the battlefield of the great earl some years before he really died. Chataubriand says the tune was brought from Palestine by the Crusaders, a jingle was set to it and sung as a lullaby to the dauphin. Everywhere it was taken up and sung.

"Molebruck s'en va t 'en guerre,

Mi rom tom tom Mi ron terre.' Rather a merry funeral march as well it might be, when the hero was still alive and kicking all before him. The song tells that the great lord went away to the wars. Every day his lady climbed the tower of her castle to watch for a messenger with news. (Sarah Churchill's Tower at that time must have been the Great Lodge at Windsor or Woodstock Manor, as Blenheim Palace was not yet thought of.) One day she sees her own page returning and noting his lagging pace, she runs down to meet him. He tells her the great Molebruck is dead; he saw him carried off the field by four officers.

"Mi rom tom tom Mi ron terre."

Then followed one with his great sabre and another with his shield.

"Mi rom tom tom Mi ron terre."

As with morals so with truth, they were not too careful what they sang. Quite

likely this was improvised on a rumor of the death of some great general, and the name Molebruck was used as a good mouthful.

The Minnesingers of Germany, a race of knightly singers, flourished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and died out in the seventeenth century. They composed original melodies and new metres and now and then a great one arose who was called Meister or the Meistersinger like Hans Sachs the Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

Wartburg Castle had a fine Minstrel Hall where were held those great Song Fests with prizes offered for excellence. The Minstrels of the North were less musicianly, more given to descriptive ballads than to musical ingenuity. Yet in the age of chivalry, the kightly calling led not only to deeds of arms but to skill in verse and melody, to singing and accompaniment. Princes and nobles practised the Gay Science, were called Troubadours and welcomed and honoured at every court. What could they have done with those long evenings, vacant without these ballads and the strolling gossipy minstrel?

However, in 1597, by Act of Parliament,

song-men were forbidden to wander in Great Britain. They had to give over their pleasant vagabond life and go to work, that is, those who belonged in the working class. In retired parts like Devonshire, the old ballads and sayings have come down in families of song-men and harpers. Among them too were some considered famous in improvisation. Possibly a few might have been so with plenty of refrain, giving them time to think of the next verse, as in "Tom Pierce."

"All along, down along, all along the lane" (pronounced line) between the lines of every verse.

I love the "hey nonny nonnies" and the "Ri fal de ral das" as in Bibberly Town. "Ri fal de ral diddle,

Ri da re ral de

What ups and downs in the world there be."

A1

The Feudal System.

T this distance of time the ancient castle, the days of knightly chivalryso called the tourneys, the crusades, all of it sounds very romantic.

Nothing could have been worse for the men of the country than that system. Absolute power is a terrible test and few men in the whole world's history could stand it. Women had no share in this power; they were only the victims of it. What was their lot whether in castle or cottage is too much for the imagination to compass.

Dr. Johnson wrote: "Nature has given women so much power that the law very wisely has given them little." This pict

ures the attitude of medieval man. Women are to have no power except what they will get by natural endowment, physical attraction and wit, that is to say intrigue. All kinds of punishments "very wisely" planned for scolding women-some of which spilled over into New England-but none apparently for the abuse, neglect or tyranny which produce the scold. Sometimes she had to live by her wits—intrigue -to live at all.

When they show me those ducking-stools and torturing bridles for scolding women, I want to ask "What was the husband's punishment, the rack or hanging?"

God took care of her; man did not. Strangely enough she came out of her early trials like polished pillars of the temple. For sincere goodness, virtue, sweetness, beauty and pretty wit, commend me to the women and girls of Anglo Saxon genesis. As a class their equal in honesty and attractiveness is not to be found elsewhere. It seems to me the tendency to intrigue, of which there was a necessity, lasted longer with some other races.

To the feudal lord the honour of his family and their well-being seemed to some extent, his care. As the eldest inherited all,