 of the present song where the word is written ijfisfjTjr for metre) 
from ‘abed’. The only difference in custom between Bhojpuri 
and Maithili is that the former shortens the first syllables of and 
igfarr, as they are in the antepenult., and followed by a consonant, while, 
according to the most trustworthy authorities on Maithili, this shortening 
of the antepenultimate does not occur in the instrumental. 
for Vi#"’, both syllables being shortened for the sake of metre, 
is the 3rd plur. (or honorific) past of the ‘ become’. The form 
of the termination is unusual. The usual form would be (singular) 
or (in Saran) (plural). If we consider as a further develop¬ 
ment of then an intermediate form Vf#* must be supposed, just as 
there actually exists at the present day in Magadhi a form V^rf^r*r, beside 
