to her in the popular mind. Here is the French
translation of this chant:

   Une âme est morte cette nuit,
   Elle est morte sans confession;
   Personne ne la va voir.
   Excepté la sainte Vierge.
   Le démon est tout à, l'entour.
"Tenez, tenez, mon fils Jésus,
   Accordez-moi le pardon de cette pauvre âme.
—- Comment voulez-vous que je lui pardonne?
   Jamais elle ne m'a demandé de pardon.
—- Mais si bien à moi, mon fils Jésus,
   Elle m'a bien demandé pardon.
—- Eh bien, ma mère, vous le voulez,
   Dans le moment même je lui pardonne.

[This night there lies one dead, and dead without
confession. No one goes to see her, except the Holy
Virgin; but all around her hovers the devil.  " Listen,
listen, Jesus, my son! Grant me a pardon for this
poor soul!"   " How then must I pardon her, who
has never asked pardon from me?"   " But from me
so often, Jesus, my son! She has asked it so often
from me."   " Mother, it is thy wish. This moment
I grant her pardon."]

Another instance of a popular legend in verse
is La Cane de Montfort, which, was sung in
Brittany towards the end of the last century,
as recorded by M. de Chateaubriand in his
Memoirs:

            LA CANE DE MONTFORD.

          La voilà la fille du Maine!
          Voilà que les soldats I'emmènent.
          Comme sa mère la peignait,
          Ils sont venus pour l'emmener.
          Oll'  n'était pas toute peignée
          Que les soldats l'ont emmenée;
          Oll'  dit, en les regardant doux:
          " Soldats, ou donc me menez-vous?
         —- Et à qui veux-tu qu'on te mène,
          Sinon à notre capitaine?"
          Du plus loin qu'il la vit venir
          De rire ne se put tenir.
          " La voilà donc enfin la belle
          Qui me fut si long-temps rebelle?
         ——Oui, capitaine, la voilà;
          Faites-en ce qu'il vous plaira.
         —-Faites-la monter dans ma chambre,
          Tantôt nous causerons ensemble."
          A chaque marche qu'Oll'  montait
          A chaque marche Oil'  soupirait.
          Quand Oll' est enfin dans la chambre,
          A prié Dieu de la défendre,
          A prié' Dieu et Notre Dame
          Qu'Oll'  fut changée de femme en cane.
          La prièr'  fut pas terminée
          Qu'on la vit prendre sa volée,
          Voler en haut, voler en bas,
          De la grand' tour Saint-Nicolas
          Le capitaine, voyant ça,
          Ne voulut plus être soldat,
          ÃŠtre soldat ni capitaine;
          Dans un couvent se rendit moine.

[Look at her, the girl of Maine! whom the soldiers
drag along!  As her mother combed her hair,
they came to drag her off. Olla's hair was yet
uncombed when the soldiers carried her off. Olla said
with her gentle look, " Soldiers, whither do you take
me?"  " To whom, I wonder, should it be, but to our
gallant captain!"   When he saw her coming in the
distance he could not contain his laughter. " At
last she's here, the pretty one who has rebelled
against me so long!"  " Ay, ay, my captain, she
is here! Do with her what you will." Take her up
into my chamber; by-and-by we will talk together!"
At every step that Olla took, at every step did Olla
sigh. When Olla all alone was left, she prayed to
God for saving help. She prayed to God and to Our
Lady that to a wild duck she might be changed. Her
prayer was scarcely at an end when they saw her fly
away, flying high and flying low, from the great St.
Nicholas tower. The captain, seeing this strange
sight, no longer would a soldier be; a soldier nor yet
captain be; but in a convent he turned a monk.]

Christmas carols are also to be collected; and
there is a curious custom mentioned as prevalent
in French Flanders, where carols in honour of the
Magi or Three Kings are sung between Christmas-
day and the Feast of the Kings (our Twelfth-
night). The carol-singers go about with sticks in
their hands, at the end of which a pasteboard star
is fastened.

In the middle-ages there were Christmas
carols composed of alternate lines, or verses of
Latin and French; something of the same mixed
description of language as the famous Boar's
Head carol, which is annually sung on Christmas-
day at Queen's College, Oxford:

           The Boar's Head in hand bear I,
            Bedecked with bays and rosemary,
            And I pray you, my masters, be merry
                   Quot estis in convivio.

     In the thirteenth century the rench went
about singing:

                  Seigneurs, or, entendez à nous,
                  De loin sommes venus à vous
                         Pour querre Noël.

      [My masters, now harken to us, for we are come
from afar to ask for Noels.]

At the present day they sing the following
carol in the neighbourhood of Beauce:

        Honneur à la compagnie
            De cette maison,
        A l'entour de votre table
            Nous vous saluons.
        Nous sommes v'nus de pays étrange,
            Dedans ce lieu,
        C'est pour vous faire demande
            Da la part de Dieu.

[Hail to the company in this house, and here we
greet you as you sit around your table all. We come
from a foreign land into these parts; it is to make
demand for the good God himself.]

In some parts of France the custom is prevalent
of the children going round begging from
house to house, singing and in honour of spring.
It is curious how widely spread is this custom
of saluting the coming summer with mirth and
songs. In modern Greece, in Germany, in France,
they sing the song of welcome to the swallow,
summer's harbinger. In Cornwall the same
custom exists, mixed up with a good deal of
English tradition. The late Bishop of Chichester,
when the clergyman at Helstone, collected the
words of the song sung in that old Cornish
town by all the common people, who turn out